10-24-2011, 08:14 PM | #1 |
時の彼方へ
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Hikaru no Go
Hikaru is a delinquent child who does poorly in school until one day when he discovers an ancient Go board in his grandfather's attic. On the beautiful wooden surface, he sees a dark and spattered stain of blood. Nobody else seems to be able to see it, and suddenly, a ghost appears before Hikaru. It is the ghost of Fujiwarano Sai, the Heian Emperor's Go instructor, a ghost who lived one-thousand years ago and taught the game of Go in the royal court of Japan. He has haunted this Go board for many years, his spirit unable to pass on to the afterlife because of his undying love for Go and his desire to achieve "the Hand of God", the perfect, impenetrable Go strategy. He possesses Hikaru's body, taking residence within the boy, and their two conscious minds are now able to communicate with one another. When Hikaru is forced to allow the ghost to play Go, he makes his way to a Go salon in the city. There, he finds a boy his own age with whom he can play the game. Little does he know that the boy is Touya Akira, perhaps the 2nd most brilliant Go player in all of Japan, second only to his father, Touya Meijin, the man closest to achieving the Hand of God. After a short game, Sai (through Hikaru) has defeated Touya. Touya had never been beaten before. Ever. And he believes his new rival to be none other than the simple Shindou Hikaru. But as the plot begins to unfold, Hikaru develops a sincere interest in the game that has captivated minds for generations. He begins an unlikely student-teacher relationship with Sai, learning how to play Go. This causes great confusion and commotion in the competitive Go scene, where Hikaru is sometimes an idiot barely better skilled than a baby, and is other times so good that people swear he might be able to defeat Touya Meijin. Just who is this boy? And why does he win so well and then lose so badly? Is he just toying with us? Or is he just lucky? Or ... is it something else? But even Hikaru is not fully in on the loop. Only Sai seems to be aware that while Hikaru may be a poor player today, he possesses a remarkable aptitude for the game's finer points. If he could be taught the way of Go, he could become the greatest. And so Sai resolves to set out on a mission of courage and friendship with the boy whose body he now haunts -- he will jointly attempt to discover the Hand of God and teach Shindou Hikaru everything he knows. _________________________________________ This show is the best Yu-Gi-Oh!-like show I have ever seen in my life. I watched the first fourteen episodes in one 24 hour window. If you love perfectly written, sympathizable villains, this is your show. If you like amazingly well-written drama, this is your show. Basically, if you liked anything about or anybody from Yu-Gi-Oh! - Yami Yugi, Bakura, Seto Kaiba - this show is your show. Last edited by Talon87; 09-19-2013 at 04:46 PM. Reason: repairing broken image |
10-24-2011, 08:18 PM | #2 |
時の彼方へ
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Characters: (partial list)
Last edited by Talon87; 09-19-2013 at 04:47 PM. |
10-24-2011, 08:25 PM | #3 |
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Plot: 10/10. One of the best stories I've ever seen. Epic. Beautiful. Tragic. This is a story that really makes you think, a lot, about a lot of various and important things in life. It's entertaining all the while, which serves to drive home the points even better. You'll be hard pressed, in my opinion, to find a better story in anime. There is one admitted grievance -- the use of filler episodes towards the end of the series to space out a dramatic plot twist and the series finale. However, half of them are good, and the other half would have been considered normal episodes if they'd only aired in the first season, so I'm willing to overlook this. The score is still perfect. :p
Characters: 10/10. You will instantly fall in love with the central trio in this series -- Shindou Hikaru, his mentor Fujiwarano Sai, and his rival Touya Akira. They are so realistically well-written in terms of emotions, motives and motivations, and various other psychological aspects. The supporting cast is also well-written and flavorful, something many animes fail to succeed at. It may not be Planetes, but it sure as hell warrants a perfect score in this category. Animation: 8/10. Studio Pierrot produced this series in 2003, and yet it rarely looks a year younger than the mid-1990's Fushigi Yuugi. Despite this possible grievance, they definitely get bonus points for their interesting, dynamic representation of how a Go game progresses. Bird's eye view, side angle, and zoom-in shots of the Go board are all used very effectively. The studio also gets bonus points for perfectly animating the gradual aging of Shindou and Touya. If you're like me or my friend Aaron, you probably will notice the aging in real-time; but if you're also like us, you probably won't appreciate just how much they've GROWN until you begin to see some flashbacks towards the end of the series. Good job, Studio Pierrot. Music: 6/10. There are five or more well-written background pieces in this show, including the overplayed battle music and the twice-used "super battle" music. But that's just the problem -- the great music is rare, and with the exception of one song it is all driven into the ground. Replay Value: 7/10. This is a long series, weighing in at 75 episodes. And as mentioned earlier, there are several tedious filler episodes, particularly in the range of episodes 60 through 70. However, watching Hikaru re-evolve from delinquent to noble Go pro is something that fans will be sure to want to re-experience; and a second viewing with friends or family is sure to be much less painful. Overall: 10/10. When I had finished the first ten episodes, I was already prepared to rank this series as one of my favorites of all time. Having completed it, I can say that it is just barely beaten out by several other titles. That stated, it is certainly one of the best stories I've ever seen.
