The Totally Epic HikaGo Reread - Vol. 1

[effex]

Happy Wednesday, everyone!
ARE YOU READY FOR SOME HIKARU NO GO?

Yes? Excellent. Let's get this party started - to the comments with your thoughts, observations, revelations, etc!

(A reminder - there are several people who are reading the series for the first time, let's try to keep spoilers to a minimum.)

A question - how did the one volume/week work for you? Was it doable, difficult, ridiculously easy? Do we want to stay with it or kick it up to two volumes a week (or down to chapters a week)?

Comments

[dancing_serpent]

One Volume /Week - easy thing. I'd like to keep it like that.

Ogata, oh my. I love that character so much and later he gets so attractive, it's hard for me not to wince at the early drawings. But yeah, part of what fascinates me about long manga (or comic) series is the artist's development.

I adored Sai right away, the panels that show him kind of floating over Hikaru are so beautiful.

Also, I love the recurring theme of "goban as universe".

[effex]

Mmm, yes - the stones as stars/board as plane of existence metaphor is really lovely and, I think, keeps the Hand of God thing from being completely ridiculous.

<3 Sai - there are so many ways to screw a character like him up (too annoying, too 2D, too serious) and they avoided all of them.

[dancing_serpent]

Sai annoyed me a bit in the anime because of the voice that was chosen for him - I read the manga first and imagined a soft bariton and not...uh, that. But in the manga he and Hikaru are my favourites.

[effex]

Yeeees, a nice baritone - something that would fit his image but be unmistakably male. I've scrubbed his anime voice from my memories.

[dancing_serpent]

Then I'll refrain from describing it in detail here. *g*

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

You're really right about how easy it would have been to screw up Sai... Having that pointed out to me makes this work seem all the more amazing.

[zanzando]

I agree about Ogata. He's one of my favourite characters, and whenever I re-read the first couple of manga, I have to squint a little so I don't have to see him clearly.

[effex]

Maybe Sai the excruciatingly pretty wasn't filling their handsome dudes needs? And the boys were all too young.

'cause seriously, the change is pretty drastic.

[dancing_serpent]

The boys may be a bit young at first, but later...I think a lot of them turned out very beautiful. Even Hikaru. *g*

[zanzando]

Sai is beautiful, but I suppose they needed a "cool" type older character. See also: Touya Koyo looking younger every time we see him.

[effex]

[nods] Yeah, I was just thinking that.

[zanzando]

I think Obata might have put in a bit more effort too when Ogata became a more important character *and* his own skill improved?

[dancing_serpent]

Well, I'm glad they decided so. ♥ Ogata - and yeah, you're right about Touya Kouyou, too. Looking forward to that...

[zanzando]

So am I. ♥

[dancing_serpent]

Oh yeah. I keep trying to substitute early-volume-Ogata with glinty-glasses-anime-Ogata to get over the *shudders*

[zanzando]

LOL I keep the pages where Ogata watches "that one game" online and takes off his glasses for a second nearby to cleanse the palate, so to say.

[effex]

I am commenting here so we'll hit 50 comments and the damn things will collapse already.

[onkoona]

Ogata, hum, not my favorite but he has his moments
http://img268.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=82770_vlcsnap_01037_123_75lo.jpg

[onkoona]

Ogata:


The good thing about the Anime is that it skips the more dorky drawing style of volume 1....