Reread: Volume 02: Game 010

[verys]

初陣
Debut Match

This chapter originally appeared in the 13th issue of Weekly Shounen Jump in 1999.

Material from this chapter was adapted into anime episodes 5 (覚醒の予感, "An Inkling of an Awakening") and 6 (美しい一局, "A Game of Beauty").

This chapter takes place in February of 1999.

Chapter Summary

The first round of the Third Kita-ku Middle School Winter Term Go Tournament begins.

First round matches:

Boys

• Kaiou Middle School vs. Hamachi Middle School
• Tai Middle School vs. Iwana Middle School
• Ayu Middle School vs. Sawara Middle School
• Haze Middle School vs. Kawahagi Middle School

Girls

• Kaiou Middle School vs. Iwana Middle School
• Ayu Middle School vs. Kawahagi Middle School
• Hamachi Middle School vs. Sawara Middle School

Hikaru, Kaga, and Tsutsui sit down in preparation for the match. Hikaru sees a game clock, and since he's never seen one before, presses down the plunger on the top to see what happens. His opponent yells at him, and Tsutsui explains the purpose of the clock and how it is used to keep track of the 45 minutes each player is allotted for the game.

When the game begins Kaga opens his fan. The fan says "Oushou" ("king general"), referring to the shogi piece, and his opponent mocks the Haze go club for not even having three people to take to the tournament. Kaga promises to defeat his opponent within ten minutes.

The first boards nigiri, resulting in Kaga and Shindou playing white, and Tsutsui playing black.

After the game begins, Kaga is appalled to see Tsutsui using a book of joseki as a reference. Tsutsui defends himself by saying there isn't a rule against it. Kaga and Tsutsui argue, and Hikaru worries that they're drawing attention to themselves.

The Kawahagi team thinks the Haze team is full of idiots: a guy who doesn't know about the game clock, an idiot with a book open, and a person borrowed from the shogi club.

Kaga wins his game handily, wringing a resignation from his opponent within the promised ten minutes. He goes to check up on Hikaru and flips out when he sees that Hikaru sucks.

Hikaru's opponent intimates that Hikaru should resign, so he does. Sai wonders if what he saw in Hikaru was a fluke, and is unsure whether Hikaru truly does have the same potential as Touya Akira.

Sai wonders what Akira is doing now. It turns out that he is being interviewed by the principal for a prestigious school. The principal asks him if he won't join the go club when he begins in the spring, as his presence may inspire the other students. Akira demurs, and is overwhelmed by thoughts of Hikaru.

Games Played

Kaga Tetsuo vs. Moriyama
Result: Kaga Tetsuo wins by resignation
Inspiration: unknown

Kawahagi Middle School Second Board vs. Tsutsui Kimihiro
Result: in progress
Inspiration: unknown

Shindou Hikaru vs. Kawahagi Middle School Third Board
Result: Kawahagi Middle School Third Board wins by resignation
Inspiration: unknown

Featured Characters

• Fujiwara no Sai
• Kaga Tetsuo
• Kaiou Middle School Principal
• Moriyama
• Shindou Hikaru
• Touya Akira
• Tsutsui Kimihiro

First Appearances

• Kaiou Middle School Principal
• Moriyama

Featured Locations

• Kaiou Middle School

Commentary

This is adorable! The names of the schools in Kita are all themed: Ayu, Hamachi, Haze, Iwana, Kawahagi, Sawara, and Tai all sound like types of fish (though they're written with different kanji). "Kaiou" is written with the characters "sea" and "king", the same as the kanji for the planet Neptune ("Kaiousei" in Japanese). No subtlety here!

Hikaru's little fussy face here is SO ADORABLE. Also it's a good thing Hikaru starts getting over his everyone-else-is-to-blame-for-my-problems deal soon because holy shit is he ever a little dick; somehow I always manage to forget this T.T

KAGA YOU LOOK SO MIGHTY AND AWESOME; AHHHHHH HOW COOL!

boner deflated

Aww, the adaptation lost a pretty cute joke here. After Kaga tells him to nigiri to determine who goes first, Moriyama counters by asking him if furigoma wouldn't be better. Furigoma is how you determine who goes first in shogi; it means "game-piece throw" and is performed by the senior player, who picks up his five centre pawns, shakes them in his hands like dice, then throws them upon the board. If most of the pawns are unpromoted-side-up, he goes first. If most of them land promoted-side-up, his opponent goes first. Since shogi has even less North American cultural penetration than go it'd require a lot of explanation so I can see why they cut it, but it was a pretty funny joke :(

Kaga pulls goofy, exaggerated faces and does unsophisticated stuff like this all over the early manga, and yet despite all that you never seem to lose the impression that he is TOTALLY SMOKING HOT and then ages later your faith is rewarded because then Obata-sensei treats us with shots like this:

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn.

First of all, Mommy and Daddy are totes adorable here.

Second of all, I love it how Kaga uses his fan as an aid. I can just picture a slightly older Hikaru, perhaps a wee bit arrogant and cheeky from his wild success, using his own fan to gesture about <3

Oh Sai, you really are adorable!

I love how the translator, who pretty much universally has been translating the sound effects and other pheno- and psychomimes, just threw his hands up into the air and gave up with Sai here XD

Akira, sweetie, the tie goes UNDER the vest.

The shot of the principal's hands here is pretty cool and I like it a lot.

Also, those socks almost look like athletic socks, which are seriously not doing this outfit any favours, Akira.

One thing I find consistently hilarious about poor little consumed Akira is that his mental images of Hikaru are never intimidating or gloating or smirking or darkly oppressive or anything like that--no, they're always of Hikaru looking cheery and charming. Which makes sense to us the reader because we know Hikaru's like that, but if this were any other manga, I'd expect Akira's memories to be coloured and warped by his distress, so it still seems a little out of place.

