Shonen manga: SRZ BUSINESS!

[dancing_moon]

I got book 1 of Hikaru no Go yesterday and read through it. It looks really different from the end parts, which is the ones I've seen most. I mean, the art is very polished compared to a lot of other first-volumes of long series, probably because it's drawn by Takeshi Obata (Death Note, Bakuman) who is always very polished. But the character design evolves over time and it's odd to see the very start of a story when you mostly recall the look from the late middle to the end

Hikaru no Go is about a guy named Hikaru and how he learns to play go (surprise!)

And he plays go quite seriously, but not as seriously as Sai. Who is a 1000-year old ghost who's attached themselves to Hikaru so that he can *drumroll* play go! Hey, who needs nirvana when you can play board games?

this is what I like about this type of manga, that they acknowledge and play with the devotion people can develop for just about anything. Board games, baking, cooking, sports, racing, tea ceremony, comics, ballet, acting... Whatever; in a manga, anything can be an object of fannish devotion and at least within the manga, it's usually portrayed as something positive. Yes, there are parody manga showing what happens when you've gone too far into obsession, but most of the time, sincere devotion to any subject under the sun is a good thing. And that's an ideal I can get behind