when injuries lie chronic Wednesday, Jul 23 2008

Since I beat Minesweeper the other day I had not played it seriously until now. I have already lost my touch. Similarly math that I had mastered a month ago has fled my mind. Anime I watched earlier in the day I could not name the characters from. Such is the color of my life, that which I do not hold fast to my breast disappears.

Oh well.

Over the past few days I’ve been watching the Shion no Ou anime series which is basically about a little mute girl playing shougi. Similarly the 81 diver live action drama series has now ended, it took a different route compared to the manga series… probably. Honestly I haven’t watched the whole thing it just seemed that way, I do not disapprove. 81 diver is also about shougi but it’s a lot whackier, I prefer it frankly.

It is unclear to me whether or not the Shion no Ou manga has ended or not. I’m pretty sure that it has indeed ended at 8 volumes but the last chapter of the manga in the 8th volume didn’t seem explicit to me. Then again I just glanced at so perhaps when I review it fully it will be clear. It seems like the manga and the anime have almost exactly the same plot but I am not positive about that.

Let me take this opportunity to restate that I do not know how to play Shougi. Both Shion no Ou and 81 Diver are probably poor introductory works to the game as you have protagonists that are supposed to be really good at it. As opposed to Hikaru no Go where you learn about Go with Hikaru and quite likely any number of other manga works out there about asian games including go, mahjong, and shogi. Umm I think there’s another game that japanese people play that starts with an R but I don’t recall it right now and it’s inconsequential.

Anyway I had been under the impression that Shion no Ou was a series more along the lines of “Ayatsuri Sakon” (can’t recall the full title, possibly “karakuri zoushi ayatsuri sakon) where you had a wonky protagonist who was a genius and solved murders. That is not it at all, there is a murder case at the heart of the story in Shion no Ou but it doesn’t seem like Shion solves it herself. If anything she is the main obstacle to solving the case. So that said the series has dark overtones but this is usually washed out by how insipidly sweet it is most of the time.

In the end I would say that most elements of the plot obsolete themselves as they end out being totally pointless in the end. The murderer is exactly who you thought it was in the first episode, having a male character cross dressing just to give shion a love interest that is in her day to day life was also pointless. I would have preferred if Ayumi would have just been a “bad bitch” character with a soft spot for Shion. Or what the hell why not shoujo ai? this is the 00s after all.

So, since I don’t know shougi it isn’t easy for me to follow along with the games but it often seems like they breeze through them as well. I am uncertain how many moves there are in a typical shougi game, I thought 1-200 and that would surely take longer than 20 minutes to show while interspersed with melodramatic inner dialogue so that’s understandable but… I just never have any idea how it’s going aside from the comments from the “gallery”. Which is a low point for this series as it is for any “sports” series but since I find it necessary it does not grate on me. Maybe I only understand go because all the pieces are the same and you just have 2 different colors, who the hell knows and that is neither here nor there.

Well I will give a review on the show after I finish watching it, I will check out the manga in more depth as well, at least the 8th volume. I might have heard the manga would get released in america but that seems unlikely.

Some other time I will speculate on the qualities one needs to possess in order to be a master of games like shougi and other such games which might give you an idea why you suck at chess so much. Actually I might have all but 2 of the qualities needed to be a chess master but I am so deficient in those 2 that I can’t seem to beat anybody at it. Playing a chess game on the lowest difficulty and always having to give up is pretty demoralizing too. Yeah I may have never beaten anyone at chess in my life. At least I’ve beaten a couple of people online at Go… though it has been a long time. Oh well.

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gin (the japanese word for gold and a shougi piece) for the win Wednesday, May 14 2008

Not to make a big deal out of it but of all things 柴田ヨクサル Shibata Yokusaru’s (best known for Air Master) most recent work ハチワンダイバー (81 Diver=hachi one diver from the 81 squares on the shougi board and the main character’s self-styled play name) which is basically about the japanese board game shougi has been turned into a live action drama. The series is apparently much more popular than I’d have guessed for that to come to pass. Frankly the manga is pretty screwy and even though I know nothing of consequence about shougi I read it and am amused by how ridiculous it is which is Shibata’s signature. The art seems to have taken a hit in the quality department lately but that could be my imagination.

Anyway the live action version is alright but you just can’t capture the ridiculous art of Shibata in live action. They also couldn’t find a girl for the female protagonist “ukeshi-san” who has breasts anywhere near as large as the manga character. This is understandable but they could have at least padded her out or something for the comedic effect. Actually the manga character is somewhat more full figured as well now that I think of it. The main character is as much of a lame duck as ever.

And by the way now that my japanese has recently gotten better (trying to translate a video game can do that) I finally figured out the starting premise. The protagonist was what you might call a “pre-pro” shougi player, if you’re at all familiar with Hikaru no Go and the go ranking system there it’s comparable for shougi as far as I know. Anyway I think he was 3rd-dan (rank) but you need to be 4th-dan to be a real pro and… he didn’t make it for varying reasons. So he leaves his master and starts gambling on shougi. He manages to amass a fair amount of money but different things happen and as the series goes on he gets pulled more and more into the strange shougi underworld with its colorful cast of characters.

This series isn’t what I’d call a hardcore gambling series compared to the likes of Akagi and the other works by Fukumoto Nobuyuki in which the yakuza are a large factor and things are really dangerous. Unfortunately as of the 6th volume the series has been setting itself up for the likes of super enemies and competitive tournaments but if all is good then it will just keep going on like it has. I’m curious exactly how they’ll play certain things from the manga out in the anime, I can’t see a transition for the doll guy or the shougi video game. It would be nice if they did things differently but heaven forbid they come up with something original.

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