A kifu is the move-by-move record of a game of go: a ruled 19×19 grid, nine hoshi dots, black and white stones sitting on the intersections and numbered in playing order. Everything else on the page defers to it.

Edo castle games were circulated exactly this way in woodblock manuals, and the newspaper go column still prints the same diagram with almost nothing changed. The system inherits that discipline — sumi ruling on unbleached kozo washi, vermilion reserved for a recording convention rather than decoration, game information set vertically down the right edge, and no shadow anywhere near the board.