Hikaru Omake Background

An omake (extra) chapter of Hikaru no Go called "Special Bonus: the Haze Middle School Actors present Assassination at Honnoji Temple" is based on the real-life events regarding the death of Oda Nobunaga.

In the chapter, several students of Haze Middle School reenact Assassination at Honnoji Temple as part of a school play. In the play, Nikkai (later Hon'inbo Sansa, the first Honinbo) and Kashio Rigen, two rival Go players, get a triple ko while Nobunaga watches. Soon after the game, Akechi Mitsuhide, a general under Nobunaga, mutinies and leads his army to the Honnoji Temple. Mitsuhide easily overwhelms Nobunaga's men and kills Nobunaga and his partner, Mori Ranmaru (Oran).

The following Hikaru no Go characters played the following Assassination at Honnoji Temple characters:

• Hikaru Shindo as Kashio Rigen
• Tetsuo Kaga as Oda Nobunaga
• Kimihiro Tsutsui as Nikkai
• Yuki Mitani as Akechi Mitsuhide
• Akari Fujisaki as Mori Ranmaru

On naming

Many Asian countries, Japan included, place the person's family name before their given name, for example Go Seigen. Sensei's Library uses the Asian ordering exclusively (see Japanese name).

However, this page and other Hikaru no Go pages use given name first, family name last ordering for most of the characters to be consistent with Hikaru no Go manga published in the United States, France and Germany. It is hoped that this choice will facilitate the use of Sensei's Library by individuals for whom reading the manga is their first exposure to Go.

The manga uses Western order naming with modern-day individuals and Japanese naming with historical figures. Perhaps the most prominent example of the historical figure naming is Murasaki Shikibu (Asian order) in place of Shikibu Murasaki (Western order). Murasaki Shikibu is the author of the famous Japanese novel The Tale of Genji. Chinese individuals (such as Lee Rinshin) have their names rendered in Asian order in the English-language version of Hikaru no Go, while Korean individuals (such as Suyong Hong) have their names rendered in Western order.

The five Japanese historical figures mentioned in the article have their family names first and their given names last, while the five modern day Japanese fictional characters have their given names first and their family names last.

Note on previous page version

The following comments refer to a previous version of the page, which was later removed for copyright violations.

DieterVerhofstadt: This page formerly related the full story with historical details of the battle between the Nobunaga shogun and his opponent Hideyoshi. It has been removed after objection of the original author (see below). In short, the shogun was defeated and forced to commit suicide the day after a game played in his presence between Nikkai, the first Honinbo, and his major rival Rigen resulted in a triple ko. Nobunaga's defeat was caused by an unexpected mutiny of another general, Mitsuhide. Ever since, a triple ko is said to be a bad omen.

This story provides the background to the Omake in Hikaru (right after chapter 51). In manga, an omake is an "extra" (which is the literal translation) work inserted into a collection. It could be a self-parody, character art, or, as here, a short story unrelated to the main plot.

ArnoHollosi: removed full text on 2002-11-09 by request of AndrewGrant. The text was a 1:1 copy of his web page, which is due to be published as a book. See SLCopyright for more information. Anyone who feels able to fill the gap (with his/her own words) please do so (Andrew wrote: Of course you can't copyright a historical fact, so if Dieter or anyone else wants to rewrite this page in their own words I won't object.)