1 Name: Ohasumi : 2011-07-17 17:51 ID:3x8m07Fc (Image: 900x350 jpg, 63 kb) [Del]
I believe no one has ever mentioned this in the anime board... o.o Or I might be blind but anywhooo... Tell me if anyone has mentioned it before and I'll scoot on over there. :D
I honestly think this anime is seriously underappreciated... I don't know that many people who've seen it. I admit that when I first checked it out, I thought it was going to be a boring anime since... well, it's about a freaking board game. Now who would watch something about a board game. I certainly wouldn't but I checked it out anyway out of a recommendation.
On to my point. Advertising the anime. xD
Summary:
Hikaru Shindo is just a normal 12 year old boy, but one day he's rumaging through his Grandfather's things to see if he can find something to sell and pulls out an old Go board. A ghostly apparation appears out of the board and tells Hikaru his sad story. His name is Sai Fujiwara, a man who was a Go instructor to the emperor of Japan a thousand years ago. However, because of bad sportsmanship of his opponent during a game, Sai was accused of cheating and banished from the city. With no livelihood or any other reason to live, Sai commited suicide by drowning himself. Now, he haunts a Go board, and wants to accomplish the perfect Go game, called the "Hand of God/Divine Move" which he hopes to do through Hikaru. If Hikaru will be able to do it or not (or even wants to) will have to be seen.
Now if that doesn't pique your interest then maybe this would. It's from the same creator of Death Note so you know what to expect. It's an anime aired back in 2001 so it was created before Death Note. I hear HnG ended early because the creator had to work on Death Note, which is kind of sad but anyhow, I’m sort of satisfied with the ending. It’s a kind of old anime so it might be too old for your taste but I seriously hope you’d give it a try.
The main reason why I continued watching it was, this might be weird, but it was because the animation reminded so much of Fushigi Yuugi and Ayashi no Ceres in the first episodes. And I liked those animes so I thought it was from the same creator. I was craving for love animes and this anime certainly didn’t have any of that (although people have been making yaoi doujinshis xD) BUT point is---I still enjoyed it so much that I would put it on the top of my most influencial animes list. This was the main reason I started playing and loving Go.
Go (or Igo---also Baduk in Korean and Weiqi in Chinese) is an ancient chinese board game. Rules are pretty simple so you might want to try playing it. I don’t really want to explain the game since the anime sort of does that. I personally enjoy Go more than chess nowadays. And I’ve been playing chess since I was five. I also can’t wait for the moment computers will be able to beat humans in Go just like they did with chess. That will be an extraordinary accomplishment for technology. :DD
ANYWAY, do watch it. I recommend it 100% even if you like watching action or love or mystery or comedy animes. And you might want to try playing Go while you’re at it. Also note that the games played in the anime are also actual games from actual professional players. :)
3 Name: Ohasumi : 2011-07-17 18:08 ID:3x8m07Fc [Del]
You can watch it on youtube. Hulu has it too if you live in NA. :D And I regret that that picture doesn't have Akira (a VIP in the anime) on it... >.> And also don't worry, they don't stay as kids forever if ever that's an issue. xD But srsly... Hikaru's (the half-blonde kid) frikin annoying in the first couple of episodes that it almost caused me to drop the anime. Sai made me watch it more tho since he looks needlessly gay (but he's not) and is soooo darn cuuutee~ <3
6 Name: Kaisuke : 2012-09-11 16:40 ID:M0wBQq/I [Del]
It is another nice anime, but its a shame the way it ended, as it had something to do with one of the Korean character being to close to a real Korean person and they sued.
I also picked up Go after watching this, and online on KGS go servers
