Takeshi Obata

Nearly seven years after it began, the English edition of Hikaru no Go has finally reached the final volume. I was originally both curious and skeptical about the final arc of the series, in which Hikaru and long-time rival Akira Toya represent Japan in the first Hokuto Cup (against China and Korea), but this was mostly because I’d liked where the anime chose to bring the story to a close. Having now finished the manga, though, I find it comes to quite a satisfying conclusion, after all.

Volume 21 wraps up the qualifying rounds, with a few final moments of character insight for Ochi—who, even though he wins his game, can’t stand the thought that he’d be the weak link on the team—and Waya, who realizes he hasn’t got Ochi’s pride, and was relieved not to have to play against tougher opponents. Once the Japanese team is set, consisting of Hikaru and Akira plus Yashiro, a player from the Kansai go Association, they spend the days leading up to the tournament crashing at Akira’s house, staying up all night studying game records and devouring the bento boxes Hikaru’s sweet mother prepared for them. (Hikaru treats his mother somewhat dismissively here, but after learning that Yashiro receives no support from his parents regarding his career, he has a change of heart and sort of, kind of invites her to watch him play.)

Right before the tournament begins, Hikaru learns that one of the Korean players, the handsome Ko Yong Ha, has made disparaging remarks about Shusaku, who was actually, of course, Sai. While Akira wonders why Hikaru takes the insult so personally (he will never actually learn the answer), Hikaru gets all fired up and ends up getting in a tough spot in his first game against China. There’s a nice moment where he realizes he’s going to have to stage his own comeback—“There’s nobody else here to do it”—and though he fails, his performance is impressive enough to convince Kurata, the Japanese team leader, to agree to Hikaru’s request to play in first position against Korea, so he can challenge Ko Yong Ha head-on.

For Hikaru, of course, this isn’t about personal glory. It’s about honoring Sai’s legacy. “The whole reason I play Go is…” he starts to say, but he doesn’t complete this thought until later. While he and Ko Yong Ha play a riveting game—and how awesome is it to see a packed crowd raptly following the analysis of the game, including familiar faces like Tsutsui (looking rather foxy, I must add)?—Toya Meijin and Yang Hai, the leader of the Chinese team, talk about Sai, the mysterious player who appeared on the Internet a few years ago, and indulge in some fanciful speculation that he might’ve been the spirit of Shusaku.

It’s kind of neat that they got it right, but will never know it, and it’s wonderful that Sai was responsible for reinvigorating a genius player like the Meijin, and inspiring who knows how many others. Indeed, though Hikaru ends up losing the game by a close margin (I actually love that the Japanese team didn’t cruise to an unlikely victory), his performance is shown to inspire a pair of insei and in this way, Sai’s legacy continues.

As Hikaru explains, he began playing go “so I could link the distant past to the far future.” The conclusion of the series, though open-ended, shows that he is succeeding in this goal, even though his current match ended in defeat. As Akira wisely points out, “It doesn’t end here, y’know. In fact, it’s barely started.” This idea is echoed by the lovely cover to the final volume, on which Hikaru and Akira gaze with clear eyes at the path that lies ahead.

For more discussion of Hikaru no Go, please check out the commemorative roundtable at Manga Bookshelf!

From the back cover:
Average student Moritaka Mashiro enjoys drawing for fun. When his classmate and aspiring writer Akito Takagi discovers his talent, he begs Moritaka to team up with him as a manga-creating duo. But what exactly does it take to make it in the manga-publishing world?

After Moritaka and Akito collaborate on a manga together, they venture to publishing house Shueisha in hopes of capturing an editor’s interest. As much potential as these two rookies have, will their story impress the pros and actually get printed?

Review:
The second volume of Bakuman。 picks up where the first left off, with artist Moritaka Mashiro and writer Akito Takagi taking the final draft of their one-shot manga to Jump headquarters for consideration. This kicks off a series of fascinating meetings (spanning from summer vacation to the start of the next school year the following spring) in which the boys receive feedback from their editor, Hattori, and try to create a story that will be popular enough to merit serialization.

I loved all the meetings with Hattori, especially how specific he was about story and art requirements for Jump and how, as the boys improved, he went over their storyboards panel-by-panel with useful suggestions. As befits shounen protagonists, Mashiro and Akito are both very talented, but they’re not instantly the best around and go through many ideas and an immense amount of work before they’re able to craft something that is worth publishing.