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10-24-2011, 08:51 PM | #4 |
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Thoughts: a collection of short essays written by me about various aspects of the show
WARNING: The contents of this post must not be read unless you have already completed the series. Under no circumstances should you expand the spoiler tags unless you've seen all three seasons. "Spoiler" really does mean spoiler! ^^; Essay 1: The Siamese Dilemma Spoiler: show Essay 2: The Tragedy of Fujiwarano Sai Spoiler: show Essay 3: The Tragedy of Fujiwarano Sai, Continued Spoiler: show Essay 4: Hikaru's Plea (Warning: you may want to go and grab a tissue box for this one.) Spoiler: show
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10-24-2011, 08:57 PM | #5 |
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I've only read about half of the manga, I didn't stop on purpose, though, as I thoroughly enjoyed it. Maybe I should pick it back up again...? It seems like you've justified a reason for me to continue, for sure.
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10-24-2011, 08:58 PM | #6 |
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Anime is certified Masterpiece except for a few filler parts. Definitely a much-watch for everyone.
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10-24-2011, 09:05 PM | #7 |
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Read a preview of the manga once. Looked cute. Put off watching the animé since I'm skeptical of
Question: Will it count towards my GARathon? XP
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10-24-2011, 09:23 PM | #8 |
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It's incredibly wholesome -- anime food for the soul, to be sure -- but ... it isn't really what I'd consider to be "GAR." ^^; I mean, I wouldn't call Kaiji "GAR" either, so if you were counting Kaiji towards the GARathon, then I guess you could count Hikaru no Go towards it as well. lol The only thing
It'd be the largest time investment we've asked of you yet, barring Fate/Stay Night the visual novel. But I think it'd be well worth your time. Doppel is backing me up on this. Maybe a push from a third veteran will be the charm. (C'mon, Mcsweeney! Where are you? ) Hikaru no Go is, to me, the sort of story that comes along only once in a very great long while. I mean, if it helps you to understand, my MyAnimeList of Top Animes, which is restricted to only five titles, lists Hikaru no Go at position #5. Haruhi is only just barely above it in position #4. Kaiji did not make the cutoff, nor did Level E, nor did a number of other shows I have felt were phenomenal experiences. Hikaru no Go is a rich, rich emotional and philosophical ride. As for the YGO angle, don't let my comparisons between HnG and YGO scare you away. The similarities are pretty bold but they're also pretty few:
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10-24-2011, 10:00 PM | #9 | ||
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Quote:
I haven't even officially set my sights on commencing the GARathon. At the rate I'm currently sampling sugary shows & manga (no thanks to some people), I may just give in to temptation and go on a GIRLYthon instead... Which sounds completely wrong when I say it out loud. XD Quote:
Anyway, from the way you herald it the story does sound very impressive, and unlike what one would expect from a CHILDREN'S
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10-24-2011, 10:01 PM | #10 |
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I remember watching this show like a maniac back in college because a friend was burning DVD's of it and also because it was a good way to procrastinate. I think I stopped halfway through because he ran out of DVD's. =3=
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10-24-2011, 10:29 PM | #11 |
我が名は勇者王!
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No GAR in this title.
Hikaru no Go's length was less taxing than other shows, and a big part of that was keeping the characterization simple and the pace even. I never felt HnG dragged, and each episode efficiently accomplished something. Like Talon says, it is wholesome. Perhaps a bit too wholesome. HnG portrayed a super idealized, safe/clean Japan that was the perfect soil bed for growing professional Go players. The manga doubled as an advertisement, of course, but unlike the propagandist Bakuman it didn't try to openly defend Go's shortcomings, only emphasized its positive aspects. But it's still a fantastic show, even if a bit too romantic.
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10-25-2011, 11:59 AM | #12 |
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Hikaru no Go is a personal favorite of mine. I've re-watched the entire series twice, and read through the entire manga after watching the series. Re-watching it, it's always interesting to see Hikaru and the other characters grow up. The show has a great flow, and before you know it, Hikaru has matured (well...in certain aspects). Without a significant time-skip or anything! Or maybe my memory is tricking me.
