Hikaru no Go 16
July 5, 2009
I’ve been dreading this volume for a while now. As I said, last volume’s plot twist seems to me like a good place to wrap up the series (loose ends included… not quite as abrupt and upsetting as things were left there), but it continues for several more volumes. After the rather huge, plot-breaking revelation last volume, we get… almost an entire volume dedicated to Isumi training in China.
Maybe Isumi was a popular character in Japan. The pro tests seemed like they were some time ago, and he hasn’t really appeared frequently since then. Why the main story would break off in favor of pursuing a side story about a minor character overcoming self-esteem issues is a little mysterious, especially since… well, what happened last time was so huge, the repurcussions are still being talked about in this volume, and there are still a lot of unanswered questions.
It’s not as bad as I remembered it, though. As always, Isumi plays a lot of Go, and the competition and games are both interesting and fun, and the challenges he faces in China are quite a bit different than the ones that have been covered in the story in Japan so far. If you couldn’t tell, I’m not Isumi’s biggest fan, and I still found myself quite drawn into his quest for personal growth.
Poor Hikaru, though. He’s kind of going the opposite direction, and for good reason. I’m still pretty shocked that something so devastating happened. The story checks in periodically to confirm that he’s still forfeiting all his matches, but other than that, nothing much moves forward for him, and a lot of people are pretty angry about his slump. The new and improved Isumi shows up at the very end to help, though, so I think things will pick back up next volume.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
July 6, 2009 at 6:43 am
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