When they finally do manage to get a story published, it takes third place in the popularity poll for that issue. The winner is Eiji Nizuma, a fifteen-year-old mangaphile who has been drawing since the age of six and practically does nothing else. He’s an exceedingly weird kid, but he fulfills the Akira Toya role here of “genius rival of comparable age.” He’s the first obstacle our leads will have to overcome, and I think it’s pretty fun how this is shaping up to be a sort of tournament manga.

Unfortunately, I’m still bored and fairly annoyed by Mashiro’s relationship with classmate Miho Azuki. They’ve pledged to marry once their dreams come true, but in the meantime aren’t even going to date. To some extent I understand—it’s suggested that Miho’s in favor of this because she wants to be able to focus on her dream without being distracted by Mashiro—but they still hardly know each other. Thankfully, Miho’s friend, Miyoshi, finds this just as bizarre. Also, while the overt, spoken sexism is absent from this volume it’s not exactly absent from the characters’ behavior. At one point Mashiro informs Miho that they’re going to be together when he becomes a manga artist, whether she’s realized her dream (to be a voice actress) or not. Nice, kid.

Though Bakuman。 has some flaws, it’s still an utterly captivating look at the manga-creating experience. I can overlook a banal relationship plotline if it means getting a glimpse inside the editorial process at Jump!

Review copy provided by the publisher.

After the drama of the past few volumes, “the main storyline takes a holiday” (to quote the back cover) in volume eighteen and instead we get six short stories of varying quality.

A couple of stories, like those focusing on Akira Toya and Yuki Mitani, fill in some background for scenes from earlier in the series, and one revisits what’s left of Hikaru’s old middle school go club. Two others—about Asumi Nase, an insei, and Atsushi Kurata, a relatively young pro—serve to flesh out supporting characters and are the best of the bunch.

The sixth purports to be about Sai, and it was this story I’d looked forward to the most. Alas, it’s nearly the least interesting (Mitani’s claims top honors in that category), as it boils down to another case of “corrupt merchant trying to sell antique merchandise that Sai knows is fake.” I had hoped for a story from Sai’s life or perhaps from his time with his previous host, but instead we get a rehash of something we’ve seen as recently as volume twelve.

I’d be lying if I said these stories aren’t disappointing, coming on the heels of some very important plot developments, but I gather they’re meant to function as a palliative bridge between a dramatic story arc and whatever lies ahead, so I can’t fault them too much.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.

These five volumes represent the emotional crux of the series and, as such, plot spoilers will be discussed. Proceed at your own risk.
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From the back cover:
Hikaru’s career as a professional go player begins! In his first game, he must face veteran player Toya Meijin, none other than Akira’s father. But to Sai, this round is personal. Then Sai attempts to teach a cheating go player a lesson he’ll never forget… Will Hikaru’s ghostly master do him proud or make him look like an amateur?

Review:
Parts of this volume are so difficult to read. Sai and Hikaru have a number of semi-arguments, Sai wondering whether he’ll ever be allowed to play a game again and Hikaru maintaining that such a demand is selfish and would deprive him of opportunities for his own development. It’s like watching a couple who wants different things from the relationship, but neither wants to break up. It bugs me especially when Hikaru ignores Sai, though at least by the end of the volume he’s actively trying to cheer him up and give him opportunities to play.

Hikaru plays one of his first games as a pro, with Toya Meijin as his opponent. Or, rather, Sai plays it. Sai has been looking forward to this since day one, and though the build-up and tense atmosphere were awesomely done, I was kind of disappointed that the game itself was so brief. I could’ve happily read a couple of chapters focused just on the details of that game. It looks like a rematch is on the horizon, though, so perhaps that will satisfy Sai and me.

This series is definitely one with reread potential. I can already picture myself—unfortunately several years hence—happily devouring all 23 volumes in a marathon. Until that day, I’ll take the little nibbles I can get.

From the back cover:
Hikaru’s classmate Ochi has won enough games to guarantee his place among the top three players who will pass the pro test. Hikaru, on the other hand, still needs to win more games, and he’ll soon face his friend Waya and Ochi himself, who has been preparing for their match with Akira’s help! When the dust clears, who will be left standing?

Review:
The pro test concluded with this volume. I really enjoyed the match between Hikaru and Waya, and how when Hikaru got stuck, he asked himself what Sai would do in a given situation. There was more focus on Sai this volume than there has been of late, as he began to realize how much Hikaru has improved and how he is becoming a capable stand-in for Sai himself.

I would’ve liked to have seen more of the match between Hikaru and Ochi, after all the set-up it received, culminating in a confrontation wherein Hikaru learned that Akira had been training Ochi nightly and deduced that it was all Akira’s attempt to gauge Hikaru’s strength through Ochi. There was a really cool panel where Ochi and Hikaru were sitting at the board with Akira and Sai behind them, respectively. But alas, much of their match happened off-camera. That said, I really liked that it was from Isumi’s perspective that we learned the result, since it meant the end of his chances of passing this time around.