My dad is a fan/casual player of Go, and HnG inspired me to play. I always tried to imitate how the players in HnG held and then slammed the pieces on the Go board, and how they always managed to read ahead and make traps. Unfortunately I suck at Go and my dad had to give me advice constantly. :P |
10-25-2011, 01:08 PM | #13 |
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19x19 Go can take a while, but if you want to play a game of 13x13 just for fun and/or to see how good we are, I'd be game. I'd consider myself a very rusty player who at his best was somewhere around 16k or 11k or something (for ranked 19x19 play on KGS). Actually, 11k sounds too high, but I dunno. I was mid kyuu. I was nowhere near amateur dan level, let alone (duh-hur ) professional dan level. My roommate in college, though, managed to work his way up to right around amateur 1dan. I forget if he just barely broke past (and was 1d or 2d) or if he never managed to (and was 6k, 5k, somewhere around there). Regardless, he was pretty good.
If you don't play at all, maybe I should ask to play your dad. Though I imagine he'd wipe the floor with me. lol I think the last time I played was Summer 2009. So ... it's been a while. ^^; Let me know if you want to. That goes for anybody, actually. Just reply here or PM me or something. We may even have a Go thread in the Club Forum ... *goes to check* ... hmm, apparently not. Well, if there's interest, even remote interest, we could make one.
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10-25-2011, 02:33 PM | #14 |
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I tried playing Go once a long time ago with my brother. It was fun from what I recall. All I remember of the rules is that you have to surround your opponent's pieces.
"Cracker, I be playin' Checkers."
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10-26-2011, 09:21 AM | #15 |
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Unfortunately I suck so much at Go that it probably wouldn't be fun for either of us Talon. I place pieces randomly and hope they work, so basic strategies/set of moves would probably destroy me.
It would be kinda weird to call up my dad and ask him to play some random person on the Internet, but I suggest going on Yahoo Go and playing random people if you want to play . Should be able to find someone around your level after a few matches to determine your ability. |
10-26-2011, 10:03 AM | #16 |
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How would you like to try playing a total newbie? XP I'd probably suck even worse. All my moves would be completely random. ^^;
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10-26-2011, 02:37 PM | #17 | |
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Quote:
... just got back from investigating what became of my account. Looks like it got deleted. So I made a new one, Suigin, and just finished playing a game. (One game, ranked, 19x19.) The guy I was playing against was also unranked but, like me, he wasn't green in the slightest either. I honestly felt I was going to lose after attempting a corner invasion which, after some back-and-forth greed on our parts, I ended up losing due to a miscalculation. However, right at the very end of the game he got cocky (it happens!) and passed much too prematurely. I took advantage of that and basically robbed him of 10-15 moku of his by (a) encroaching into it myself and (b) making him play his own stones inside of his (previously-thought-to-be) held territory in order to stave me off. I ended up winning by around 40 moku (with the 6.5 handicap that's afforded to white), but had it been a closer match, that would have certainly spelt the difference between victory and defeat. And then I got bored. I'm not at a point in my life right now where I feel like upping my Go game, so I really don't want to re-learn all of the strategies I've forgotten and trying to redevelop my gut instincts in the game which have gotten rusty and covered with cobwebs. It takes too much time and is really only worth it for the diehard fans of the game. But if anyone does want to play, I have the account so we can play. ^^; The name is Suigin. And again: this is on KGS.
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10-27-2011, 01:15 PM | #18 |
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Hikaru no Go is a masterpiece.
A while back I was re watching some episodes, and during several moments I actually choked up and felt like I wanted to cry. Not necessarily because it was sad, but just because it was so powerful. My favourite part of the show: Spoiler: show I have to disagree with Talon about the animation though. I thought it was bad, lol. Just going by appearances, Hikaru no Go looks like a cheap, generic shounen. It doesn't matter though because the story is too good. Even with the mediocre animation, I would still recommend the anime over the manga. The addition of music and the SWOOOSH sound effects with lines flying in the background when people place stones adds a lot to the dramatic flair. The music was better than Talon gave it credit for too. Yeah, they re-use the same tracks over and over again, but they're all good so I didn't mind. I like the one that plays during especially epic matches that sounds like Final Fantasy final boss music.
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02-15-2012, 08:35 PM | #19 |
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On a whim, I watched some of the early episodes (7-9) of the series. Then I watched the OAV (had to watch the last half raw). Then I watched 59 or 60 on forward thru 74, and am paused on 75 right now. This show is just that good: once you pop, the fun don't stop. Things slowed down a bit from like 71-73, but oh my word at the epic cliffhanger Episode 74 ends on.
