Hikaru No Go Junkie

   

You, yes you ! You know what I'm talking about. And if you don't, WATCH AND ENJOY Hikaru no Go now while you still can!!


Another poster said this: "I'm just passing by but I couldn't resist contributing to this page. I started playing go only thanks to this manga."

Same is true for me; just passing by, but I feel I have to post something about this series. With me, playing Go actually came before discovering this series, so it's the other way around compared to most people I read about.

I wanted another game beside Chess; I knew the basic rules of Go, often read that it would be at least as deep and complex as Chess, so I decided to get into it. I started reading and studying, and then found out about Hikaru No Go. The reviews were raving. Therefore I downloaded a scanlation version of the manga and a fan-subtitled version of the anime. I've never watched anime or read manga before. Picking my starting point at random, I started out with the anime.

Let's just say that I finished all episodes in one weekend. It was just impossible to stop watching. The plot, characters, the music... everyting. It's just epic, all of it.

I *seriously* cried during some of the episodes. While there are many good episodes that stir up some emotion, it mostly were episode 60 and 70 that hit home like a hammer. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about them. Crying while watching movies or reading books is an extreme rarity for me. (One of the few other movies in which that happened, is James Clavell's Shogun.) Also I often felt bad for some of the characters, like the Insei girl not becoming a pro on her second try.

I'm halfway through the manga now, and the manga and anime match quite closely. Still, I much prefer the anime, because of the voice acting and the tremendously good music. I have to get some sheet music somehow, especially for the first title song "Get Over".

I've just placed an order with Amazon.co.uk for the manga, and ordered the English subtitled DVD's from a store that imports this stuff. I have to have it as an original.

Even if you don't play Go, this anime and manga are worth spending some time on. Nuff said.


Are there pages here on medieval methods of playing Go, i.e., the way that Sen plays?


Lucky: I saw* Volume 1; Chapter 1 "Holy Encounter" (This is one that I do not agee with. The name in Japanese is Kisei Kourin, meaning roughly "The Kisei Appears". Since this was the very beginning of the translation effort I assume they were not so familiar with Go history at that point.).

HolIgor: That's the reason, I guess, that Toya Meijin is not a Kisei title holder and Ichiryu Kisei does not feature much in the manga. Sai is Kisei (Go Saint).
  • Volume 2; Chapter 10 "Starting Position" (could also be translated as 'first battle').
  • Volume 3; Chapter 25 "Pregame" (also might be 'preliminaries')
  • Volume 4; Chapter 28 "Vision of God"
HolIgor: I don't agree here. It is "Kami no genei". The word "genei" is given as vision, illusion, phantom in the dictionary. So, which one to choose? I looked through the content of the book. It is about Sai's internet exploits. It seems to me that the title "Phantom of God" is more appropriate. What do you think?
Migeru: I like the word "Idol" in this context. It has the religious meaning of something one worships, the metaphorical meaning of a role model, and the etymological meaning of "image".
John Fairbairn What gen'ei conjures up to a Japanese is a phantom image of a person who is not really there - which seems to fit the story perfectly. Also, too much western meaning is being attached to kami. It's a divine spirit not God. Almost anything can have a kami in Japan, a tree, a car, etc, and some can be worshipped but most are far more likely to be assuaged or placated, etc. "Kami no" just means divine, numinous, not "of God".
Velobici Is the concept behind the Japanese word gen'ei the same as the Greek behind the English word [ext] daemon?
  • Volume 5; Chapter 40 "Commencement"
  • Volume 6; Chapter 44 "Insei Test"
  • Volume 7; Chapter 58 "Young Lions Tournament"
  • Volume 8; Chapter 68 "The Pro Exam, Day 4 And Then..."
  • Volume 9; Chapter 77 "Main Test Begins"
  • Volume 10; Chapter 85 "Revival"
HolIgor: The title looks like something that might be written on a tsumego book. The chapter it refers to is about Shindo living in Waya's moyo. So, I doubt "revival" is the proper term. It should be read literally: "From death to life". Can anybody invent a better title that would keep go content?
Dave: Chapter 85 is about Isumi's game against Ochi during which he reconciles himself to the loss against Shindo. I think that "revival" is a nice choice for the title.
  • Volume 11; Chapter 94 "Violent Battle"
  • Volume 12; Chapter 98 "The Beginner Dan Series" (you were right HolIgor, my careless mistake)
  • Volume 13; Chapter 105 "First Pro Game"
  • Volume 14; Chapter 114 "Sai vs Toya Koyo"
  • Volume 15; Chapter 124 "Goodbye" (Sayonara)
  • Volume 16; Chapter 131 "Chinese Go Institute"

Lucky: Thank you HolIgor, thank you Dave. I wonder where the French titles come from. They seem very different to me so I thought maybe the volumes have a title of their own, different from the chapters.

