The Totally Epic HikaGo Reread - Vol. 8

[effex]

~Volume 8 of Hikaru no Go~

Chapters 61 - 69 + Bonus Chapter

Hurray!

Comments

[effex]

* I love Kadowaki's fashion sense. And his nose. You rock it, Kadowaki!

* Hikaru... winking over your shoulder at empty air is gonna make people wonder about you. More than they are already. Sai sure looks happy, though.

*Awww, '1000 years' with the double thumbs up. I really like this scene, even though poor Kadowiki gets thrashed.

* Kuwabara-sensei really is kinda an asshole. Not that Ogata doesn't deserve it.

* [facepalm] Hikaru, Pro Level Go exams are the kind of thing you tell your family about . Also, that is no way to talk to your mother.

* Yay yay yay the pro exams are almost here!

guess what; I do have a life!

[onkoona]

A little later than usual:
the sreengrabs!

29-3
http://onkoona.livejournal.com/20680.html


30-1
http://onkoona.livejournal.com/20918.html

30-2
http://onkoona.livejournal.com/21209.html

Hikaru no Go screengrabs: Opening & Closing S2
http://onkoona.livejournal.com/21409.html

31-1
http://onkoona.livejournal.com/21552.html

31-2
http://onkoona.livejournal.com/21807.html

32-1
http://onkoona.livejournal.com/22163.html

32-2
http://onkoona.livejournal.com/22405.html

32-3
http://onkoona.livejournal.com/22682.html

33-1
http://onkoona.livejournal.com/23026.html

[onkoona]

I keep thinking letting Sai play Kadowaki is so going to bite Hikaru in the ass, some years from now....

But loved the look on Kadowaki's face when he realised he was got whooped by a mere insei!



I must admit I really don't like the squence with beardzilla, I understand why it is there but the first time around was good enough for me.

[onkoona]

Kuwabara & Ogata: nice mind fuck Kuwabara-sensei!
I think it did cost Ogata in the end.

Hikaru's home life is interesting by it's total voidness. I don't know if that is modern Japanese life (I have seen exactly this in Japanese life action shows) or our writers are extremely not interested in Hikaru's back ground (which seems to be true for most of the character in this Manga; they all have vague backgrounds except Akari and oddly enough Kaga)
So I dunno....


(picture of Sai for no reason whatsoever)

[effex]

Yeah, that's the kind of loose thread that can pop up when you least expect it. Go for it, Kadowaki-san!

Oh, Godzillabeard. If you have to fuck with middle schoolers to pass your pro prelims you're maybe not cut out for the big leagues.

[effex]

Oh yeah, you know it cost him sleep. Tsk, Kuwabara-sensei!

Hikaru... yeah. He completely ditches his family and homelife for Go. I wonder why? I mean, it doesn't look like it was an unloving or abusive home, so why the complete detachment (so young)? Meh, maybe he's better about it when he gets older.

Re: guess what; I do have a life!

[effex]

lol, Hikaru's face during these episodes. The anime does an okay job with the others, but Hikaru always seems a little off...

[onkoona]

How ever I do understand the point here, together with Kuwabara's well exicuted mind fuck, and having read some of the real life rules for Go playing at tournaments (= full of nitpicking rules and too obvious for words rules), that such mindfucks happen in competitive Go.

At least Sai strongly disaproved, but he was not fast enough to be of any help here.
IMHO Sai's too passive, throughout the entire Manga.

[onkoona]

Hikaru just has nothing in common with his family, and I don't think he ever did.
At least they're not forcing him to become somthing he's not....

Re: guess what; I do have a life!

[onkoona]

I'm afraid I saw the Anime first, so I can't judge that...

[effex]

Mmm... I think he's forgotten how to be a person (in relationships with other people) - 900+ years thinking about Go non-stop, your non-go-related personality bits slowly fading away, and suddenly there's this kid with, like, normal kid issues. Confidence, self-esteem, stubborness, lack of tact, etc. Sai might be feeling out of his depth.

[effex]

True! They're confused, but at least they're letting him do his own thing.

Re: guess what; I do have a life!

[effex]

That, on the other hand, is a great Hikaru face <3

[onkoona]

And he's totally helpless to do anything, to affect anything in the real world.
I'm supprised he isn't totaly dressed; his situations is down right impossible!

[onkoona]

That, I understand is also a Japanese family thing; young people may do their own thing untill age 25, then they have to settle down and become 'normal'.

