Question: what were some ancient japanese games? 

Answer: Go is probably the oldest board games in Japan. It originated in China, and people still play it today. In fact, I think Yahoo may have a version of it in its online games. Its a very strategic game, and there's also an anime about it called Hikaru no Go which is partly responsible for comeback in popularity. Shogi is another ancient board game that's much like chess. The link below has a lot of information on Go. I hope that's useful to you ^_^
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