Hikaru no Go

While searching through his grandfather's attic, Hikaru Shindou stumbles upon an old go board. Touching it, he is greeted by a mysterious voice, and soon after falls unconscious. When he regains his senses, he discovers that the voice is still present and belongs to Fujiwara no Sai, the spirit of an ancient go expert. A go instructor for the Japanese Emperor in the Heian Era, Sai's passion for the game transcends time and space, allowing him to continue playing his beloved game as a ghostly entity. Sai's ultimate goal is to master a divine go technique that no player has achieved so far, and he seeks to accomplish this by playing the board game through Hikaru.

Despite having no interest in board games, Hikaru reluctantly agrees to play, executing moves as instructed by Sai. However, when he encounters the young go prodigy Akira Touya, a passion for the game is slowly ignited within him. Inspired by his newfound rival, Hikaru's journey into the world of go is just beginning.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Fujiwara no, Sai Main

Chiba, Susumu Japanese

Shindou, Hikaru Main

Kawakami, Tomoko Japanese

Touya, Akira Main

Kobayashi, Sanae Japanese

Waya, Yoshitaka Supporting

Takagi, Reiko Japanese

Isumi, Shinichiro Supporting

Suzumura, Kenichi Japanese

Ogata, Seiji Supporting

Fujiwara, Keiji Japanese

Mitani, Yuki Supporting

Asakawa, Yuu Japanese

Kaga, Tetsuo Supporting

Itou, Kentarou Japanese

Fujisaki, Akari Supporting

Kakazu, Yumi Japanese

Touya, Kouyou Supporting

Tsuda, Eizou Japanese

Yamanishi, Tahei Producer

Nishizawa, Susumu Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Endou, Tetsuya Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Kamiya, Jun Director

Reviews

Sep 3, 2023

Stormy_77

Recommended

How on earth could anyone make a 75 episode anime about a school kid playing a 3000 year old board game? Surely there must be a lot of filler episodes. Those were my initial thoughts but Hikaru No Go had a great rating on Animenfo and I decided to start watching it.

The first thing to do is to collect the entire series of 75 episodes, the special and the Journey to Hokuta Cup before you start. One of the most amazing things about Hikaru No Go is it's ability to capture the viewer from the get go, once you start watching, it's like you don't ... want to stop. Every episode except for Story Arc endings is a mini-cliffhanger motivating you to start the next episode. This perfection of editing and pacing has not been achieved by many other anime.

The story centers around Shindou Hikaru, a 12 year old school boy. He's just had his allowance cut and was in the midst of rummaging through his grandfather's garage looking for something to sell for money when he picks up a "Go" board inhabited by the ghost of Fujiwara No Sai, a genius Go player from the Heian dynasty. Sai has unfinished business in this world, he wants to achive "The Divine Hand or Hand of God" in go. He possesses then haunts Hikaru ~ all he wants to do is play Go.

Initially Hikaru lets Sai play by moving the stones for him but he starts to fall in love with the game and starts playing himself. The series is a coming-of-age, maturing of new talent, exposure to the competitive world of Go and the beauty of the game. There's a nice large cast of supporting characters, all of which are fascinating in their own right.

The soundtrack is wonderful and fits the scenes well. The animation does have some frame reuse but it's done by the same artist who did Death Note and is good. As the series continues you can physically "see" the characters growing up, they get taller and their faces change.

One of the reasons Hikaru No Go is such a good anime is because Sai is the best anime character ever created (in my opinion). He's very loveable, smart, funny, honorable AND he's a Go genius.He shows amazing patience with Hikaru's moods and childishness, not just being his friend but also teaching and mentoring him from nothing to greatness at Go. Sai is just one of those characters you'll never forget. He has a big heart.

Having dated a nationally ranked chess player in my wild and mis-spent youth, I was amazed at how faithfully the series captures the world of competitive board game sports ~ rivalry, one-up manship, jealousy, excessive obsession with the game, psychological warfare, pushy teachers, they're all there and exist in real life. Even a person who doesn't play Go can understand it as it is presented in the anime.

