Hikaru No Go!

Hikaru No Go is one of my favorite animes of all time. If you’ve never heard of it, the story is, get this, about a boy learning how to play Go, a seemingly simple board game. That’s pretty much it. The fate of the universe doesn’t hang in the balance over a victory or a defeat. There’s no mortal peril (I think there’s 1 sword in the whole show, and it’s a visual metaphor). It isn’t even a game that the average Westerner knows how to play. But when I first saw it, 5ish years ago, I was completely drawn in by the story.

The anime left a large impression on NNFB. At every opportunity Ina’s uncle, Yukizane, is depicted playing Go (he originally played Xiangqi – Chinese Chess). And we’ve made Go an integral part of Ina’s training as a strategist.

I know a lot of our readers already play Go (a fact that is made painfully clear every time it is depicted in the comic with less than 100% accuracy), So I was thrilled when I saw we were advertising VIZ Media / VIZ Anime, which offers online streaming of several anime series including Hikaru No Go.

If you’ve never watched it before, now is a great opportunity to check it out.

Enjoy!

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dudeface00x

i don't know, it looks like yu-gi-oh season 0 only the spirit isn't as awesome as Yami, and the story isn't as interesting

Andr

We are sorry, currently our video library can only be streamed within the United States.

:(

notpotable

One thing that disappointed me was that the fansub quality of the show was overall pretty awful. Viz is actually doing a lot of things right with theirs. I started looking for it in their store though, and it doesn't seem to exist there. Very frustrating.

cronoalshezardelmuh

Oh man.....not viewable outside of the USA. What a pity. Well...luckily there's like a million other sources on the net, gotta take a look^^

Ah, hell yeah! I love Hikaru no Go for all the reasons everyone else has already mentioned. And as well, the soundtrack is among the best anime soundtracks I know, in my opinion.

Remembrance

One caviat:
Be warned that the writing style changes after the first three chapters...to a much less young, clumsy way of writing.
Also, the gorgeous artwork found in most of the manga was non-existant in the beginning.

Remembrance

I knew I liked you guys.
Have fun with the manga. I think it's even better...just a better medium for the story.

themagpie

Hikaru no Go is also one of my favorite anime. I'm facinated by how it manages to create all the tension of a shonen adventure story battle without any weapons, explosions or superpowers, just good writing and drawing.

I, too, would have ended it differently. In fact, I spent a lot of time devising my own alternative. However, I can't blame the author for writing an unsatisfying ending. Convincing ultimate techniques are sooo hard to come up with.

Blue-Balloon

You want nonviolent battles? You need to enter the world of cooking and sports animes. Tenipuri and Yakitate are my two top recommendations. All of them have insane techniques and powers, but instead of fighting, they play tennis and bake bread.

Nomnomnom

I liked the manga, but I was disappointed with the ending. Such is life, I suppose. XDDD I've never seen the anime, though, so maybe now I'll check it out : )

Blue-Balloon

When I read the manga, the part of it that amazed me was the way the characters aged so gradually. At the later chapters, it wasn't until there was a flashback panel that I realized the characters had grown up without me noticing. Reading it again, I couldn't tell at what point they started to change. To this day, I haven't seen it done so well anywhere else.

Also, what happens with Sai was so tastefully done, especially because of how inevitable it was. If such a thing happened in real life, I think that is how the events would have occurred.

If you haven't read the manga, you should check out the 40 chapters or so. There's no difference between the manga and anime except the anime didn't air the final arc.

It's been a few years, so I'm not entirely sure, but the link on my name takes you to Ch 150. I think that's where the Hokuto Cup starts. "You're already dead!!!"

jwkovell

Great! I'm definitely going to read through the manga now. It's been long enough that I don't mind starting from the beginning.