The Shrine

People probably should know I don't particularly like Hikaru no Go, but this is not what this post is about. I went back and read some of the stuff and I noticed two pretty interesting things about HNG.

1. The story might as well be about people talking in Klingon.

Unless you're Sai reincarnated, it's not like anybody could possibly have any idea what's actually happening in the game. Most of the shots on the board are hard to see anyway (at least in the manga) so even if you knew Go like the back of your hand, it's probably impossible to infer what's going on. I doubt most people (including me) had any idea what the Go terms they use are about, but it's not like that matters since you can't see the board anyway. It'd be like if I say "I can move my rook to take his bishop" without showing you the corresponding Chess board, and you'd have no idea if that's a good or bad move.

One of the interesting side effect is that since clearly the author is also not at the level of Sai-reincarnated, all the games clearly have to be based on existing games. That means the outcome of every game in HNG is already known in advance. When Hikaru played the Korean guy in the final game, the spoiler sites already know he's going to lose by half a point because they already found the game that game was based on. So, given the Internet age, there is no surprises in HNG. Had the series continued going, you'd have known the outcome of every game long before they're decided in the manga.

This brings me to mention Hunter X Hunter's fictional board game between Komugi and Meryem. It's interesting since the Chinese boards always joked that only Sai can defeat Meryem in Go since he was supposed to be the most perfect living being int he world who happens to like to play board games. Well, it's pretty clear that Komugi is HXH's Sai. Like HNG's Sai or Toya Koyo she also has that aura of inviniciblty whenever she puts down a piece, and after she beat Meryem it what appears to be a 'Hand of God' move she revealed Meryem is as strong as she was 10 years ago.

Now you can say it's obvious easy to write about a "Hand of God" move when you invented your game, since whenever Komugi needs to make such a move she just says whatever she wants and the match will end instantly. But then this is exactly what happened in the second game between Sai and Akira. You sort of see them start playing and suddenly Sai decides to get serious, and boom, game over! Again, given that nobody reading this is likely to be at a level to even comprehend what they're doing, this means you can pretty much make whatever claim you want.

So in the end HNG becomes a matter of the artist's ability, not the writer. It's easy to write: "Hikaru does a 'Hand of God' and win!' But the artist still has to draw it in a convincing way. This is where HNG's brat-squad fails. In Sai versus Koya Koyo, both characters are portrayed in a way that it appears they're super powerful even though you actually have no idea what the heck they're doing. When it is Akira or Hikaru you just see some giant head aura that's supposed to indicate the same thing, but it simply doesn't have the same effect. The current Honinbo is another good example. You've never actually seem him make any single move that can be interpreted in the entire series, but he feels like he should be one of the most powerful characters in the game.

2. Why did HNG end?

Usually stuff end early because nobody is reading it, but I think HNG has pretty good popularity even after the author prematurely killed off Sai. I've heard everything from Koreans protesting to the author had a disagreement with the artist, but nothing seems to make very much sense. As far as I can tell it's mega popular, and after about 18 volumes you finally started having the brats in a position that can actually threaten the masters. Toya Koyo has only played 1 real game so far, and the Honinbo has played 0 (all his games more or less occur off the screen). I know sometimes the author just gets tired of continuing, but the story has just started. I don't know if HNG could've been something greater, but it was at a point where things are going to get more interesting than Hikaru beating a bunch of other brats who quickly faded into obscurity because their Go power level is too low.

I mean, if losing Sai is such a big problem, he can always come back as an AI or something.

I've watched the entire anime and read the manga (the manga multiple times) and I think it ended pretty well. While I would've wanted it to go longer at the time, how many times can the exact same people play against each other in Go and still be interesting? Sure, you could keep it going with the older players retiring and new players coming up for pretty much forever but my God do we really need more never ending manga?

I did find it surprising when the series killed off Sai, and it did seem somewhat staggering in the timing. I think part of how it seemed premature was in part the author blindsiding us as much as Hikaru was blindsided.

As far as series that have been completed, I'd definitely rate HnG as one of my favorites.

All the guys who mattered at the top played practically no games, or if they did it's just behind the scenes. Even Sai only had 1 real game. The rest of the games he played are, at his level, the equivalent of 7 versus 1 Starcraft comp stomp.

Sure Hikaru and Akira played way too many games, but even there, especailly for Hikaru, are against either no-name guys or brats who are about to become irrelevent.

I always felt that the people at the top were shrouded in mystery because that's who the main characters were striving to be like. By the time the series ended they were on a competitive level with the top. Without an overhaul of the series and character focus, it was a suitable place to stop. The focus was on the younger generation, which was most of the fanbase, so shifting the focus majorly onto the older people may have caused an interruption on said fanbase.

I thought Sai no longer being required and the advancement of Hikaru and Akira were a perfect place to leave off the anime. You don't HAVE to have them fight for top player in Japan for the storyline to have run its course.

Besides, the guy probably just wanted to sit down and give us Death Note. So even if you think it ended prematurely, at least it was for a good reason :-)

Well after the L storyline Death Note was nothing special. But, yeah.

Edit: Oops, forgot it was just a shared artist between the series. Death Note turning shitty had nothing to do with the great art.

Sai only played two real games (against Toya Koyo) and one was where he was way handicapped. The rest of his games are just him stomping guys who had no chance (including Akira) of beating him. It's not like he's got 10 titles or whatever and just ran out of things to do. He still hasn't even played all the guy he wanted to and then he sort of just disappeared. So far as the 'new wave' of guys go, only Akira has made any difference and even then he seems pretty far away from having a title. I'm not sure if it'd be right if you have Akira with a Meijin title or Hikaru with a Honinbo title, but it's really weird to talk about this new wave of stuff and yet they've done nothing. Heck, Ogata did a lot more than all the other 'new guys' put together. He won 2 titles without actually playing any game that the reader can see.

Shrinweck wrote:Well after the L storyline Death Note was nothing special. But, yeah.

Edit: Oops, forgot it was just a shared artist between the series. Death Note turning shitty had nothing to do with the great art.

I saw this quote on a message board: "Hikaru no Go's part 2 proved that even if your story totally sucks, Obata can still save it. Death Note's part 2 (after L died) proved that there are stories so bad that not even Obata can save it."

The N arc in the anime wasn't really that bad. L was better, yes, but it had a good ending in the anime

Has anyone read any Bakuman? It's by the same writer and artist duo who did Death Note. I'm 13 chapters in and I'm finding it pretty interesting. The art is definitely a lot more muted/real worldy like Hikaru no Go and less sharp (yeah, okay, I'll go with that adjective) then Death Note.

In any case it's about two fourteen year olds who are trying to become mangakas. I imagine it's very difficult to write because Ohba has to come up with the story around the teenagers while also coming up with a summarized idea of stories that they are coming up with to write and draw about.

From here I suppose the only place to go is mangakas writing about mangakas writing about mangakas?