HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

is a Japanese
manga Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is ...
series based on the board game Go, written by Yumi Hotta and illustrated by
Takeshi Obata is a Japanese manga artist that usually works as the illustrator in collaboration with a writer. He first gained international attention for '' Hikaru no Go'' (1998–2003) with Yumi Hotta, but is better known for '' Death Note'' (2003–2006) ...
. The production of the series' Go games was supervised by Go professional
Yukari Umezawa née is a Japanese Go professional. Biography Yukari Umezawa was born in Tokyo in 1973, and graduated from Keio University in 1996. She first played Go at the age of 6 and she became a professional Go player in 1996. She then attained the r ...
. It was serialized in
Shueisha (lit. "Gathering of Intellect Publishing Co., Ltd.") is a Japanese company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The company was established in 1925 as the entertainment-related publishing division of Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The fol ...
's ''
Weekly Shōnen Jump is a weekly ''shōnen'' manga anthology published in Japan by Shueisha under the '' Jump'' line of magazines. The manga series within the magazine consist of many action scenes and a fair amount of comedy. The chapters of the series that ru ...
'' from 1999 to 2003, with its chapters collected into 23 ''
tankōbon is the Japanese term for a book that is not part of an anthology or corpus. In modern Japanese, the term is most often used in reference to individual volumes of a manga series: most series first appear as individual chapters in a weekly or ...
'' volumes. The story follows Hikaru, who discovers a Go board in his grandfather's attic one day. The object turns out to be haunted by a ghost named Sai, the emperor's former Go teacher in the
Heian era The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japanese. ...
. Sai finds himself trapped in Hikaru's mind and gradually gives him a taste for Go. It was adapted into an
anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...
television series by Studio Pierrot, which ran for 75 episodes from 2001 to 2003 on
TV Tokyo JOTX-DTV (channel 7), branded as and known colloquially as , is a television station headquartered in the Sumitomo Fudosan Roppongi Grand Tower in Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, owned and operated by the subsidiary of listed certifie ...
, with a New Year's Special aired in January 2004.
Viz Media VIZ Media LLC is an American manga publisher, anime distributor and entertainment company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ M ...
released both the manga and anime in North America; they serialized the manga in '' Shonen Jump'', released its collected volumes in entirety, and the anime aired simultaneously on
ImaginAsian ImaginAsian Entertainment, Inc was a multimedia company founded by Michael Hong and Augustine Hong and a group of investors that recognized the emerging importance of "all-things Asian." Based in New York City, its main attraction was a televis ...
. ''Hikaru no Go'' was well-received, had over 25 million copies in circulation, making it one of the
best-selling manga series The following is a list of the best-selling Japanese manga series to date in terms of the number of collected ''tankōbon'' volumes sold. All series in this list have at least 20 million copies in circulation. This list is limited to Japanese m ...
. It won the 45th
Shogakukan Manga Award The is one of Japan's major manga awards, and is sponsored by Shogakukan Publishing. It has been awarded annually for serialized manga and features candidates from a number of publishers. It is the oldest manga award in Japan, being given since ...
in 2000 and the 7th
Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Named after Osamu Tezuka, the is a yearly manga prize awarded to manga artists or their works that follow the Osamu Tezuka manga approach founded and sponsored by Asahi Shimbun. The prize has been awarded since 1997, in Tokyo, Japan. Curre ...
in 2003. It is largely responsible for popularizing Go among the youth of Japan since its debut, and considered by Go players everywhere to have sparked worldwide interest in the game, noticeably increasing the Go-playing population around the globe.