The series has many layers of philosophy behind it that escape most people the first time around.
* How great is a person's desire for something?
* Can one live, obsessed with a game and winning?
* To achieve greatness there is always a price one must pay, in time, or friendships sacrificed by oneself or others. How far should one go?
* How should one deal with or live with regrets from one's past actions?
* Do people care about legacy and what should one try to leave behind?
* If a goal seems "unreachable / unattainable" is it still worth pursuing?

On surface the plot seems simple but in reality it's very profound, that's one of the reasons I consider this series a masterpiece. It could easily go on for another 75 episodes and I would want them all. Even after it ended, I was still thinking about it and craving more. I even started playing Go online. The manga sparked a resurgence of interest in Go in Japan, wih some message boards featuring posts by Go professionals stating that they wish they could play against Sai. For an anime to arouse this level of interest is amazing. Hikaru No Go deserves to rank much higher than it does, it is truly a masterpiece.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Aug 22, 2009

TheLlama

Recommended

Hikaru no Go is, in essence, an anime about the world of Go; about the game, the friendships and rivalries that arise in this world, the challenges, obstacles and feelings. This is a lot to actually live up to, and Hikaru no Go most certainly fills its role well.

It starts out very simle, in a way you've probably seen before. The main character, Shindou Hikaru, encounters a paranormal apparition by coincidence while stumbling around in his shed, and only he can see it. Said apparition is, in fact, the ghost of a skilled Go player from the past, Fujiwara no Sai. He really wants to ... play a game of Go, and as such Hikaru brings him along to a Go salon, where he finds a kid his age which he can play. Since only Hikaru sees Sai, Hikaru must play the pieces for him. Of course, fate throws a twist by letting the opponent be a prodigy almost strong enough to become a professional Go player. Sai, skilled as he is, beats this kid, Touya Akira, to a pulp. From here, a wild goose chase after the illusion of Hikaru starts. Sai of coruse manages to get Hikaru into the game, and he eventually chases after Akira. As such we have Hikaru chasing after Akira, who again is chasing what he thinks is Hikaru. Voilá, the stage is set for an intense anime full of emotions, drama and, of course, Go.

The plot from there is, for the most part, what I said above. Through tournaments, encounters at Go salons, school Go clubs, Inseis (aspiring professionals), and eventually the professional world of Go, we see these two chase after each other, and what remains in their wake. Quite honestly, the plot is very barebones, but that is completely irrelevant, because Hikaru no Go is in each and every way a character-driven series, which makes it in many ways more riveting and inspring than a plot-driven series.

And characters, we lack not. Aside the intense, heart-throbbing rivalry that develops between Akira and Hikaru, there are bucketloads of interesting side characters, who range from Go club members to hardened professionals who gaze as these two young players lead on a new wave of young and skilled Go players. Mostly everyone gets an acceptable amount of development, for example the challengers; why they play and what's at stake for them are usually revealed in a gripping way - I surely don't think I've ever rooted for ten characters when all of them posed as adversaries to the main character. The professionals and newspaper people's reaction to these up-and-coming kids, it all seems so real you kind of experience their surprise and excitement at this.

But of course, I can't get lost in the characters only; even though the characters are so good it's easy to forget the artistic qualities of the show, one must not at all forget the music and animation, which both play an impressive behind-the-scenes role in making this series what it is.

Let me ask you one question: When you were a teen, or if you're one now, have you ever looked at a picture from when you were two-three years younger? If so, the reaction "Holy mother of love, did I look *that* young?" is probably a familiar one. And when you watch this series, you'll probably end up thinking the same. For this is indeed a coming-of-age anime, following Akira and Hikaru from sixth grade through ninth grade, or three years. Their growth, while seen mostly in their Go playing and their personalities, is also very much reflected in the animation. Towards the end of the series, I asked myself: "Did they always look like that?". When they showed us flashbacks to the beginning, I realized, they did not. While you can recognize them, it is actually impressively easy to spot that they were different. Their faces, so much more child-like, and their stature lower. Much lower. I commend Pierrot for doing such a great job of reflecting their growth physically, too. It was so smooth that I couldn't say from one episode to another that, "hey, he looks older!", but on an overall basis, by skipping, say, twenty or so episodes at a time, I see that they gradually change.

