>>213760030
Definitely not cope. I feel the same way about Zoroastrianism if it makes you feel better.
>>213760048
Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, but as far as any practical introduction to the game goes then yes. If you think you can find it go ahead. I'll give you a few authors to check out and see if you can dig up a single reference to it. Mind it was first 'found' in Japan, so naturally that's the first place you look because China said it was theirs first but Japan preserved their culture until the Manchus killed it off.
Engelbert Kaempfer, Sir Alcock Rutherford, Isaac Titsingh, any document from the American mission to Japan (including diaries of crew members), any Jesuit text, They Came to Japan (travelogue from the 16th century), virtually any letter composed/sent by the Dutch in Dejima, Karl Thunberg, I can list off more, but these are the ones I read through. Alcock had like 800 pages describing what felt like every blade of grass in Japan and not one mention of this game. You can read any of these yourself they're all on the Internet Archive. It's absolutely ridiculous that there's 300 years worth of review and not a single mention until Oskar Korschelt. I shit you not Alcock even discussed things like the tricks Japanese would do with tops, one of which involved balancing a spinning top on a wet string.