So I was kind of skeptical when most of this volume turns out to be about Isumi, who was a minor character until now. Isumi was one of Hikaru's fellow Insei, but he failed the pro test, and decided to go to China to study go there for a while. Now that Fujiwara no Sai has disappeared and Hikaru has ...
So, there was one thing I liked in this otherwise kind of flat volume, which is that the author is doing "something" with Fujiwara no Sai, and it promises to lead to some character development for Hikaru.The thing is, Hikaru no Go is basically a cross between a bildungsroman and a typical adolescent...
So, this volume didn't jump the shark, but I am definitely seeing signs of wear in the series. The resolution of the Sai vs. Toya Meijin game was satisfying, with a few little twists thrown in, but the results seem mostly intended to remove a character as an active complication in the series. Fujiwa...
Now that Hikaru is a professional go player, his first pro game is against... drum roll... his long-time rival, Akira Toyo.And I am knocking a whole star off for the heavy-handed plot device of having Akira's father, Toyo Meijin, have a heart attack just before the game. I mean, are you really going...
Now that Hikaru is a professional go player (at age 14) where is the story going to go? Well, obviously the series is building up to the big confrontation between Hikaru and Akira Toya, but as with so many of the games in this series, we see intermediate proxy fights in which Hotta has to come up wi...
Once again, the beauty of this series is its ability to maintain a sense of tension and drama over what is basically just an unending series of go games. In volume 11, the author finally wraps up Hikaru's pro test that has been going on for the last four volumes. (Spoiler: he passes.)The most dramat...
So now I am up to volume 10. This series is so addictive I have finally broken out my Go books. Yes, I am going to try to start playing Go again! I'll bet I can beat some smarty-pants 12-year-old Go prodigy. Har har har.Anyway, my last review was incorrect -- in this volume, Yumi Hotta helpfully pro...
I've been burning through this series lately, so my ratings are kind of relative to other volumes, and maybe not so much relative to what I read in general. So "5 stars" for a volume of Hikaru no Go means it's one of my favorite volumes in the series. The overall rank of the series I'd put at about ...
Hikaru now enters the preliminary tests to join the ranks of professional go players. It's actually true that adolescents can become professional go players in Japan and Korea, though usually they've been playing and studying intensively for years, unlike Hikaru. Of course, most adolescent go player...
Three of the chapters in this volume cover a single go game. If that sounds boring, it really isn't, and one of the things I like about Hikaru no Go is that you don't have to be a go expert (as I certainly am not) to follow the dialog about go moves. Obviously it helps to know something about basic ...
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