It's a shame that the English-subbed series seems so hard to locate. =/ Really hurts our ability to get newcomers to check this one out. So surprising, too: everyone who has posted in this thread so far and who has seen the show has said things like "masterpiece" and "one of the greatest animes of all time." You'd think the community would have taken better care of this beloved story, then, and ensured that future generations could access it as easily as we did. I found someone who uploaded all of the episodes to DailyMotion, but they've cut out the OP and ED from every episode in order to get the files under twenty minutes. Unacceptable for a first-time viewer considering just how memorable some of the OPs and EDs were. P.S. Just LOL at how gay Touya is for Shindou. awww
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02-15-2012, 08:39 PM | #20 |
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These are the ones I ended up having to watch. =/ Sucks I know. I NEED DAT ED TO GET ME PUMPED. ...At least it plays a little bit before the episode ends.
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02-15-2012, 09:18 PM | #21 | |
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Quote:
The good news is, that person has uploaded "the good subs." They're the subs that I have and that most old school people probably have. To be honest, they're not really the greatest subs by today's standards. ^^; Back then translators could get away with a little looser translations. There are quite a few things they translate incorrectly, but in most cases it doesn't change the meaning too too badly. And usually it's the episode titles that they botch the worst which (imo) are the least important thing to get right anyway. Apparently these subs are still the gold standard for HnK English subs ... which is kinda sad when you think about how you can't even find 'em anymore. ^^; I guess I would say to you ... if you want, you could make an effort ^^; to load up the OPs and EDs on Youtube that match where you are in the show, and watch them each time before watching the episode proper. If you're an OP/ED skipper, at least watch them the one or two times you ordinarily would anyway. These links'll probably all be dead in a few months , but for now, here they are ... WARNING! It ought to go without saying, but you are just so gosh darn spoiler-grabby ^^; ... DO NOT WATCH ANY OF THESE BEFORE YOU SEE SNIPPETS OF THEM IN THE DAILYMOTION EPS! Story Arc 1: OP 1 ED 1 ED 2 Story Arc 2: OP 2 ED 3 ED 4 (better but raw copy here) Story Arc 3: OP 3 ED 5 I wish I could find you better versions of these but they all have problems in one way or another. For example, the #1 hit for ED 2 on Youtube has the video badly out of sync with the audio, defeating the purpose of even watching it as an ED (as opposed to just listening to an mp3), so I had to link you to one with Chinese-only subtitles. :\ ED 4, one of my favorite OPs or EDs of all time, is in this particular case plagued by some kinda brash audio channel interference and too much onscreen clutter through a combination of both English and Chinese subtitles. So, sorry for that. But at least this is better than nothing, right?
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02-15-2012, 10:32 PM | #22 |
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Fun with Names One thing the creators of Hikaru no Go had a lot of fun with were the names they thought up for these characters. There are a lot of interconnections which cannot be coincidental, given just how numerous they are. Some of them you may have figured out on your own, others you may not have heard of before now, and others still I'm sure I myself am unaware of or am forgetting. But go ahead and pull up a chair if you like and let's look together at some of the ways that the characters names contain clever clues about their personalities, roles in the story, or goals in life. Warning! This spoiler box contains actual spoilers! Just to be on the safe side, I would advise against clicking on this until around episode 62, 63. Spoiler: show These are just some of the name connections I've noticed. I'm sure there are more but looking at the names on Wikipedia there's nothing that really jumps out at me. (I could force theories, sure, but there's little point in that. I'm trying to find things I think the writers did on purpose, not quirky coincidences.)
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02-17-2012, 06:48 AM | #23 |
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Cool stuff Talon.
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10-29-2012, 08:22 PM | #24 |
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I'm 10 episodes through this. So far it has been a pretty nice show. The animation is kinda bad, and the generic music kinda grates me, but I can easily forgive those two things. I also wasn't crazy about how it suddenly started raining when Akira started telling Hikaru off (so damn cheesy!). Once again, those are small complaints. EDIT: They need to cut the waterworks down. They cry too damn much. I don't understand the importance of a board game, but I doubt it's something to cry over all the time.
The fact that this show sticks closely to actual Go is also nice. I kinda liked being able to tell what Akira was doing against the guy who mirrored his moves. There's also some pretty good writing with the characters and their problems. Here's to hoping things stay this way! Last edited by big bad birtha; 10-29-2012 at 09:49 PM. |
11-01-2012, 12:29 AM | #25 |
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I intended on posting halfway through this, but like a dumbass, I forgot 35 was half of 70, so I'm at 45 and speaking about it.
This show is good enough for me to burn through 45 episodes in 3 days, so that should say something. I do kinda wish they went over the characters some more, especially Hikaru. I know nothing about him outside of his interest in Go, and it has been 45 episodes already. Some other characters have obvious backgrounds, but they're never gone over. Maybe it's just an anime thing, or maybe it's just telling the story through Hikaru's perspective and not telling you anything he doesn't know? If so, then I guess that's kinda cool. The pro exams have been really interesting so far. Some really nice internal struggles here and there. I'm still not finished with it though, so here's to hoping for a good conclusion. |
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