Hikaru no Go

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may fail to make a clear distinction between fact and fiction.
Please help rewrite this article, according to the fiction guidelines, to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. (talk, help)

Hikaru no Go

ヒカルの碁 (Hikaru's Go)
Genre	Fantasy, Historical Settings, School Life, Shonen
Manga
Authored by	Yumi Hotta
Publisher	Shueisha _{Other publishers:} VIZ Media Tonkam Carlsen Comics Panini Comics Daiwon C.I. Elex Media Komputindo NationGroup Daran Comics (Volumes 1-21) Tong Li (Volumes 22-23) ? Chuang Yi (Chinese)
Serialized in	Weekly Shonen Jump Shonen Jump BANZAI!
Original run	1998 – September 2003
No. of volumes	23
TV anime
Directed by	Shin Nishizawa
Studio	Studio Pierrot
Network	TV Tokyo Toonami Jetstream and ImaginAsian QTV
Original run	10 October 2001 – 26 March 2003
No. of episodes	75
Related works
Hikaru No Go: New Year Special (sequel)

Hikaru no Go (ヒカルの碁) is a popular Japanese anime and manga coming of age story based on the board game Go written by Yumi Hotta and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. The production was supervised by Go professional Yukari Umezawa (5-dan). The manga is largely responsible for popularizing Go among the youth of Japan in recent years, and in other areas such as China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea.

First released in Japan in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1998, Hikaru no Go has achieved tremendous success, spawning a popular Go fad of almost unprecedented proportions. Twenty-three volumes of manga were published in Japan, comprising 189 chapters plus 11 "omake" (extra chapters). The anime series, which was created by Studio Pierrot, ran for 75 half hour episodes from 2001 to 2003 on TV Tokyo, along with the 77-minute extra New Year's Special that aired in January 2004.

In January 2004, the manga series debuted in the United States in the English language periodical Shonen Jump published by VIZ, now VIZ Media. In 2005 it was announced that VIZ Media also has the license to the anime. Hikaru no Go Volume 1 DVD was released on December 27, 2005. A Hikaru no Go "Sneak Preview" DVD (first episode) was released in the January 2006 issue of Shonen Jump (Volume 4, Issue 1) to subscribers.

The title is sometimes abbreviated 'HGO', 'HikaGo' or 'HnG'.

Hikaru no Go premiered on Toonami Jetstream on July 14, 2006.

1 Series Premise and Story
2 English-language adaptations
3 Characters
4 Media and release information
5 Voice actors
- 5.1 Japanese version (Seiyū)
- 5.2 English version
6 Episodes
7 External links

[edit] Series Premise and Story

The same basic storyline was followed by the manga and anime, with a few changes between versions.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Hikaru Shindo, the title character, is a 6th grade elementary school student in Kita Ward, Tokyo. While exploring his grandfather's shed, he stumbles across a Go board haunted by the spirit of Fujiwara-no-Sai, a fictional Go player from the Heian era. Sai wishes to play Go again, having not been able to since the late Edo period. Because Hikaru is apparently the only person who can perceive him, Sai inhabits a part of Hikaru's mind as a separate personality, coexisting, although not always comfortably, with the child.

Urged by Sai, Hikaru begins playing Go despite a lack of interest in the game. He plays Go by mimicking the moves Sai dictates to him. In a Go salon, Hikaru defeats Akira Toya, a boy his age who plays Go with professional-caliber strength. Akira subsequently begins a quest to discover the source of Hikaru's strength, an obsession which will come to dominate his life.

[edit] English-language adaptations

Hikaru no Go is published in English in the United States Shonen Jump magazine, and in individual graphic novels. The anime is now being shown in English on streaming video one episode at a time on www.toonamijetstream.com to USA residents, although there have been no announcements that it will be shown on their television block on Cartoon Network.