(= picture of fish)

[effex]

[nods] It's gotta be the obsession that's kept him going (and maybe he slept? Sort of? While haunting the goban). It make me want to do more research into Japanese folklore and figure out how he'd fit into it.

Re: guess what; I do have a life!

[onkoona]

How about this one?:


At least Sai is always correct.
And decorative.

Re: guess what; I do have a life!

[effex]

lol, decorative. Yes. With bonus purple hair! [pets it]

[onkoona]

Yes I always wondered about the length of time he spent in that first Goban before he met Torajiro. (850 years!)
Was there no-one worthy enough so he could haunt them in the interveening years?
Very unlikely.

Re: guess what; I do have a life!

[onkoona]

And purle eyes.
And purple lips.
And his pale skin (for a Japanese...)

IMHO Sai's coloring is like that because he's a ghost. When he was alive he looked a little more normal, or so I'd like to think...

[lacygrey]

Sai does look really happy here. (wonders if the scantilation will still be there for long)
The Sai-Kadowaki game seems harmless enough and Hikaru thinks it doesn’t matter - though of course it does to Kadowaki.
The long and short of it is that Hikaru ends up with one less strong competitor for the prelims and pro exam this year, so perhaps its not so unimportant. Sai was helping him pass an just an incy-wincy bit there!

[effex]

So happy! And huh, you're right - if Kadowaki had been in the prelims chances are good Hikaru wouldn't have gotten the automatic win (not that he'd play against Kadowaki in the end, just that the number would be thrown off).

Re: guess what; I do have a life!

[effex]

Aahhhhh, good point - he is colored like a ghost. Is he any different in the flashbacks? Not that it would matter if he didn't, his memory of himself-as-alive has got to be pretty faint.

Re: guess what; I do have a life!

[onkoona]

In the flashbacks he's seen in odd light only:

in Autumn


at that fatefull game


in the moonlight, just before he kills himself

[onkoona]

Oh yes, but that was clear wasn't it?
Kadowaki is pretty much garenteed to pass next time, and that means in less than two years Hikaru can be facing him in the dan games....
And it'll be Akira at the Jr High tournament all over again!

Linking

[lacygrey]

I'm going to be linking to your Hikago re-read in some posts at LJ.
I noticed in your top-of-journal message that you prefer people let you know when they are about to do this, but take it that you don't mind as its kind of plugging your journal.

I didn't do too well at the real time thing on the re-read this week (had company that night) but its cool when it works ^_^

[lacygrey]

Do we learn much more about Akari's home life other than that she has a sister and a dog?
I was glad we learnt a bit more about Kaga's background, it made me more sympathetic towards him - he's otherwise pretty threatening when he first appears, especially in the manga where he's allowed to smoke ^_^ and he hasn't got that soft voice the actor gives him in the anime.

[onkoona]

Whoops typo, I meant Akira, of course.
Really you should know better than to leave a dyslectic in charge...

I do feel that most of the characters live in a vacuum, unless and until, their background is need for the story.

I mean honestly! We know more about Akira than we do Hikaru! And about Sai we only know his Heian fairy tale and some historical facts about Shuusaku.

And all personal histories are go related, like no-one was born or married or had fun (without go). The only death we see is Sai's and Shuusaku's.

Re: guess what; I do have a life!

[lacygrey]

Looking through your screen caps, I decided that they reveal moments of the anime that I'd never noticed - because the pictures are part of a motion sequence when something else is important. Taken alone some of them are quite strange and funny if you imagine that you don't know what's going on.

What would you think of the idea of suggesting to use some as writing prompts in the drabble challenge?

Re: guess what; I do have a life!

[lacygrey]

There is a color plate in the manga where Sai appears just as much of a healthy peachy skin tone as Hikaru and the others, so I agree that part of his anime look was to make him more ghostly.

I had a similar conversation with ontogenesis on whether Sai wears lipstick.

Re: guess what; I do have a life!

[onkoona]

Sounds like a marvelous idea!
Go for it!

I do try, when making the grabs, to jab the button at the right instance to get a nice representative picture, but you know, I sometimes fail...

Re: guess what; I do have a life!

[onkoona]

I think he probably isn't wearing lipstick for the simple reason that in the Heian period, make-up was very basic. Rise paint for whitening the face, charcoal (mixed in a oil based something) to draw eye brows and some sort of red juice for lips? And all that only for the women.

What is more interesting is those earstuds he's wearing.
That was not a Heian style. In fact, earrings are not even a Japanese style (throughout the ages).
So where did they come from?