Reread: Volume 02: Game 011

[verys]

覚醒の予感
An Inkling of an Awakening

This chapter originally appeared in the 14th issue of Weekly Shounen Jump in 1999.

Material from this chapter was adapted into anime episode 6 (美しい一局, "A Game of Beauty").

This chapter takes place in February of 1999.

Chapter Summary

Tsutsui has finished his game against Kawahagi's second board. Tsutsui won by 0.5 points, surging from behind during yose, and affirms that he is very fastidious when it comes to counting points and yose.

Hikaru is chided by Kaga for resigning his game.

Haze faces Sawara in the semi-finals. After Ikeshita, Sawara's first board, resigns, his faculty advisor lambasts him for failing to play the game out. Kaga forcefully makes the point that Ikeshita was correct to resign.

Kaga checks on Tsutsui, who he estimates will lose by about 5 points. The two remaining Sawara players start trash-talking loudly to each other about Tsutsui and Hikaru. Kaga checks on Hikaru, and is confused and disappointed to see that Hikaru's playing, while interesting, is still inexperienced and raw.

Kaga asks Hikaru if he's just playing around. Hikaru agrees, and says that playing go is like placing stars in the sky, steadily creating a universe like a god, and that he becomes a god above the goban.

Tsutsui resigns his game and takes off, upset. Kaga sizes up the situation and confides in Hikaru that if the Haze team doesn't win the tournament, Tsutsui won't have his go club approved, and that the shogi club isn't too hot on Tsutsui for having Kaga, the shogi club's ace, work on his behalf. Kaga insists that Hikaru play seriously.

Hikaru, feeling the pressure of the game, requests that Sai take over. Sai initially needles him by reminding Hikaru that he told Sai not to come out, but when Hikaru tears up Sai apologizes and reassures him that he will take over the game and that by your powers combined they'll be able to make a comeback.

By the time Tsutsui comes back from the washroom, Hikaru (Sai) has won his game and the Haze team has progressed to the final match against Kaiou.

Kaga spots Tsutsui's book of joseki and insists he get rid of it before the match starts.

Meanwhile, Akira has concluded his interview with the principal. The principal reminisces about playing go with Akira's father Touya Kouyou back when Kouyou was a student, which reminds Akira of when he heard from Ogata that his father had played Shindou Hikaru.

The principal mentions that there's a go tournament being held today, and asks Akira to come by to have a look at the Kaiou go club. Akira tries to demur, but the principal insists. When Akira peers into the room, he's shocked to see Shindou Hikaru in the middle of a game.

Games Played

Kawahagi Middle School Second Board vs. Tsutsui Kimihiro
Result: Tsutsui Kimihiro wins by 0.5 points
Inspiration: unknown

Sawara Middle School First Board vs. Kaga Tetsuo
Result: Kaga Tetsuo wins by resignation
Inspiration: unknown

Tsutsui Kimihiro vs. Sawara Middle School Second Board
Result: Sawara Middle School Second Board wins
Inspiration: unknown

Sawara Middle School Third Board vs. Shindou Hikaru (actually Fujiwara no Sai)
Result: Shindou Hikaru (Fujiwara no Sai) wins
Inspiration: unknown

Kaga Tetsuo vs. Kaiou Middle School First Board
Result: in progress
Inspiration: unknown

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

Shindou Hikaru (actually Fujiwara no Sai) vs. Kaiou Middle School Third Board
Result: in progress
Inspiration: Kanda Ei 7-dan vs. Oka Mitsuo 6-dan on 19 July 1990 in the Ooteai

Thanks to ヒカルの棋譜 and My Friday Night Files for identifying this game and making it available for download!

Featured Characters

• Fujiwara no Sai
• Ichikawa Harumi
• Kaga Tetsuo
• Kaiou Middle School Principal
• Ogata Seiji
• Shindou Hikaru
• Touya Akira
• Tsutsui Kimihiro

Featured Locations

• Kaiou Middle School
• Touya go salon

Commentary

Oh man, Hikaru and his epic babyface. He only starts to grow out of it at the very end of the series; until then, he is just CRIMINALLY ADORABLE.

I just really love this picture of the Kawahagi second board. He has nice eyebrows and a button nose and cute smattering of freckles and he just looks extremely cute (no this isn't redundant; each "cute" has a slightly different and significant meaning; please enjoy it). This is quite a nice character design, one you don't really see Obata-sensei using in his major characters.

One thing I really love about sports manga as opposed to the way American movies and such treat sports is how soulfully passionate people are allowed to get about them. In the American depictions, losers (especially heroes) can bite their teeth, can punch lockers, can be quietly determined, can even be abjectly miserable, so long as they don't cry. Crying, if performed, is usually for comic relief--the villains from Asshole Academy, having been righteously defeated by our heroes from Bootstrap High, are allowed to throw themselves into over-the-top snotty wailing fits.

But in manga, crying is often used to show the kind of pain created by failing despite one's pure, sincere, devoted effort (distinctly opposed to the wailing produced by the entitled brats of Asshole Academy), and as a reader I find it incredibly cathartic.

Movies and other media depicting girls, I needn't even say, do not follow the same rules. Of course. Sigh.

EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS PANEL IS PERFECT

*Sawara

KAGA WHY ARE YOU NOT PRESENT IN LIKE EVERY CHAPTER OF THIS MANGA

also where is the Tetsuo no Shogi spinoff/bangaihen/incredibly successful multimedia franchise

The translator has done an INCREDIBLE disservice to the reader in this panel. What Kaga said in the original was "Shinken ni ute!" (Play seriously!), using the same "shinken" that Hikaru uses to describe the children at the go tournament and Touya after his second game against Sai. To Hikaru, who has been drifting along through life with no real interests or friends or purposes, their "shinken" has made a huge impression on him, and is a big reason why he decided to pursue go for his own sake, not for Sai's. Kaga using the word "shinken" is therefore a real bell-ringing moment for Hikaru and for the reader. As the translator previously translated "shinken" as "intensity" and now translates it here as "seriousness", that deliberate echo has been entirely lost in the English language adaptation.

That said, this is how Hikaru gets away with being such a tremendous little shit in the manga: he is also incredibly adorable. Good job, kiddo!

...Wait, that's not what he said?

(No, this is not what he said; I had to Photoshop this because it's the only thing I can hear in my head when I read this spiel because I read HikaGo after Death Note XD)

Sai, so cheeky.

AND SOB, HIKARU'S FIRST TEARFUL GO FEELS AHHHHHH

I love, love, love the way Obata-sensei shadowed Hikaru's face in the bottom-left panel.

Ogata looks like some kind of Godfather-sage-type here. EYES IN SHADOW, WREATHED IN SMOKE.

You conjured him up with the sheer force of your desperate longing, dear Akira. Good job <3

Or it's the guiding hand of Fate, because the God of Go finds it absolutely imperative that the two of you meet.

Either's good XD

Comments

[tuulentupa]

I just have to say that everythign about this post made me grin. Kaga and Sai and godfather-Ogata and that "you think I'm evil?" panel, cause HIkaru's expression just fits it so perfectly...
And awww, the crying baby-faced Hikaru...

Thanks for that little bit of info about the serious/intense thing!

[verys]

I know it's SO hard as a translator because you really have no idea what's going to be relevant or significant later on and since you're just blitzing through it for a paycheque every couple of months when the new book is scheduled to be translated or whatever it's not like you're going to pick up on much, so it really is just one of those sorts of things that tends to get unfortunately lost when reading anything in translation :(

And I had to with cute little Hikaru; I read Death Note first, so it's all I could think of whenever I read that part XD