The manga is unedited in the Shonen Jump version and the manga chapters that can be read on the Shonen Jump website. Unlike the earlier Shonen Jump versions, instances of cigarettes are removed from the Hikaru no Go graphic novels so that they can be labelled as appropriate for everyone. For instance, the cigarette that smoker Tetsuo Kaga puts on a Go board is changed to a wad of chewing gum in the graphic novel. The cigarette habits were edited out in more recent (as of 2005) Shonen Jump editions along with the graphic novels. However, the translator slipped up and had Sai communicating his outrage about Tetsuo's "dirty cigarette" (graphic novel vol. 2, p. 9), and in another panel Tetsuo is shown in the background smoking. As of September 2006, references to cigarettes and smoking are still prevalent in the version seen in Shonen Jump. The change in the graphic novels is controversial with the series' fans. Similar changes were made when it was adapted as an anime, inside Japan.

[edit] Characters

Names are in Western order (first name before surname) except for Fujiwara-no-Sai's.

Hikaru Shindo (進藤ヒカル Shindō Hikaru) - Protagonist who is assisted by Sai. Hikaru, at the beginning of the series is a sixth grader in elementary school. An important factor in the development of Hikaru's passion for Go was an encounter early on where Hikaru becomes the rival of Akira Toya. At first, he thinks that Go is just for oldsters and he is a little annoyed at Sai's demand to play. However, his passion, also vocation for Go increases days by days along with the development in maturity. From being a member of a school Go club to being an insei and finally becoming a professional Go player a year after Akira, Hikaru has changed a lot, especially after Sai's evanishment and his fervent ambition is to obtain the Move of God, both for his own goal and Sai's willing.
Fujiwara-no-Sai (藤原佐為) - A spirit from the Heian era of Japan who can't stop playing Go and the mentor of Hikaru Shindo. Sai wants to play the divine move (also known as the Move of God). In the manga and anime, Sai had possessed the real-life figure Hon'inbo Shusaku and through his body, became the world's best go player of all time. Sai holds a rivalry towards Koyou Toya (or Toya Meijin) and has had Hikaru to persuade Toya to have a game with him. His wish is realized when Toya accepts to take the challenge through Internet. They have made a legendary match and ended up with Sai's triumph. However, in that game Hikaru has discovered another move which can invert the situation and the loser should have been Sai, not Toya Meijin. Witnessing the maturity of Hikaru, Sai finds out that his one-thousand-year time in the world is going to finish and can't fulfill the wish of obtaining the divine move. A few days after the game with Toya Meijin, Sai suddenly disappears without both terminating his last match with Hikaru and saying goodbye to him. Extremely effeminate by today's standards (as is appropriate for a high-born Heian man), Sai is often drawn with traditionally feminine features and mannerisms, and many fans sometimes mistakenly call him a "she" in passing only to correct themselves after realizing their mistake. His name Fujiwara indicates that he's related to a noble family of extremely high prestige in the Heian period.
Akari Fujisaki (藤崎あかり Fujisaki Akari) - Hikaru's childhood friend. She begins to learn Go as well when Hikaru becomes interested and later joins the Haze Middle School Go club, serving as captain of the girls' team, despite her being a weak player. She also seems to have feelings for Hikaru, as noted by her two friends in the carnival, though the two remain intimate friendship.
Akira Toya (塔矢アキラ Tōya Akira) - Hikaru's biggest rival and Kaio Middle School student. Akira was already a very strong player when Hikaru first began playing and was amazed by Hikaru's seemingly impossible strength. Since his first game with Hikaru, Akira has been obsessed with discovering the secret behind Hikaru's strength.
Yuki Mitani (三谷祐輝 Mitani Yūki) - A player at the Go Club at Haze Middle School who overcomes his cheating habit.