The volume finished off with Hikaru doing some nostalgic eavesdropping on the middle school Go club to which he used to belong and with his mom wondering whether she ought to fret about his unusual profession. Little touches like these are what make this series truly excellent. I’m sad that I now have to wait until May for the next installment.

From the back cover:
The main round of the pro test has begun. Everyone’s feeling the pressure—no one more so than Hikaru’s friend Isumi, who has failed the test twice before. Fighting off his feelings of self-doubt, Isumi faces his next opponent, who turns out to be Hikaru. But a careless mistake lands the pair in an awkward position!

Review:
This entire volume was full of pro test goodness. Placements shifted a bit throughout these chapters, but it was always clear who was ahead and who’d fallen behind. The complete chart of each player’s wins and losses was also included at one point, which was neat to see. I liked that the focus wasn’t solely on Hikaru.

Once again, though all of the pro test stuff was great, my favorite chapters were those where Akira is dealing with his “fixation” on Shindo, as Ochi (who received a couple lessons from Akira) put it. I particularly liked the last chapter, where Akira recreated his first game against Sai for Ochi to explain his obsession. Ochi was appropriately astonished.

The art was really great, too, though that’s not unusual. I was struck again, though, by the variety among the character designs. No one looked the same, but Obata didn’t need to resort to unrealistic gimmicks to distinguish between characters. This series also has a lot of just average-looking people in it, which is something I appreciate.

From the back cover:
Practicing at Go salons is turning out to be more fun than Hikaru thought. But at one salon he meets his match in Suyong Hong, a sullen 12-year-old who is studying for the pro test in his native Korea. By mistake, Hikaru insults Suyong, and now the only way they can settle their differences is by playing a grudge match!

Review:
This volume picks up where the last left off, with Hikaru and friends playing against adults in various Go salons around town. Through the experience, Hikaru learns valuable confidence, as well as the ability to count points during play and control the outcome of a game to force a tie. These bits are okay, but not very suspenseful.

The match with Suyong is surprisingly enjoyable, even though Suyong is annoying. I liked how the other patrons of the salon really got into the match. The most significant bit, however, is that Kaio’s Go coach happens by and praises Hikaru, comparing his play to that in the first junior high tournament he entered, when Sai was actually dictating the moves. Hikaru is elated, but Sai is worried.

We end up with a couple of chapters devoted to the resumption of the pro test, which is about where I started bemoaning the small amount of pages left, because these bits are so crazily addictive. Akira, who had already shown that he feels Hikaru on his trail, checks the results from home and freaks at Hikaru’s winning streak, accepting a lowly teaching job with another kid in the test just to indulge his curiosity on his rival’s progress.

Although a manga about a board game might seem dull (the uninspired back cover text doesn’t help this impression), this volume disproves that notion when it focuses on the rivalry between Hikaru and Akira and how it fuels each of them to improve. The earlier chapters weren’t bad, but it was the latter half of the volume that was truly exciting. Also, though I’ve seen the anime and know what is coming, I’m still eager to see the plot with Sai play out because it brings a lot to the story.

From the back cover:
Hikaru faces the preliminary rounds of the pro test, during which he must eliminate not only his classmates at the insei school but also any outsiders who want to take the test. One of them in particular appears to know how to exploit Hikaru’s weaknesses, and poor Hikaru seems powerless to stop him.

Review:
I really like how the passage of time is handled in Hikaru no Go. Hikaru is improving quickly, true, but it’s still taken him a fairly long time to advance through the insei ranks. Now, in preparing for the pro test, Hikaru is walking his rival’s path one year later. As Hikaru continues to grow, we see a few panels that indicate that Akira is doing the same. Akira doesn’t look energized in any of these panels, though, and we all know he’ll benefit from finally having a true rival.

I thought it was interesting that the reaction of Hikaru’s parents and family was taken into account, too. They have no real way to gauge his abilities. They’re letting him do what he wants for now, but understandably concerned about his future. This isn’t something that I’ve personally seen in a tournament style story before, so it’s neat. The closest parallel would be Prince of Tennis, but everyone there universally acknowledges that Ryoma is awesome, and his dad would be in a position to know.

Lastly, I particularly appreciated that the preliminary round arc is resolved within a single volume. With the wait between volumes what it is, it was nice to get it all at once, and leave off with the boys in preparation for the real thing.