Review of Hikaru No Go

How many fanboys started thinking that driving a Trueno would be cool after watching Initial D? How many kids got obsessed with cards and monsters after watching Yu-Gi-Oh!? How many anime fans found their steepled fingers dangerously close to a friend's anus after watching Naruto? Like all forms of entertainment media, anime have influence (it's just that in America the influence is usually limited to a very specific age group-at least that's changing now). Some anime make you cry, some anime make you laugh, but truly powerful anime make you pick something up. Hikaru no Go is one such anime.

The title means "Hikaru's Go." Even in English translation, the words probably wouldn't make much sense to many English speakers. Hikaru is a common unisex name in Japanese (if you know anything about Japanese music, then you must've at least heard of Hikaru Utada, the J-Pop Queen-let's not discuss her attempt to break into the American market with Exodus), and go is a board game that is usually immediately compared to chess.

It originated in China thousands of years ago and spread to Korea and Japan. Since it was the Japanese who made the game known in America, in the West it's known by its Japanese name, go (in Chinese, it's weiqi; in Korean, it's baduk). Go is easier to learn than chess but astronomically harder to master.

Like chess, it's a two-player game, the players taking turns to place pieces called "stones" on the board (either black or white, the former always goes first). Unlike chess, once you lay a stone down, it doesn't move-unless the group of which it is a part gets surrounded by the opposite color, in which case it is taken off the board as prisoner. The winner is the player with the most territory, created when prisoners are taken or when an empty area is surrounded. At the end of the game, prisoners are replaced on the board to reduce the opposite player's territory.

Go is a subtle game, one that demands uncanny insight. It is not uncommon for a professional to see dozens of moves ahead to determine what he (yeah, it's usually a guy) should do for his next move. Several years back, a computer program defeated the world chess champion. As far as I know, that has yet to happen with even an upper-level go professional.

So, Hikaru no Go is about a kid who plays go. Sounds pretty boring, huh? That's the beauty of the anime. It should be boring, but it is not. Knowing how to play go or knowing about go or even having an interest to learn about go is not a prerequisite to enjoying this anime. It's just a great story. After all, I knew nothing about go four years ago when I first started watching the anime.

I got hooked and picked up go. It wasn't a fad, mind you. I still play go today and have a few go buddies with whom I compete whenever we have the time.

Earlier, I said that truly powerful anime make people pick things up. I guess that wasn't fair. After all, no matter how much you love Evangelion (a very powerful anime), you can't really decide to pilot a bipedal robot taller than most skyscrapers. Buying a go board and sitting down with a friend is much easier, but it's not as cool. One time, while a friend and I were having a match that was entering its fourth hour, another friend commented (it was a girl, it had to be a girl-okay, to be fair, let me say that the strongest players in Korea are women), "You guys need lives."

Here is where the magic of Hikaru no Go comes in. Yes, the game looks incredibly boring, but the anime makes the game seem unbelievably cool. If you're used to watching anime, I'm sure you can already imagine the kind of special effects that seem nothing out of the ordinary to us anime watchers but blow the minds of the uninitiated. A match between professionals is seen as a battle in the stars; a decisive move is shown as a meteor strike into the earth; a game on the Internet has a glowing go board in the middle with the players' hands creeping within eyesight only when they make a move. In a dramatic battle, as a stone is laid on the board, it sounds more like a boulder crashing from the sky.

The anime fully illustrates the intense dedication that go players have toward the dance of go (a tiny percentage of people in China, Japan, and Korea play go for a living), and it really is a dance, a gateway to a level of joy that can only be experienced when you're evenly matched with an unforgettable opponent.

The story of the anime revolves around the rivalry between two kids around the same age: Hikaru Shindou, an elementary school student who meets the ghost of a master go player who died a thousand years ago, and Akira Touya, the prodigy son of one of the most prominent go titleholders in Japan.

In the beginning, Hikaru has never touched a go stone before, then he meets Sai, the ghost of a Heian era eunuch who has yearned to engage in a game of go for the last thousand years, who compels him to enter a go salon for a few casual games. His first opponent is Akira (Sai sheds tears at the prospect of being able to play go again). Oblivious of the divine instruction of Sai, Akira, who has never been beaten by someone his own age, becomes obsessed with Hikaru as he tastes bitter defeat. After learning that Hikaru is actually a novice player who doesn't take go seriously, Akira's obsession grows.

As Akira's obsession with Hikaru grows, Hikaru himself begins to take an interest in the game. Soon, the three (Hikaru, Akira, and Sai) are involved in a chase that consumes their lives. Akira thinks he's chasing Hikaru, but the one he's chasing is Sai, and Hikaru desperately tries to catch up to Akira.

At its core, Hikaru no Go is an anime about unrelenting determination. Work hard for what you want, and never give up. A very common theme in anime for the last few years actually.

The anime never loses focus even though new characters-and with them new rivalries-are involved. There's a female character (surprise, surprise) who also happens to be Hikaru's childhood friend, but nothing romantic develops between them as I would expect from any anime. Even when the spotlight focuses on Sai, who is obviously one of the most interesting characters in the anime, we don't forget about the two young rivals. Although somewhere in the middle Hikaru and Akira go almost dozens of episodes without meeting, they are still chasing each other. Until the very end and beyond. I personally think that the ending is quite anticlimactic, but that is further testimony to how great the rest of the anime is.

The message that Hikaru no Go might send is fairly unrealistic, though. Hikaru…well, I won't reveal whether or not he actually ever catches up to Akira, but he has every intention to. In real life, however, I would be willing to bet money that he doesn't catch up to Akira by the end of the story, which runs for a timespan of about three years, I think. After all, you wouldn't expect a 19-year-old girl who's never held a tennis racket before to beat Maria Sharapova in a tennis match within three years, if ever.

Talking about timespan, this anime shows time passage in the characters better than any anime I have ever seen. It's woven seamlessly into the anime, and you don't notice because you see these characters so often. It's not until you view older episodes that you realize how much the characters have literally grown: their bodies are taller, their faces sharper, their eyes more mature, and their hair a little longer and more styled. The graphics are also bright and cheerful, so if you're tired of blood and gore and darkness from anime (who could ever be?), then the looks of this anime would please you.

As far as music goes, there seems to be a track for every mood of the anime, all centered around, of course, the emotions of the characters (and perhaps all people) when they're consumed in a game of go. "Tomadoi," which means "disorientation" in Japanese, is played during dark moments of the anime, when someone doesn't know whether or not he can or should go on. "Korekara" ("from now on") is a more jovial piece, played earlier on in the anime right before elementary go matches, when everyone is hopeful. The opening and ending themes are all awesome, each new one changing according to the progression of the story. There is one thunderous track that one of my go buddies and I put on while we're at each other's throats (in a game of go). In fact, I'm listening to go music as I write this article.

Now, time to put my fingers between a go stone.