Tetsuo Kaga (加賀鉄男 Kaga Tetsuo) - President of Haze Middle School's Shogi club. Kaga hates Go and prefers Shogi better because, his father forbade Shogi and forced him to play Go from an extremely early age, and he could never please the old man no matter how well he did. He also says he hates Go because Akira is better than he is, while keeping a completely detached attitude towards the game. He still plays Go from time to time to keep his skills limber. Tetsuo smokes cigarettes, which were kept in the earlier U.S. Shonen Jump versions of Hikaru no Go, but were removed from the U.S. graphic novels and the later (as of 2005) Shonen Jump versions.
Kimihiro Tsutsui (筒井公宏 Tsutsui Kimihiro) - Optimistic nerd who relies on a strategy book. Kimihiro is the founder of Haze Middle School's Go club. More of a strategist than a real player, Kimihiro prefers the intellectual pursuits of Go more than its nature as a game.
Toya Meijin (塔矢名人 Tōya Meijin) - Akira Toya's father. His real name is Koyou Toya (塔矢行洋 Tōya Kōyō); Meijin is a title he received for defeating the best Go players in Japan.
Yoshitaka Waya (和谷義高 Waya Yoshitaka) - Hikaru's "big brother" insei. Like Kaga, he has a dislike for Akira Toya because he can never defeat him and because of Akira's detached attitude towards the game. He had once faced Sai in Internet Go as Zelda for his nickname. He became a pro at the same year as Hikaru.
Shinichiro Isumi (伊角慎一郎 Isumi Shin'ichirō) - Insei that has a lot of self doubt during the pro exam.
Kosuke Ochi (越智康介 Ochi Kōsuke) - Spoiled insei that Akira tutors so Akira can test Hikaru's strength. He then passes the pro exam along with Hikaru and Waya with only 2 losses.
Kaoru Kishimoto (岸本薫 Kishimoto Kaoru) - Kaio Middle School Go club chief and former insei who did not become a professional
Yun, also known as Yun Sensei (尹先生) - Yun is Akira's Middle School teacher who is in charge of the school Go club
Yuri Hidaka (日高由梨 Hidaka Yuri) - A 3rd year Kaio Middle School student who stands up for Akira when he gets bullied by three other kids who dislike his presence. She hates bullying of all kinds.
Ito (伊藤 Itō), Kojima (小島), and Okumura (奥村), also known as Mean Kids - The family names of three pupils who dislike Akira Toya's presence in the Kaio Middle School Go club; they bully him by making him play two games at the same time without even looking at the boards.
Shu (修 Shū) or Shu-san (修さん Shū-san) - The owner of a Go salon where Hikaru finds Yuki. Shu knows a cheater when he sees one. He hires Dake-san to teach Mitani a lesson about cheating.
Dake-san (だけさん, Mr. Dake) - A person hired by Shu to teach Yuki Mitani not to cheat. He poses as a regular at the Go salon and hides his strength. He bets money on the game, reveals his strength, and wins 10,000 yen (about $90 U.S.) from Yuki. Hikaru and Sai later win the money back. Dake-san sings romantic songs while playing Go.
Heihachi Shindo (進藤平八 Shindō Heihachi) - Hikaru's grandfather.
Kuwabara Hon'inbo (桑原本因坊 Kuwabara Hon'inbō) - The current holder of the Hon'inbo title in Hikaru no Go. Kuwabara is friends with Toya Meijin.
Harumi Ichikawa (市河晴美 Ichikawa Harumi) - Ms. Ichikawa is the cashier of the Go club that Akira Toya teaches at. She feels saddened when Akira leaves the club to become a better Go player, primarily because she sports a small crush on the go prodigy.
Shigeo Morishita (森下茂男 Morishita Shigeo), also known as Morishita Sensei or Mr. Morishita - A man who became a pro at the same time that Toya Meijin became a pro. He is Waya's go teacher when Waya first appears. Morishita also mentored Michio Shirakawa (7-dan), the community Go leader.
Yuta Fukui (福井雄太 Fukui Yūta), nicknamed "Fuku" (フク) - An insei and classmate of Waya who does not have Waya's unruly temper.
Mitani's sister (三谷の姉 Mitani no Ane) / Yuki's Older Sister - A girl who works at an internet cafe and lets Hikaru go on the computers for free during her shifts. Helps Hikaru with his English. The name used to describe Yuki's sister is different in the English version since Yuki Mitani is usually called by his given name, "Yuki", in the English versions. In the Japanese versions Yuki is referred to by his family name, "Mitani" - therefore his sister is called "Mitani's sister" in the Japanese versions.
Seiji Ogata (緒方精次 Ogata Seiji, 10-dan) - A Go professional who sees Hikaru's talent when he explains a go move that would baffle professional Go players. He is also a student of Koya Toya and soon takes the Meijin title when Koya Toya retires.