This is from Game 4. See? OH AKIRA <3

Comments

[flonnebonne]

I'd forgotten Kaga was (is?) a nose-picker.

Hikaru is TAUNTING Akira with his cheeriness. It's exactly the kind of thing an uber-serious fashion reprobate like Akira hates with all his socks-and-shorts-wearing soul.

[tuulentupa]

That's exactly what I was thinking. An incredibly strong player who doesn't even hold the stones properly and has none of the famous intensity - he's just having fun as if it wasn't any big deal he's so good.

[qem_chibati]

I think the fact that Hikaru was cheerful and charming is what makes it so omgwtfbbq the whole Sai thing for Akira. Hikaru is unlike anything he's seen before. He beat Akira but was all, man I need to practice more. He was cheerful and stupid, but actually pulled off some sweet moves. It was a teaching game but Hikaru didn't seem to act like it was - and Hikaru comes across as a pretty appalling and oblivious actor - not sweet or polite or anything that Akira is useful.

And that's what makes it obnoxious - Hikaru wasn't taking it seriously at all.

[kexing]

Kaga owns this chapter!! He just sits there with his perfect arrogance and his shogi fan and owns EVERYONE. And can we just take a moment to appreciate that he apparently does this because he think it is good for Tsutsui. I mean, Kaga doesn’t give a damn about go (except being angry at Touya) but he still takes his time to go and play in a tournament he doesn’t care about for Tsutsui’s growth or something! So much love.

Akira, honey, what are you wearing? I would ask if his mother dresses him, but Akiko would clearly have superior taste to this so my new theory is that Ogata sneaks in and gives him clothes from time to time.

Something I sort of forgot about these chapters that it isn’t only Hikaru that is preoccupied with Akira, but Sai too. That fits well with gung puncgref gung fubjf ubj fubpxrq Fnv jnf bs Nxven’f fgeratgu jura gurl cynlrq but I also wonder if maybe, whfg nf crbcyr pna frr Fnv va Uvxneh’f tb yngre, Sai is picking up Touya Kouyo’s play in Akira’s go, znlor frrvat n uvag bs gur tnzr ur vf qrfgvarq gb cynl.

Heh, Akira fears Hikaru’s cheerfulness. I think it makes everything even more incomprehensible to him. Akira is pretty smart, so I don’t think he is used to running in to things he can’t make sense of at all. It is not only that he was slaughtered by a kid his age who couldn’t even hold the stones, but that this kid could do it without even a hint of competitive instinct and no real understanding of what he just did. So now Akira is desperately trying to make sense of it, but the only real answer he can find it that it has to be he himself that isn’t good. He is still adorable in all his angst

[qem_chibati]

I meant to say this in the last post, but I do think Kaga is actually quite good given that he beat Sai in that game.

I know Sai isn't playing at full power, and that there was a huge mistake that cost them a lot of points (and possibly Sai hasn't fully adapted to the new moku rules)... But.

Kaga's gobsmacked that Hikaru got that close - but... we the reader know how good Sai is - used to be one of the most legendary players ever - and he's come back from unwinnable situations before. This combined with the fact he could easily solve the initial problem - in previous conversations I've been a bit a bit vague with my estimates on Kaga's skill level saying that he's at least at an intermediate level - he could certainly pass the insei tests at least.

But I actually think now, that he'd be at the very least one of the good insei players. And this is with what looks like - quite a while of dedicating himself to a different type of stratergy game. and swearing off Go for the rest of his life.

He's certainly good enough to recognise Sai's talent - enough to really want to see it play out a bit more, or at the very least be able to punk a Go tournament with it.


I think Kaga's actually extremely intelligent, for all the odd faces he pulls, and is very much aware of this fact. XD


Kaga's what two years older than Akira? But how much longer had Akira been learning go compared to Kaga?

I think, if Kaga had kept playing Go seriously, Akira would have found his rival a lot sooner. Although I'm pretty sure this Kaga would absolutely /loathe/ looking at himself in that alternative universe....

[tuulentupa]

But I actually think now, that he'd be at the very least one of the good insei players.

Lrnu, jura Uvxneh gbbx gur vafrv grfg naq tnir gur thl gurer gur guerr xvshf, ur jnf gur zbfg vzcerffrq bs Xntn'f tnzr, jnfa'g ur. Naq fb fubpxrq jura ur urneq Xntn'f n fubtv cynlre. kQ

[verys]

Oh my god, everything, everything you just said, everything.

...That so needs to be an AU. And yeah, that would be one toasty circle of hell for Kaga.

Oh man, I really want fic now where Hikaru runs into Kaga in some situation where his other former-insei buddies like Waya et al. are around so Hikaru and Kaga can have a game and everyone can rubberneck and comment. Ahhhh, I just want to see more of Kaga in Hikaru's life, period <3

[chagrined]

GAME 10
-kaga looks different in these early volumes too.
-man i seriously would love a spin-off manga all about kaga. he's so awesome.
-PAGE 64, SAI IS THINKING ABOUT TOUYA ALL LIKE "SIGH I WONDER WHAT HE'S DOING NOW," OH MAN THIS IS TTLY REVITALIZING MY SAI/TOUYA (AKIRA) SHIPPING HAHAHA
-wow okay, so, touya's outfit during this interview. in the anime i love this outfit! LIKE IN A NON-IRONIC WAY. but ...okay this shot on page 67, it looks PRETTY RIDIC hahahaha

COMMENTS ON UR COMMENTS:
-THANKS FOR THE EXPLANATION OF THAT SHOUGI JOKE, IT'S COOL 2 SEE THINGS LIKE THAT THAT DIDN'T MAKE THE TRANSLATION!!