The first puzzles of this type originally named Cross Sums were published in1966 by Dell Magazines, the same American publication which one decade later introduced Sudoku puzzles to the world.
Since then, Cross Sums puzzles have been available in the USA by Kappa’s Games Magazine and many other publishers. According to the Cross Sums article in Wikipedia, these puzzles have been a regular feature in most math-and-logic publications in the USA for many years.
Just like what happened with Sudoku, the market craze and the re-branding from Cross Sums to Kakuro occurred only after the puzzle was imported to Japan, improved, and exported back to the West.
USA to Japan
In 1980 Cross Sums were imported to Japan by Maki Kaji, president of Nikoli puzzles, who named them Kasan Kurosu - a combination of the Japanese word for "addition" and the Japanese pronunciation of the English word "cross."
In 1986, six years after their initial release in Japan, Nikoli re-branded Kasan Kurosu as Kakuro, a common abbreviation method which is used in Japan. The company then released its first dedicated Kakuro booklet, followed by 22 additional volumes till today. According to Wikipedia, Nikoli has sold about one million Kakuro books in total.
Today, Kakuro puzzles from Nikoli appear in 100 Japanese magazines and newspapers and its popularity in Japan is second only to Sudoku. The third most popular puzzle is Slitherlink, which is an original Nikoli invention.
Kakuro wasn’t always the second. According to Maki Kaji, Kakuro was Nikoli’s top ranking puzzle from 1986 to 1992, when it was overtaken by Sudoku which rules the top of the list until today.
Other major Kakuro publishers in Japan, after Nikoli, are Gakken and Sekai Bunkasha. Nikoli’s Kakuro puzzles are also available for mobile phone playing by G-mode, and for online playing at Nikoli’s own www.puzzle.jp website.
The Kakuro craze emerges
Sparked by Sudoku’s sensational worldwide success, the Kakuro boom in the West started in September 2005 when The Guardian and The Daily Mail introduced daily Kakuro puzzles in the UK.
As the new craze emerges, following the footsteps of Sudoku, Kakuro puzzles are penetrating mass media channels and are being adopted by main stream book and magazine publishing houses. Kakuro books were already exhibited in the Frankfurt book fair 2005, while many new titles are about to be published in Europe and the USA.
Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, Atria (Simon & Schuster, Inc.), Barron's, John Wiley & Sons, Plume (The Penguin Group), Overlook and St. Martin's in the USA, and Virgin Books and Walker Books in the UK is just a partial list of Western publishers who have released or are going to release Kakuro titles before March 2006. Barron's, for example, is now producing two Kakuro books - The Book of Kakuro and Kakuro Mania - planned for February and March 2006 releases.
Steve Matteo, Barron's publicity manager, says in an interview to PW Daily that the Kakuro craze is "really starting to bubble under" in USA. According to PW Daily, the global publishing industry assumption is that, as with Sudoku, “there will be more than enough interest in Kakuro to go”.
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“Kakuro already is popular in Japan and the United Kingdom, and publishers in the USA are confident enough it will catch on here”
In a puzzling development, kakuro beckons, Carol Memmott, USA TODAY, Dec 7, 2005