I never knew I wanted a Go master ghost from the Heian period to haunt me until I read Hikaru no Go.
I am not a shounen reader at all, in fact I kind of dislike it overall, but the author's storytelling ability was so great that it pulled me into the story and got me invested into the characters. I usually hate competitions/power-up kind of stories but omg, I totally hyperventilated when Touya Menji faced off with Sai. It was so awesome!
And come on, Sai is just so adorable. I really like his character development because there's actually development in his character. Usually, in mangas that have a supernatural character following the main character, the supernatural character never gets developed and only serves as a plot device. Every time, Sai defends Hikaru even though he knows others cannot hear him or gets hurt over the possibility of not being able to play go anymore, my heart tugs a little; I seriously wanted to give him a hug. I almost cried when he disappeared. The only thing that stopped me was that the way he left was appropriate for his character journey. After Sai disappeared, a clear void can be felt in the manga, but that just means how awesome Sai is and how central he is to the story.
The unusual friendship between Hikaru and Sai, the friendly rivalry between Hikaru and Akira (who totally looks like that one guy in Spirited Away) are also the highlights of the series. I really like Akira's character too; and the rivalry between him and Hikaru are really good. Akira cared for Hikaru's go playing and vice versa. I don't know why but I feel so nostalgic whenever I see both of them in a scene together discussing go. This is friendly rivalry done right, you hear me Naruto?
I do feel a little bit...off at the ending. After I read the end, I was like "What? It ended?" I had to double checked to make sure if there's more besides the two special chapters. There were some unresolved issues that it makes it seem like this manga got an ax from the publisher and so the author had to ended it prematurely even though he set the manga up to be more.
Edit: I just looked it up and apparently the series was suspended because Korean fans were upset at how one of the Korean Hokuto cup contestants was portrayed. Apparently, it was supposed to end in Japan's win, resulting in a tie across the board, which totally makes more sense. But the publisher interfered, made Japan lost, and suspended the manga. That's one of the reasons why in the end of chapter 189, the last page says "Hokuto Cup end" not "The End." This explains the feeling I had when I was reading chapter 189. The author is really good. He made chapter 189 worked as both an arc's end and series end upon such misfortune. I think that the way it ended was apt (connecting the past and the future, new generation succeeding), but how it got there was totally ruined by some unreasonable protesting.
The last chapter was "I Call Out to You," so maybe it was a call out to us. Like how Sai called out Hikaru in the beginning, someone, whether it's Hikaru or someone else, called out to us.
It's such a shame that the manga had to end suddenly due to some crazy outside work. It literally pains me whenever I think about the lost potential. Imagine the last line "Can you hear? Can you hear my voice?" uttered at the right time, after loose ties were ended, and more tribute was paid to Sai. Man, that would have been epic.
Oh well, I still really like it though. The fact that it made me be able to read 189 chapters shounen in one sitting by staying up for 36 hours and to forget to breath for a second just so I could witness the intensity of a scene is enough for me to give it a 10, abrupt ending or not.
Edit: Wow, I just realized the artist for this manga is also the artist for Death Note, one of the other few shounen I like. Interesting connection.
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