Apart from that, the animators did an outstanding job. The next thing on the list is probably how they made the Go matches very interesting to watch. Just pain watching the stones being placed could've been very deterring, at least in the beginning. So instead they throw in a heap of special effects; lights, shadows, camera angles, intense effects when placing stones, even changing the background to make the game more in the center of attention, or even make a symbolic scape, for example the universe itself, symbolizing the "world" that is the Go board, and even the so-called Divine Move.

In general, Pierrot did an awesome job of making the show pretty to look at. Now, even in 2002 you had better-looking series, but it does not change the fact that it looks really nice. And they improve as they go on. It looks only mediocre in the first episode compared to the final episode. Among the stronger points I can mention clothes, backgrounds and effects when playing Go. The weaker parts are a bit annoying, but are mostly fixed upon as they go along, creating a most aesthetically enjoyable series. One problem is faces, which look a bit weird - at times some details are a bit misplaced -, but they do a nice job of expressiions, while not going overboard with them either, keeping a fairly serious tone. And later on, when I saw the sheer intensity in their eyes, I just thought "whoa!" and had to let a drop of sweat run down my cheek. The other problem is that sometimes when they placed stones on the board, the perspective was done entirely wrong, when the rest of the stones already there looked real nice. This, too, improved very much as the series went on, and in the latter stages I noticed very litte to none of this problem.

And now, the soundtrack, which was done quite nicely. No, that's an understatement. It was inspiring and evocative, all the while not taking over the series, doing a nice job behind the scenes to build up and strengthen the emotional impacts of the show. The intense feelings of the games, the sad feelings that happened occasionally between characters, it was all done with music that reinforced those feelings and made it enjoyable to the point where I felt this tingling feeling in my stomach. The opening and ending themes are quite nice, too. The first opening, "Get Over" by Dream, especially; its synth-pop rythms and lyrics are very inspiring, but it doesn't completely outmatch the others; they were all very strong candidates for favoritism and defnitely a worthwhile watch. Not to mention the final ending theme, which is a ten-minute half-instrumental, half-original mix of Get Over. That was a masterful piece of music.

All in all, Hikaru no Go provides sufficient character-driven, intense and emotional entertainment, which most people would find interesting. And don't let the pretense of a baord game like Go deter you from watching; it is hhgly enjoyable, and though I didn't really care for the Go, it remained interesting throughout the whole series. And the more enjoyable aspects of the show will definitely overshadow it if it comes to that. And for new and seasoned Go players alike, this is a very interesting ashow to watch!

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jun 13, 2010

Rampant

Not Recommended

The more anime I have watched, the more it has become that only the parts that can really differentiate it from the manga (animation, coloring and other art differences, sound...) end up mattering to me. Sometimes these combine to make a work divine, and sometimes these efforts are an abysmal low budget clunker. This anime is the latter. The manga is good, the anime is bad, save your time and read it instead!

The art is a low budget mess. I guess it does not really make sense to spend a lot of money animating people clinking stones on a table, but the art level in ... this is horrible. The coloring is lazy and dim. The animation is composed of lots of slow pans and other clunky actions, and this is not only unpleasant to watch but affects how characters interact, making everything incredibly unbelievable. This series abuses slow pans (as in simulating camera movement, but as a substitute for action with no actual purpose) much more than an ordinary anime does, and it again affects character interactions or action considerably negatively. Lots of generic solid colored backgrounds (think pokemon) with lazy action lines to falsely simulate excitement are abused in any go match.

The sound is not really any better. The music is simplistic, not really suited to what is going on (for instance it never really comes across as cute despite there being lots of attempts at light humor), and repeated incessantly. Get ready to hear the same four minute long songs repeated ad nauseum for 75 episodes. Worse than this is that Hikaru has a lazy and poor sounding voice acting performance (I watched the Japanese dub, maybe he improves in the dub), and Akira is not really much better.

The ending episode was bad in a different, special way - they interspersed some various plot points with a horrible montage of every character they cared enough to focus on being ohhhh so happy with no words and the bad theme song. It was a truly excruciating ending.

Is the story still okay? Of course. Are some of the characters still interesting? Of course. The anime does not do any of them justice though, and actually drags them down quite a bit with how poorly everything is executed. The only character that got any help was Sai, who did get to be cute with his oversized sleeves flopping around and the best voice acting performance. That alone was does not make for a watchable series though.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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