Hikaru Reread: Game 38, A thousand years of selfishness

[lacygrey]

Hikaru just got his own Goban

Chapter Synopsis and Notes with pics
As Hikaru plays Grandad.  Sai looks back at his life and afterlife filled with Go.



I like that Sai has female Heian pupils even if this is a historical mistake.

I'm sad we never see Torajiro's face properly.  In the new edition I think there might be pics though (anyone?)


Meanwhile Akari has been going to the community centre Go class and taming Mr Akota, the bully of a player who Hikaru 'de-wigged' in an earlier chapter.  He's now resorted to a hat.



I like the way that Akari has got into Go on her own account independently of Hikaru and Sai and is also working to improve.

Although Hikaru doesnt win against Grandad...



Grandad has faith in his potential and buys him a real goban with feet



 What with Hikaru and Sai's combined excitement I wonder how many gobans this chapter sold.



Meanwhile, Hikaru's Mom remains perplexed at the whole situation and her sons's strange behavior.



I wonder if she puts it all down to adolescence in the end.

Comments

[flonnebonne]

...You know, what with Sai's historically inaccurate long hair and his historically inaccurate female pupils, I sort of wonder if Sai is secretly a woman.

[tuulentupa]

xD That explains it all! Though I wonder about the pupils - when I read Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book she complained at one point about men who look down on court ladies, just because they come face-to-face with all kinds of people in their work (and I'd been wondering about this before, as some discussions just didn't seem to happen through a screen)... so I wonder how things really worked in the palace? Maybe the court women weren't quite as strongly secluded from the world of men as others... (not that I knew anything certain, that part just left me wondering.)

But be that how it is, nothing explains Sai's hair! Maybe he was a woman. No wonder Akitada wanted to get rid of a rival like him...

[flonnebonne]

Wish I knew more about the Heian court and the era in general! Everything I know comes from heresay - I've never done any real research, and I've never even read Genji or the Pillow Book. XD

It's pretty hard to play go through a screen - it's essentially blind go for one of the players - so maybe the court ladies were allowed to interact with men when they were playing go? Probably not, but I can make up justifications in my head if I want to. :D

[tuulentupa]

If you ever feel like doing some Heian reading, there's Ivan Morris's book The World of the Shining Prince: courtlife in ancient Japan. It's from 1960's, perhaps a bit dated, but rather entertaining read. I liked it a lot. (But then again, I'm beginning to suspect I'm becoming some kind of a Heian age addict... xD)

I was thinking about that same thing. I don't know... all the stuff I've read has said nothing about this. (What, the books don't have sections explaining how court ladies play go with men? Imagine that.) xD I meant in general - like with Sei, I remember her being annoyingly vague about it, exactly how, where and why court ladies would be face to face with different people. I guess she didn't feel the need to explain something everyone knows anyway...

[flonnebonne]

I will keep that book in mind, although I suspect I am too lazy/cheap to get it. XD I would probably want to read Genji first.

I'm guessing even most Japanese people know so little about the Heian cout that Hotta could get away with plenty of inaccuracies and most readers wouldn't be sure they were inaccuracies or not. Shounen Jump is for youngish boys after all!

[tuulentupa]

It's a good book, but it does have some spoilers for Genji - on the other hand, I felt that I got much more out of Genji after having read that book. (I haven't finished Genji yet, btw - I've read all that's been translated into Finnish, and now I can't decide which English translation to use....)

Yeah. xD And even so, I remember Hotta complaining at some point about how people thought Sai was female. Though that's an easy mistake to make, even if you know nothing about Heian age hairdos.

[trixie_chick]

i'm learning so much with these rereads... i didn't realize that Sai's comment about the court ladies playing go was historically inaccurate, and i also didn't realize that his hair was inaccurate. =O

it's such a defining aspect of his person, too!

[flonnebonne]

Me too! I love how almost 100% of my knowledge of pre-WW2 Japanese history is from manga and anime. XD

[tuulentupa]

It's definitely not inaccurate that they played go - whether or not they played face to face with men is a different question, as they normally had to stay behind their screens and curtains.

But his hair is totally off. xD If you want, you can take a look here on what people really looked like. ^^

[trixie_chick]

well, if they had a screen between them, they could be using two gobans, and calling their moves to each other. but, Sai would most definitely be able to play blind go, even with multiple ladies at a time. *insert sex joke here*

ahhhh, i see, of course. i can understand why they didn't want a main character to have that hair, but then, wouldn't speculation about Sai's gender be even more natural, since his hair was a LOT closer to the female example than the male?? but a female could never have been an instructor to the Emperor, i'm assuming, so... =X

[flonnebonne]

I feel like Sai looks closest to the "Young boy of the upper class in everyday wear, suikan."
http://www.iz2.or.jp/english/fukusyoku/wayou/

...But maybe that's because the young boy of the upper class in everyday wear, suikan looks like a girl. :D

[trixie_chick]

ooh, that IS very close!! the cloth over his head, the koromo wo kazuku, there are images with that, i can't remember too well, maybe when he first shows up before hikaru, doesn't he come out from under a cloth like that, i can visualize it, just can't place it...

either way, maybe it's just a question of age? he could be younger than he seems... we're never really sure how old he is, after all. just that he's taller than hikaru, but... hm. interesting!!

of course, the hair around his face is still off, but then sai would be fighting with his people who are doing his hair because he'd want to rush out and finish that game he started yesterday... ^_~

[flonnebonne]

Yes, Sai comes out for the first time from under a cloth! I think there might be one other piece of official art--maybe one of the original covers?--with a cloth too, but I'm not sure what volume. Maybe Sai wasn't that young he was just young-hearted or something. Yeah, um. And he had long loose hair because...he had nice hair and wanted to show it off. Sure. Heh, we can dream up all kinds of reasons to explain the historical inaccuracies, can't we? Oh Hotta.

[tuulentupa]

I just love Hikaru's family. Or at least his grandpa and his mom. The poor woman, though... she's so clueless.