valerio: someone asked to check whether some of the players in the list are retired or dead. I made 3 incomplete lists of 266 retired or dead players of all ranks: A-J, K-O and S-Z. In theese lists are also some Kansai Kiin players.

tapir: I guess that velobici was in a rush doing just a search for 9 dan and male in his local copy of the nihon ki-in page. The nihon ki-in clearly lists different numbers of active professionals (see http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/player/index.html with 75 9 dans, 38 8 dans) while keeping the files for the retired or deceased players as well.

Velobici: See http://senseis.xmp.net/?topic=2384 for additional comments.