The Totally Epic HikaGo Reread - Vol. 13

[effex]

~Volume 13 of Hikaru no Go~

Chapters 105 - 113

Anyone else get caught flatfooted by OneManga's takedown? I knew it was coming, just... forgot the day. If folks need it, I'll poke around online and upload future volumes here.

Also, wow, 13 volumes. We're past the halfway mark!

Comments

Grabs!

[onkoona]

52-1
http://onkoona.livejournal.com/36219.html

52-2
http://onkoona.livejournal.com/36445.html

53-1
http://onkoona.livejournal.com/36858.html

53-2
http://onkoona.livejournal.com/36957.html

54-1
http://onkoona.livejournal.com/37254.html

54-2
http://onkoona.livejournal.com/37557.html

55-1
http://onkoona.livejournal.com/37675.html

55-2
http://onkoona.livejournal.com/37963.html

Re: Grabs!

[effex]

Was this the start of a new season of HikaGo? Hikaru suddenly looks like a 14 year old.

Re: Grabs!

[onkoona]

Not according to the start & end credits.
But they skipped from January to April, so they gave Hikaru an upgrade?
Boys do shoot up at some time in their growth... Not sure when though. I had thought that that was a little later, but maybe not.

Re: Grabs!

[onkoona]

He is 13+, birthday next September...

Sai vs Toya Koyo

[onkoona]

Man, I hate cliffhangers!

So I cheated and read the next 2 chapter too.

Re: Sai vs Toya Koyo

[effex]

[grins] Cliffhangers are evil, evil things.

Vol 13 - the content

[onkoona]

(Sorry, I really wasn't feeling like talking last night.)

* Hikaru in a suit & tie. With loafers. Arg.

*That Akira keeps publicly ignoring Hikaru like that again and again, must be a Japanese thing or something. It strikes me a super rude, but Akira is always polite, so I just don't get it...

*I dig why the plot cancels the game between Akira & Hikaru. Had they played now Hikaru could only have lost. He just isn't strong enough yet. And also when they play the tension between them that has been set up since vol 1 will be resolved, thus ending an very significant story line.
So not Akira vs Hikaru, just yet.

*The hospital scene
Okay that was a really well thought out but of plot keniving. I wish I could dream up plots this good.
Of course this is where the entire Manga has been working towards; this game between the Master and the Ghost. And what else comes from it (see next vol, 2nd chapter).

*I do think it was a mistake to spread the game itstelf out over two volumes; it reads better in one go. (no pun intended).
Getting glimpses of other folks, else where, is a good tension buildup device, but not so much if you then go to a cliffhanger and not the climax. IMHO anyway....

*Again bemoaning the fact that I don't know enough Go to follow the game. I'm sure there is enough there to follow it, if you have some Go experience, but helas I don't.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

Wow, no wonder I felt like I had skipped portions of the plot when reading this, and then wondered why you guys weren't talking about the major plot developments here - I HAD SKIPPED TWO VOLUMES. I feel like a major idiot now. *gets started on volume 13*

[effex]

Heh. No worries, these thing happen! My problem's usually with skimming - I'll read quickly through bits that don't *seem* to be important to the plot (because my other problem is leaving it to the last minute) and then have to go back and reread [grins].

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

Finished the volume late last night, but waited until today to post.
- I don't think I've ever seen Hikaru as angry as he was in that last panel on page 23. It honestly seems like a new emotion for him. I wonder what got him just so riled up - it's not like he hasn't been passed by by Akira before. Maybe just because he always felt that being pro was when he would first actually *deserve* acknowledgement?
- The best part of being a pro? Tea's perpared ahead of time for you and placed right next to your goban!
- Loved the shaking hands when Hikaru was preparing for his first *real* game against Akira.
- Chapter 107's title, "Kokuhaku". The shipper in me stupidly squees.
- Ogata's stolen glances at not!Sai while he's talking to Touya Meijin about net go are really amusing, in a sort of dramatic way.
- The Meijin's insistence on retiring if Sai beats him has me seriously thinking that he expects he has a good chance of losing, and that really he's just looking for an excuse to retire, either because of health/family, or perhaps because he's worried that he'll lose his fifth game against Ogata and wants to retire without actually losing the title to him. (I can't remember if he ever plays that fifth game.)
- The dramatic shading of the Meijin's face on the bottom panel of page 90 amuses me.
- I want to make a comment about how Westerners are always drawn relatively buffoon-like in manga, but then again we have Kuwabara-sensei and Kurata-sensei, so...
- It's interesting that Akira's mom doesn't call him Akira-san when talking with his father... I also get this sense that Akira's mom and dad aren't particularly close, but that may just be an accurate portrayal of how more traditional Japanese married couples interact.
- Page 129, last panel, with Hikaru trudging up the stairs with his head hung and a scribble for a speech bubble... Priceless. But he seems relaxed enough once they get to his room.
- That jacket Akira's wearing seems to fashionable for him. Did someone take him clothes shopping? (Or maybe it's just as bad as his usual attire and I'm just not realizing it.)
- Akira's flashbacks to being in the ambulance with his dad and mom seem to show that he really does care for his family. Which I suppose is only natural, but it's still nice to see that they're not just a "family of convenience".
- That part where Sai's body "passed through" Hikaru's was kind of creepy, in a good way.
- DRAMATIC SLEEVE REARRANGEMENT! Although I could swear I heard the sound of the whipping cloth.
- We have this entire conversation between Waya and his mom, yet they don't show his mom's face once. With as many minor characters as this series has, I find it hard to believe that that was just laziness on Obata's part. I think they were really trying to show us once again how disconnected people in the professional go world (or at least teenagers in general) can be from their parents.
- Even more dramatic shading on the bottom panel of 171, and of a totally random character at that. ^^;
- I like how Akira was at first just amusedly and politely observing his father's game online on the bottom panel of 191. "Yup, he's my father. Everyone's fascinated by his games. How's your game goin', father?" Which of course provided a great foil for his reaction when he realized his father was playing Sai.