Plot

While exploring his grandfather's shed, Hikaru Shindo stumbles across a Go board haunted by the spirit of Fujiwara-no-Sai, a Go player from the
Heian The Japanese word Heian (平安, lit. "peace") may refer to: * Heian period, an era of Japanese history * Heian-kyō, the Heian-period capital of Japan that has become the present-day city of Kyoto * Heian series, a group of karate kata (forms) * ...
era. Sai wishes to play Go again, having not been able to since the late
Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...
, when his ghost appeared to
Honinbo Shusaku In the history of Go in Japan, the four Go houses were four major schools of Go instituted, supported, and controlled by the state, at the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate. (There were also many minor houses.) At roughly the same time shogi w ...
, a top Go player of that period. Sai's greatest desire is to attain the – a perfect move. Because Hikaru is apparently the only person who can perceive him, Sai inhabits a part of Hikaru's mind as a separate personality, coexisting, although not always comfortably, with the young boy. Urged by Sai, Hikaru begins playing Go despite an initial lack of interest in the game. He begins by simply executing the moves Sai dictates to him, but Sai tells him to try to understand each move. In a Go salon, Hikaru twice defeats Akira Toya, a boy his age who plays Go at professional level, by following Sai's instruction. Akira subsequently begins a quest to discover the source of Hikaru's strength, an obsession which will come to dominate his life. Hikaru becomes intrigued by the great dedication of Akira and Sai to the game and decides to start playing solely on his own. He is a complete novice at first, but has some unique abilities to his advantage; for instance, once he has a basic understanding of Go, he can reconstruct a game play by play from memory. Through training at Go clubs, study groups, and practice games with Sai, he manages to become an Insei and later a pro, meeting various dedicated Go players of different ages and styles along the way. He also demonstrates a natural talent for the game and remains determined to prove his own abilities to Akira, Sai, and himself. Hikaru enters the Hokuto Cup, an international tournament for under-18 Japanese, Chinese, and Korean Go professionals. As the highest-ranking under-18 pro, Akira qualifies for the tournament, but Hikaru has to compete in a series of games to become one of the three Japanese competitors. His friends Waya and Ochi also enter the qualifying matches. He meets Kiyoharu Yashiro, a player from the
Kansai Ki-in The Kansai Ki-in (), i.e., Kansai Go Association, is an organizational body for the game of Go in Japan, which was founded by Hashimoto Utaro in 1950. Though it is not as large as its chief rival, the Nihon Ki-in, it also issues diplomas to stron ...
, whose style is as strange and offbeat as his own. Hikaru, along with Akira and Kiyoharu Yashiro, are selected to represent Japan, while Suyong Hong (a Korean Go player who was beaten by Hikaru earlier in the series) and two others represent Korea and three of Shinichiro Isumi's Chinese friends represent their country. The captain of the Korean Go team, Ko Yong Ha, is interviewed and his remarks are translated for Japanese viewers. The translator makes an error which causes it to appear that he is disparaging the skill of Honinbo Shusaku, who, like Hikaru, was possessed by Sai. Although Ko Yong Ha later finds out, he refuses to correct the error and instead emphasizes it when he realizes that it enrages Hikaru, who takes it as a direct affront to Sai. Considering their achievements and skills, Hikaru is still slightly under Akira. Therefore, their team coach, Atsushi Kurata, chooses Akira to be the captain. However, Hikaru wants to play against Ko Yong Ha, who is the captain in Korea, in order to show him that Sai is the most skillful Go player in the history of the game. Atsushi Kurata grants Hikaru's request when they play against Korea in the tournament because he sees the burning spirit in him. At the end, Hikaru loses by only half a point. Japan eventually comes in last, behind Korea and China. But the Japanese team impressed both professionals from China and Korea because they did much better than what was expected. At the end of the game, Ko Yong Ha asks Hikaru for his reason for playing Go. With tears in his eyes, he answers with the line "To link the far past, with the far future". The hidden meaning of this line indicates the links and emotional relationships between Sai, Shusaku, and Hikaru. However, no one understands the context of this line besides Hikaru. A bonus story, set shortly after the Hokuto Cup event, shows two Inseis, who are ranked 14th and 16th in the group, discussing whether Akira Toya or Hikaru Shindo were stronger. In the Young Lions tournament, they are each paired with Hikaru and Akira, making them change their minds about who is stronger. In the second round, Hikaru and Akira are paired against each other and begin a match, but the conclusion is unknown.