But the French are very strange, they translated Go Weekly as Revue Francaise de Go :-)))

unkx80: I provide the following information but not the translations. Volume 17 ends the Sai section and Volume 19 starts another section, with Volume 18 being some outside stories of some characters in the manga.

  • Volume 17; Chapter 148 "Mysterious Smile"

HolIgor: The title sounds something like "A smile of a dear person". Excellent title and finale grandioso of the book.

  • Volume 18; (interlude)
  • Volume 19; Chapter 149

HolIgor: The title is "The strongest shodan" or "The strongest shodan ever".

  • Volume 20; Chapter 164 "Yashiro Vs Hikaru"
  • Volume 21; Chapter 174 "Hokuto Cup Gathering"--TimBrent
  • Volume 22; Chapter 182 "Defeat Ko Yohnga"
  • Volume 23; Chapter 189 "I call out to you"

Ok Junkies, time to pay the piper...
[ext] http://www.toriyamaworld.com/hikago/ (dead link)
Let's get out there and teach some new players. --TakeNGive

Jan: There go my Thursday nights... :-) Maybe we could do a petition for an extra playing time more friendly to us Europeans?


Ai! Yes you got me.... BTW, I don't suppose anyone has a copy of the anime on tape, maybe even fan-subbed? --BlueWyvern

HolIgor: Episode 1 is not as good as the manga. Much is omitted; humor is gone. But you can listen to voices, which is interesting. The anime is subtitled but you can hear how they pronounce the terms and names

komok - komoku
Honinbo Sushak - Honinbo Shusaku
Sindo Shikaru   - Shindo Hikaru
That's what I thought initially after watching the 1st episode. But the 2nd episode filled in the gaps very well (e.g. Hikaru's signing up for the Go classes). I've finished 4 episodes and there're very little major omissions as far as I can tell. But I do agree a lot of the humour is gone.
I believe Touya's match was moved to episode 1 to ensure that the pilot episode has something exciting to look at. It wouldn't do to just feature the psuedo-match against Grandpa. :P

One of the English related fan site is The GO Institute (Singaporean site) [ext] http://www.geocities.com/thegoinstitute/ (dead link) The official manga site is [ext] http://jump.shueisha.co.jp/hikaru/index.html The official anime site is [ext] http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/anime/hikaru/index.html ---Tsunami


Hikaru no go junkie? No idea what it is. But if Toriyama doesn't post another episode today, I'm just going to burst into flames!


You bastards! After all his talk about HikaruNoGo I thought I would have a look. I got lost in reading and now it's 2:30am and I have to get up in 4 hours and a busy day in front of me. I hereby forbid any posting related to HikaruNoGo from now on!! --Arno


Would you believe how ungrateful some guys are??? Here we are going out of our way to warn people not to read Hikaru. Totally against our advice this bloke seems to have done it anyway. And then it's our fault??? Sigh! Some people... No, really!!!! :-) --Stefan

Looks like what I need to do is to bold the very first statement of this page... --unkx80


By all means, don't! I tremendously enjoyed what I've read so far! I'm glad I got cable last week ;-)

I want more, more, more and I want it now ! More chapters, another episode, a shop selling the untranslated manga. Fortunately, I know someone who is Tokyo at the moment; maybe he can bring back some new material... (But exactly how would I instruct him to get the right comic, any ideas on this one? Maybe just describing 'a boy with his hair painted blond in front holding a Go stone' would work :-)

Question to unkx80, where do you get your Hikaru fix? Since you're talking about chapters well over one hundred there must be some way to get to Hikaru stuff we lousy Europeans can't access or can't understand. I don't care if it takes learning Hiragana - I'll do anything!! I'll buy you a scanner if you can get ahead of the 'toriyama' site!

