Difficulty: 2
Subs: unknown
Episodes: 75 + Special
If you've never played go, you'll want to by the end of this series!! :)
This is the first really long anime i've watched... 75 episodes is a lot!!! But it's pretty addicting, so i got through it in less than a week.
Please see Starrybrooke's review: http://japansense.blogspot.com/2011/11/hikaru-no-go.html for a better review than mine ;)
It's about a boy called Hikaru, who manages to attach a ghost to himself that was stuck in the go board in his grandfather's attic. The ghost is that of Fujiwara no Sai, an awesome Go player.
Hikaru has never played Go before, but gets really into it. The story focuses on how his learning progresses.
Because there's 75 episodes, you see Hikaru and his rival Touya Akira grow up and mature as they progress. By the end of the series, you really feel like you've lived through 3 years with them.
One thing i really liked about this series is that Hikaru is not some born Go genius (though he does have some natural talent), he just has an awesome teacher and works exceptionally hard to progress. It's also really amusing to see Go matches played like they're sword fights or something... a hand streaking through the air to make a move that challenges someone.
You don't need an understanding of Go to enjoy this series... you can just enjoy the atmosphere of the matches and learn a few things as it goes along. And you can always tell who's winning and by how much by who has the sweat droplets on their face, and how many of them there are. ;)
If you watch the TV broadcast version, there's a special segment at the end of each episode that teaches you something about the game, which is also pretty nice.
The language level is around average for anime i think... there's Go terminology of course, but you won't have much problem picking it up as you go along. Most of the language is fairly standard, and remains at the same kind of level the whole way through.
Anyway, it interested me enough to watch til the end, and i found out my family has an old Go board that hasn't been used in 20 years or so, so i'm gonna try playing!!! :D
Ah, I love Hikaru no Go! I watched it as it aired, and it's still my favorite スポ根 anime.
ReplyDeleteI tried my hand at Go afterward (There are really international Go servers out there, just like in the anime!), but although I wasn't that great at it, I did become OK at Gomoku. ^^;
I was surprised to learn that in Korea they have a whole channel called "SkyBaduk TV" (Baduk is Go in Korean according to Wikipedia), when I was looking through the international channels my cable station offers. No wonder Korean Go players are so strong...
Oh yeah, this is the best resource I've found for Go in English: http://senseis.xmp.net
ReplyDeleteThey even have a page devoted to HikaGo ^^: http://senseis.xmp.net/?HikaruNoGo
I'm not sure about Japanese, since I wasn't that good at it when the series was airing, but I'm sure there are good resources in it as well.
cool, thanks!!! That site is great!!! There's also some good sites in Japanese i found through the JP wiki page, but none as complete as that.
ReplyDeletei finally played today, my parents both lost miserably, so they've decided they don't like it & the boards been put away in the cupboard LOL.
i'm a bit reluctant to play online though, cos i end up wasteing sooooo much time when i get into these types of games ;)