Media


Manga

Written by Yumi Hotta and illustrated by
Takeshi Obata is a Japanese manga artist that usually works as the illustrator in collaboration with a writer. He first gained international attention for '' Hikaru no Go'' (1998–2003) with Yumi Hotta, but is better known for '' Death Note'' (2003–2006) ...
, ''Hikaru no Go'' was serialized in ''
Weekly Shōnen Jump is a weekly ''shōnen'' manga anthology published in Japan by Shueisha under the '' Jump'' line of magazines. The manga series within the magazine consist of many action scenes and a fair amount of comedy. The chapters of the series that ru ...
'' magazine from January 8, 1999, to July 14, 2003. Go professional
Yukari Umezawa née is a Japanese Go professional. Biography Yukari Umezawa was born in Tokyo in 1973, and graduated from Keio University in 1996. She first played Go at the age of 6 and she became a professional Go player in 1996. She then attained the r ...
( 5-dan) provided "supervision" for the series. The 189 chapters were collected into 23 ''
tankōbon is the Japanese term for a book that is not part of an anthology or corpus. In modern Japanese, the term is most often used in reference to individual volumes of a manga series: most series first appear as individual chapters in a weekly or ...
'' volumes by
Shueisha (lit. "Gathering of Intellect Publishing Co., Ltd.") is a Japanese company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The company was established in 1925 as the entertainment-related publishing division of Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The fol ...
; the first published on April 30, 1999 and the last on September 4, 2003. A '' kanzenban'' version was published in 20 volumes between February 4, 2009 and April 30, 2010. In 2012, the manga was published in a 12-volume '' bunkoban'' edition between February 17 and July 18. Viz Media acquired the North American English-language rights to ''Hikaru no Go'' in June 2003. The series debuted in the January 2004 issue of Viz's '' Shonen Jump'' magazine, released in December 2003. However, after the April 2008 issue it was replaced by ''
Slam Dunk A slam dunk, also simply known as dunk, is a type of basketball shot that is performed when a player jumps in the air, controls the ball above the horizontal plane of the rim, and scores by shoving the ball directly through the basket with one ...
''. They released all 23 collected volumes from May 19, 2004 to May 3, 2011.


Anime

''Hikaru no Go'' was adapted into an
anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...
television series by Studio Pierrot. It was broadcast on
TV Tokyo JOTX-DTV (channel 7), branded as and known colloquially as , is a television station headquartered in the Sumitomo Fudosan Roppongi Grand Tower in Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, owned and operated by the subsidiary of listed certifie ...
from October 10, 2001 to March 26, 2003 for 75 episodes. A New Year's Special titled aired on January 3, 2004. Viz Media acquired the North American English-language rights to the ''Hikaru no Go'' anime at the same time as the manga, in June 2003.
The Ocean Group Ocean Productions, Inc., is a Canadian media production and voice acting company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, that is part of the Ocean Group of businesses. Ocean Group is involved in intellectual property acquisition and development, ...
produced an English voice dub for the series. A "Sneak Preview" DVD of the first episode was included in the January 2006 issue of ''Shonen Jump'' (Volume 4, Issue 1) to subscribers. Viz began releasing the series on DVD on December 27, 2005. However, only eleven volumes were released (covering 45 episodes) before they were officially discontinued in April 2008. ''Hikaru no Go'' debuted on ImaginAsian TV in the United States on May 2, 2006. Each episode aired in subtitled Japanese every Tuesday, before the English dub of the same episode was shown on Saturday. It premiered on the online streaming service
Toonami Jetstream Toonami Jetstream was an ad-supported online broadband streaming service and a remake of Toonami's previous video streaming service Toonami Reactor provided by Cartoon Network and Viz Media. It hosted various Toonami hits and had music videos, ...
on July 14, 2006, and ran until the service shut down in January 2009 with only three episodes remaining. The entire series was added to
Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...
in 2011.


Video games

A series of three Go video games based on the series were created by
Konami , is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, it also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machines, slot machines, and arcade cabinets. Konami has ca ...
for the
Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, ...
. The third was also released on the
GameCube The is a home video game console developed and released by Nintendo in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, and in PAL territories in 2002. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 (1996), and predecessor of the ...
. Hikaru and Sai also appear as support characters in the ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' crossover game ''
Jump Super Stars ''Jump Super Stars'' is a 2D crossover fighting game for the Nintendo DS, based on ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' characters. It was developed by Ganbarion and published by Nintendo. The game was released on August 8, 2005, in Japan and accompanied t ...
''.


Live-action drama

A 36-episode Chinese live-action adaptation titled ''Qi Hun'', directed by Liu Chang, was streamed on the iQIYI online platform from October 27 to November 26, 2020.