-- Jan De Wit suffering from extreme Hikaru Deprivation Symptoms

HolIgor: I guess I know what to do to calm you down. You need a spoiler. I've got 14 volumes in Japanese. Bought them from Kinokuniya, but here in SIngapore, where unkx80 resides as well, you may buy Chinese translation as well (it does not help much ot me, though). There should be a Kinikuniya bookstore in the land of tulips. Look there. It is not difficult to find Hikaru no Go manga among other books. Indeed you have to look for a boy holding a go stone. There is a kanji for Go on the cover. I can recognize that.

Holigor's spoiler moved to Hikaru No Go/News and Spoilers

unkx80: To Jan De Wit: HolIgor has answered your question in its entirety... Well, the comic books are published at a frequency of around two months, so I expect to get my next book in Jan 2002. :-)

TimBrent: Jan De Wit,the magazine is Weekly Shonen Jump


Volume 15 was published December 23rd in Japan (yesterday - I bought mine today :-). --DaveSigaty


A fun thing happened the other day: I was demonstrating a game called Go (you may have heard of it) in a "Japanese Culture day" -happening here in Helsinki. We had plenty of visitors, and a surprising amount of people who wanted to learn the rules and just play.

Now, I showed the rules to a couple of guys, and left them to their own devices for a while. I come back 10 minutes later, and what do I see? This is their FIRST time they ever play the game - yet they know how to hold the stones properly (though awkwardly), and I hear the other guy muttering: "There were like, 3, responses to that corner move - this was the aggressive one, I think?" On a 9x9 board. Their first game.

So I ask: "So, you guys watch HikaruNoGo?" And they respond: "Yeah, how did you guess?" It turns out that they were from the local Manga&Anime -club.

I guess UmezawaYukari's GoGoIgo is quite useful after all :-)

-- JanneJalkanen


An interesting moment in the episode 27 of the anime. Have you noticed?

At some moment a following message appears at the top of the screen:

Mwahahahaha! You are trapped! 25 episodes more and you'll have the same problems. You'll be playing in the tournament too.


I'm just passing by but I couldn't resist contributing to this page. I started playing go only thanks to this manga. That was more than 2 years ago. At the time only the first two volumes of the manga had been published (no anime yet) and when I tried to find some more info on the series on the newsgroups no one knew what the hell I was talking about. And for the record, when I went to my local go club for the first time, I was quite proud that I knew how to hold the stones when I had never touched one before :)


^grin^ This may sound silly, but I'm so excited! Excited to know that there are so many Hikaru No Go fans around here... Some of them fellow Singaporeans too! I'm playing in my school's go club (we call it weiqi) and started by borrowing the chinese manga from my junior.
And now I'm totally addicted... I can't pass a comics shop without going in and drooling over the Hikaru No Go mangas... I'm waiting for my junior to lend me books 11-14... I'm too poor to buy my own books =|
By the way, does anyone know where to get the anime (preferably with subtitles... English ones...)? The queues in #elite-fansubs are too long for my taste... I'll be really grateful if anyone could just DCC-send me the first episode... Or post it up somewhere... Please?
Unfortunately, my go skills are rather poor and I always lose at competitions... :S But Hikaru No Go always makes me want to go play weiqi (i meant go) online...
Anyway, I just want to say... Hikaru No Go rules! Hehe... -siaNatiC?-


What is your Favourite Character In Hikaru No Go?

Does anyone know if there is a regular book (English language novel) where Go is the central theme. - steve

MattNoonan: Both First Kyu and The Master of Go are good English (translated) novels, each with a very different flavor. I've heard Go is a big part of Shibumi, but I've never read that book.

I heard about the game of Go by reading Shibumi! And um, its really really good. Better than some other of Trevanian's books that I have read such as The Eiger Sanction and The Loo Sanction. --doulos


HolIgor: I've never read any manga or comic strips. But this one is about go and people liked to discuss it. So, I've downloaded some. It is quite interesting and there is go there too. Umezawa Yukari does her work.


My friend ran up to me and showed me this manga, Hikaru no Go, about two months ago, and was really disappointed when I didn't know what it was. ^^x;; It was thus really funny when I ran up to her three days ago freaking out about this cool manga, Hikaru no Go. She pointed me to Toriyamaworld.com, and it was all downhill from there. I don't regret a minute of it!

