Maki Kaji, Puzzle Publisher Hailed As The 'Father of Sudoku,' Dies At 69

Maki Kaji, the Japanese publisher dubbed the “father of Sudoku” for his role in popularizing the brain-teasing numerical puzzle game, passed away on Aug. 10 at the age of 69 after a bout with bile duct cancer.

Not By The Numbers: Kaji was born in Sapporo in 1951 and studied literature at Keio University, but dropped out after one year. He worked in a series of blue-collar jobs including a construction worker and waiter before starting a magazine publishing company called Nikoli, which he named after a champion Irish racehorse.

In 1984, Kaji discovered an obscure magic squares numerical puzzle game in an American magazine called Number Place. The goal of the game was to fill a 9×9 grid with numbers that would fill each row, column and 3×3 section with all of the numerical digits between 1 and 9.

The game had circulated since the late 19th century under several names, but never achieved the same popular as crossword puzzles or word jumbles. Kaji imported the game to Japan and originally called it “Suji-wa-Dokushin-ni-Kagiru” (“Numbers should be single”), shortening its’ moniker to a more user-friendly “Sudoku.”

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A Global Sensation: Kaji’s version of Sudoku was unknown outside of Japan until 2004 when a New Zealand puzzle fan pitched the game as a new feature to the UK newspaper The Times. Kaji had only trademarked “Sudoku” in Japan, and the lack of international trademark protection helped to spread the game’s popularity globally.

Nonetheless, Kaji was widely credited as breathing life into an obscure game and his Nikoli company provided publications around the world with an endless supply of puzzles. In 2007, Kaji told the BBC in 2007 that creating a new puzzle created a sensation equal to finding a treasure.

“I get really moved when I see a new idea for a puzzle which has lots of potential,” he said. “It’s not about whether it will make money. It is purely the excitement of trying to solve it.”

Photo: Maki Kaji, photographed by S Pakhrin / Flickr Creative Commons.