Reception


Manga

''Hikaru no Go'' has been well-received, with more than 25 million collected volumes in circulation. It also won the 45th
Shogakukan Manga Award The is one of Japan's major manga awards, and is sponsored by Shogakukan Publishing. It has been awarded annually for serialized manga and features candidates from a number of publishers. It is the oldest manga award in Japan, being given since ...
in 2000; and the 7th
Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Named after Osamu Tezuka, the is a yearly manga prize awarded to manga artists or their works that follow the Osamu Tezuka manga approach founded and sponsored by Asahi Shimbun. The prize has been awarded since 1997, in Tokyo, Japan. Curre ...
in 2003. In November 2014, readers of ''
Da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested on h ...
'' magazine voted ''Hikaru no Go'' #14 on a list of ''Weekly Shōnen Jump''s greatest manga series of all time. On
TV Asahi JOEX-DTV (channel 5), branded as (also known as EX and and stylized as TV asahi), is a television station that is owned and operated by the subsidiary of certified broadcasting holding company , itself controlled by The Asahi Shimbun Comp ...
's Manga Sōsenkyo 2021 poll, in which 150,000 people voted for their top 100 manga series, ''Hikaru no Go'' ranked #82. ''Hikaru no Go'' dramatically increased the popularity of Go in Japan and elsewhere, particularly among young children. As a result, many Go clubs were started by people influenced by the manga. Go professional
Yukari Umezawa née is a Japanese Go professional. Biography Yukari Umezawa was born in Tokyo in 1973, and graduated from Keio University in 1996. She first played Go at the age of 6 and she became a professional Go player in 1996. She then attained the r ...
served as the technical advisor for the anime and promoted the game on behalf of the
Nihon Ki-in The Nihon Ki-in (), also known as the Japan Go Association, is the main organizational body for Go in Japan, overseeing Japan's professional system and issuing diplomas for amateur dan rankings. It is based in Tokyo. The other major Go associa ...
. She had a short one-minute special at the end of every episode instructing how to play Go. Including it on a list of the best continuing manga of 2008,
About.com Dotdash Meredith (formerly About.com) is an American digital media company based in New York City. The company publishes online articles and videos about various subjects across categories including health, home, food, finance, tech, beauty, ...
's Deb Aoki wrote that ''Hikaru no Go'' "pulls off a pretty amazing feat" by taking a complex game most American manga readers have never heard of and making it "as fun, exciting and accessible as any competitive sport." Reviewing the series for the
School Library Journal ''School Library Journal'' (''SLJ'') is an American monthly magazine containing reviews and other articles for school librarians, media specialists, and public librarians who work with young people. Articles cover a wide variety of topics, with ...
, Lori Henderson highly recommended ''Hikau no Go'' as a "funny, touching, and slightly bittersweet"
coming-of-age story In genre studies, a coming-of-age story is a genre of literature, theatre, film, and video game that focuses on the growth of a protagonist from childhood to adulthood, or " coming of age". Coming-of-age stories tend to emphasize dialogue or intern ...
. She praised Hotta's diverse and interesting characters who have rather complex relationships, and Takeshi's artwork, which "can make placing a stone on the board seem like a life or death situation." Henderson noted that, while some technical terms are used and explained, readers do not have to know how to play Go as the matches are more about the players than the actual mechanics of the game. She did however feel that the ending of the series did not really live up to its full potential.


Anime

In 2004, ''Hikaru no Go'' came in 18th on ''
Animage is a Japanese anime and entertainment magazine which Tokuma Shoten began publishing in July 1978. Hayao Miyazaki's internationally renowned manga, '' Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind'', was serialized in ''Animage'' from 1982 through 1994. ...
'' readers poll of their Favorite Anime Series. In
TV Asahi JOEX-DTV (channel 5), branded as (also known as EX and and stylized as TV asahi), is a television station that is owned and operated by the subsidiary of certified broadcasting holding company , itself controlled by The Asahi Shimbun Comp ...
's 2008 Top 100 Anime poll, the series came in 83rd in the nationwide survey of multiple age groups and 93rd in the online poll. The following year, it came in 81st in the online poll.


See also

* '' Go Player'', a Chinese animated series about young Go players


References


External links

* * * * {{Go (game) 2001 anime television series debuts Coming-of-age anime and manga Pierrot (company) School life in anime and manga Shōnen manga Shows on Toonami Jetstream Shueisha franchises Shueisha manga Sports anime and manga Supernatural anime and manga Takeshi Obata TV Tokyo original programming Viz Media anime Viz Media manga Winner of Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize (Creative Award) Winners of the Shogakukan Manga Award for shōnen manga Works about Go Zainichi Korean culture