I only have one complaint: The next chapter hasn't come out yet! ^~x


Hahaha, I just read this manga at toriyama and it compelled me to have a look at this 'go' thing. I search it on the net and even download a few go program and play on Yahoo too. Here in Malaysia, the go scene is not very big cause they aren't any ad or things like anime or movie. Even when I told my friends they didn't know what this go is. Yet after they read the manga, they ask me to teach them and challenged me to a game on the net.Though I beat them. Heh. Thanks to Hikaru No Go I get hooked up with this bunch of my friends. Yeah, for Malaysian Go player, join GO scene at www.communityzero.com/mygo


Wah, I just found a link to toriyama's Hikaru no Go, and spent my entire three-day weekend reading what was translated (instead of studying for finals!). I wish I had found this site sooner, you do a great service!

However, since what is done is done, I need to get more Hikaru no Go, but I can only read English and Spanish. Does anyone know? Or are there any places to find 'net go? I am to buy a book today to learn! And, perhaps, when I poison my other friends (who have no idea what I speak of) I can play against actual people!

Please see the Go Servers page for information about playing on the Internet and the IgoWin page for a Windows program that let's you practice tactics on a 9x9 board.


Well, I actually knew how to play Go before watching the anime but I only started to play often after watching HnG. For those of you that want to play on the net, download the KGS go server client, we have a club room there and the atmosphere there is good =)


Can anyone tell me what they know about the sequel to HnG?


Yeah, it is called "Hikaru no Shogi"...


Yeah right :) I mean the new saga. I now it's available on Manga, but will it come as anime aswell?


Hehe.. for u guys out there. Diane does translate the latest HnG chapters
[ext] http://www.hngo.net/ (dead link)

Older chapters from her are avaible here:
[ext] http://www.hikaru-n-go.cjb.net/


I'm a long time anime/manga fan recently addicted to HnG. Don't really know how to play real Go yet, so downloaded [ext] Goban for Mac OS X, which amazed me in that the software company's page had a link for HnG (showing Hikaru and Sai playing Net [ext] Go on a Mac!) and a link to this page (how I found SL).

I thought I'd point out a funny [ext] HnG joke (dead link) which recently appeared in one of my favorite anime style web comics, [ext] Tsunami Channel .

Part of the explanation of this joke is that the author of the comic is named Akira Hasegawa (no relation to HasegawaAkira). As he writes, he likes hearing his name (Akira) being used in anime, such as with Hikaru's rival Touya Akira. So he inserted his comic-strip version of himself as Touya and his friend Konstantin as Hikaru (both are regular self-insertion characters in the comic). Akira and Konstantin met in real life when Akira was attending Carnegie-Mellon University in the U.S.A., and both were anime fans.


Looking for Top 3 Episode Suggestions

I need to put together a demo CD of HnG. If I assume I am going to use the first episode as a starter, I am looking for suggestions for the other two episodes to put on the CD. Which two are your favorites? Which two might best represent the range of action or scope of the series? If you have any ideas, let me know at todd@heidenreich.name. Thanks.

HolIgor: Episode 36 is very good.

Hikaru79 : Episode 1, episode 46, and episode 75 are two very good choices. (Or maybe episode 56). Episode 46 is the episode where Hikaru passes the pro exam, and 75 is the last (very touching) episode. Episode 56 is the one where Sai beats Touya Meijin on the net, and Hikaru realizes the mistake that could have cost Sai the game, and Sai realizes Hikaru's potential. Of course, if you don't want spoilers, episodes 1, 2, and 3 are the best bet.


I have started writing HnG Fan Fiction [ext] http://www.fanfiction.net/~timbrent

Hignaki : I agree with Hikaru79 on the episode choices, except replace 46 with any from 55-58. Skip the denial episodes (60-70ish), those slow down the story entirely.

While those episodes do slow down the story, in my honest opinion they are crucial to the story. Especially episode 70 is important because it is the one in which Hikaru finally resolves to go on. 60 and 70 are actually my most favourite episodes of the series....


Hikaru No Go Junkie last edited by 68.13.198.78 on April 5, 2020 - 22:21
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