Hikaru No Go

[DB]

Yes, it's an anime about a kid and his ghost playing a board game. A board game I don't understand, even. This has all the makings of something that by all rights should bore me silly. But an issue of Shonen Jump appeared at a newstand and I leafed through it, reading the first couple of stories of it, and amazingly, became interested. So next came the anime. And then I was hooked.

The story, in a nutshell, Hikaru, the main character who is in sixth grade, stumbles on a haunted Go board and is one of the few people that can see the ghost attached to it. Said ghost is Sai (invisible to all others and unable to affect the world around him), one of the greatest Go players of his era who was tricked by an evil Go player and lost his honor, subsequently killing himself and haunting the board. That Hikaru can see him means Hikaru has the potential to become one of the greatest players in Go (as the last guy Sai haunted became). The only complication: Hikaru had never played nor wants to play the game.

Very quickly Sai manages to get Hikaru to play a few games. Hikaru visits a Go salon and decides to let the ghost play through him. Not wanting to embarass an adult, Hikaru decided to play a kid his age, a fellow named Akira Touya. Sai (having Hikaru moving the pieces) beats him, only it turns out Akira is a prodigy and son of the current highest ranked Go master in Japan, and defeating him is a task few adults can accomplish, let alone a kid his age. Thus begins a rivalry that runs the length of the series between the prodigy and our hero who sucks, but has the potential for true greatness within him.

In short order Hikaru goes from passively allowing Sai to play to learning how to play on his own. Despite his miserably beginning, he quickly shows promise to live up to the potential that allowed him to see Sai in the first place. And so begins his quest to master the game, and learn the 'Divine Move' something Sai himself never accomplished in either his life or that of the previous person he haunted.

I don't know what it was that got me addicted to the series. The characters are fairly vibrant and interesting, neither too perfect nor too flawed. Interactions are interesting, as relationships between characters vary from friends to rivalries to both. All of them come through well, and largely realistic.

The games are only shown in brief, so one only gets a feel for how they progress rather than being taken through lengthy (and boring) moves that few would understand. Despite the competition being above a board game, there is tension in the matches that can be enjoyed. Especially since no matter how good a player is, everyone loses from time to time (even Hikaru), so you never really know the outcome of a game until it happens.


Perhaps one of the strengths of the series is the feeling of things moving forward. There's only one part in the later episodes of the series that I felt was dragged out (can't mention it without spoilers, since it involves a major event in the series). In fact, the series  sometimes moves forward unexpectedly fast. For example: One of Hikaru's goals is to lead his Jr. High team to the Go championships, something that is used heavily early on as he enters the competiton several times. However, it ends abruptly when it becomes obvious that only playing in High School tournaments is beneath Hikaru's abilities, and he needs to train to become a pro instead.

As I mentioned before, Hikaru is the main character in the story, with Akira his rival (or more accurately, Hikaru is Akira's rival, since his skills are inferior to begin with and Hikaru is the one playing catch up with someone who is constantly becoming better as well). The rivalry is well played, neither is the 'bad guy' they are merely protagonist and antagonist battling against both one another and those around them.

The only other character that are around from the beginning are Sai and Hikaru's 'love interest' Akari (completely one sided on her part, and never really dwelled upon.) And even Akair ends up relegated to only being mentioned occasionally. Others appear and disappear through the series, keeping the cast fresh and interesting.

The only main drawback to all of this is that the series ends abruptly. Apparently there were legal problems which necessitated an immidiate end, and only one episode is given to 'wrap things up'. It's a pity, as the pacing on the series was excellent and even the next to last episode was still setting up future events.

The characters physically and emotionally change over time, as the events in the series follow Hikaru from sixth grade to high school. His character design subtly changes, so you don't even realize how much it's changed until the Opening shows him growing through the years.

Animation is solid (though as one might expect from a series about a board game, physical action is not used very much) Music is good as well, and I liked most of the Op and ED themes as well.

I have to highly recommend this one. I know the above doesn't really describe how good it is. It's a hard thing to quantify, but this was a winner, despite what sounds like an incredibly boring premise. Give it a try, you might like it.

I personally give it a 7 out of 10.