ヒカルの碁 volume 1

 

I finished volume 1 of ヒカルの碁！A long time ago, I've read the first 4 or 5 volumes in German. I was fascinated by the story and the board game Go. (I even bought a Go set and played a bit) Somehow I never bought the other volumes … which I later regretted… T^T Now, many years later, reading this manga in Japanese is a very special experience to me.

(Very light) spoiler warning: In the following, I want to highlight some aspects of the story and characters. I tried to be as vague as possible to avoid clear spoilers. I didn’t describe specific events but just in case you definitely don’t want to know anything before you read the manga yourself you probably should not read the following text.

The manga is quite old, but the drawings are still excellent in my opinion. I like, how the main character Hikaru slowly changes his opinion about the board game Go (it's usually not very popular among young people; or at least not among Hikaru's peers). In the beginning, he is a bit arrogant and selfish boy (in a childish way). Some of his remarks are quite rude. He’s not really a mean character, but he often speaks without thinking (like many boys this age). That’s why he unintentionally offends people or hurts their feelings. But he gradually learns from his mistakes and becomes a bit more compassionate. Or in other words, he matures over time.

Another character I really like is Hikaru’s rival, Akira. He is quite the exact opposite of Hikaru: very polite, friendly, well mannered, privileged and — most importantly — an extremely good Go player. This is no coincidence since his father is a professional Go player who earned several titles and who taught Akira from a very young age. The manga shows his perspective aka what it means to be perceived as a "genius“. From the outside, it seems like a good thing: All the praise and attention. But there is also rumors, envy, hate, loneliness, …

I really like that the story also shows his perspective because this is something that is often overlooked in real life. Someone who reached a high level in a certain area is often called "talented“ or "genius“ but people don’t see that these "geniuses“ had to work very hard (often from a very young age) to get that good. They’ve spent a great amount of time practicing and had to sacrifice other things. Their childhood was very different compared to other kids. Plus, just because they are perceived as talented because of their skill doesn’t mean they live a perfect happy life without any problems. They are humans with feelings and faults like everyone else, after all.

(Possible spoilers end)

Another thing I like about the manga is, that it shows the beauty of Go and conveys the passion of the people who play this game. It's really impressive, how a good manga can spark interest for something you didn't even know that it exist. (In Germany, I think everyone knows what chess is but people who heard about Go are rare.)

I expected this manga to be difficult to understand because of the Go related vocabulary and the game rules. Now that I’ve read volume 1, I can say that it is a bit difficult but once I got used to the most important words, overall this volume was not as difficult as I expected. This is only the beginning, of course. I vaguely remember parts of later volumes that will probably be more difficult to understand because of the complexity of the story.