Kai Shimada

Kai Shimada (島田 開 Shimada Kai) is a professional shogi player of rank 8-dan. When Kiriyama first encountered him, he noticed that Shimada had no notable strengths or weaknesses in shogi.

Appearance
Shimada's appearance consists of a frail and thin looking figure along side with his drowsy looking olive green eyes and short brown hair.

His usual get up consists of a dress shirt, a coat which is usually accompanied by a variety of striped ties ranging from different colors and plain pants.

At home, he's seen wearing a white polo shirt along with plain v-neck sweaters which varies from different colors and sweatpants.

Personality
Shimada possess a calm and collected personality. At first it seems like he's very plain but as seen on his game with Rei he has a very intimidating yet serene personality. He's also observed to be caring over fellows under him like Nikaidou. Shimada is very kind to his fellow shogi players and tries to help them improve their game. He runs a study group consisting of himself, Kiriyama, Nikaidou, and Shigeta.

History
He was born in rural Yamagata, and the people in his hometown strongly support him and want him to win the Meijin title. On his younger days, Shimada would read books. read manga or catch bugs by himself. One time, the elders from the village taught him to play Shogi and became quickly emmersed by it.

By second grade, Shimada started beating the elders from the village and eventually attended the local Shogi club at the city. He gained ranks and his Shogi teacher saw a potential on him and led him to introduce Shimada to Mr. Houchi and attanded the Tokyo association.

While living in Yamagata, Shimada would take jobs such as picking apples and peaches, helping on rice harvesting on fall and taking care of the cows in winter to fund himself to be able to attend the association in Tokyo twice a month.

Shimada is showed a deep gratitude for his old man on the village. He continued attending the association with the help of his hard-earned wages and encouragments from his old man and from the members of the local Shogi club he used to attend to, he would take bumpy bus ride at the middle of the night along with his grumbling stomach. Shimada fell into deep frustration for him being stuck at the 3rd-dan for years, labelling himself as a "genius" back home was just another brat at Tokyo. Despite of this, he didn't stop because he didn't want everyone's faith for him go to waste. At some point, Shimada would have nightmares of him riding a bus on and on, but never getting anyware.