 |
Hikaru no Go Fan Fic
Hikaru no Go is a manga and anime(Japanese comic and cartoon). The basic story...
While exploring his grandfather's shed, Hikaru stumbles across a Go board haunted by the spirit of Fujiwara-no-Sai, a fictional Go player from the Heian era. Sai wishes to play Go again, having not been able to since the late Edo period, when he possessed the body of Hon'inbō Shūsaku, an actual Go player of that period. Sai's greatest desire is to attain the Kami-no-Itte – "Divine Move", or the "Hand of God" – a perfect game. Hikaru is the only person who can perceive him, Sai inhabits a part of Hikaru's mind as a separate personality, coexisting, although not always comfortably, with the child.
Urged by Sai, Hikaru begins playing Go despite a lack of interest in the game. He begins by mimicking the moves Sai dictates to him, but Sai tells him to try to understand each move. In a Go salon, Hikaru defeats Akira Toya, a boy his age who plays Go at professional level, by following Sai's instruction. Akira subsequently begins a quest to discover the source of Hikaru's strength, an obsession which will come to dominate his life.
Hikaru becomes intrigued by the great dedication of Akira and Sai to the game and decides to start playing solely on his own. He is a complete novice at first, but has some unique abilities to his advantage; for instance, once he has a basic understanding of Go, he can reconstruct a game play by play from memory. Through training at Go clubs, study groups, and practice games with Sai, he manages to become an insei and later a pro, meeting various dedicated Go players of different ages and styles along the way. While Hikaru is at this point not yet up to the level of Akira, he demonstrates a natural talent for the game and remains determined to prove his own abilities to Akira, Sai, and himself.
A bit about Go (Igo-Japanese, Wiq-Chinese, Baduk-Korean)...
Go is played by two players alternately placing black and white stones on the vacant intersections of a line grid. The objective of the game is to control a larger part of the board than the opponent.
There are only three main rules of Go.
* Two players (black and white) take turns, placing one stone on the board at a time.
* A stone must be placed on the intersection of the vertical and horizontal lines.
* Once a stone is placed, you can't move it, although under some conditions it may be removed.
They are just too easy, aren't they?
Now, you understand half the rules of Go!
Go was considered a part of martial arts in ancient times. The ancient warriors studied Go to improve their mental conditioning. Go practice will increase your ability of better concentration, focus, and understanding of the principle of strategy. The great Art of Go was developed along with Martial Arts and Eastern Medicine in Korea, Japan and China.
Views on Go...
. . . [it is] something unearthly . . . If there are sentient beings on other planets, then they play Go.
Emanuel Lasker, chess grandmaster
Go is to Western chess what philosophy is to double entry accounting.
From Shibumi, bestseller by Trevanian
Those interested in impressing others with their intelligence play chess. Those who would settle for being chic play backgammon. Those who wish to become individuals of quality, take up Go.
Microcomputer Executive and an expert player, when asked to compare Go with other games
Go uses the most elemental materials and concepts -- line and circle, wood and stone, black and white -- combining them with simple rules to generate subtle strategies and complex tactics that stagger the imagination.
Iwamoto Kaoru, 9-dan professional Go player and former Honinbo title holder
Unlike chess and its different pieces and complicated rules, Go is played with black and white stones equal in value, seemingly making it compatible with the binary nature of computers. Since the aim of a move is to control the most territory, the optimal move yields the maximum amount of territory -- a simple counting procedure and a chore computers excel at. Yet in spite of the efforts of the world's best programmers over the last 30 years, the level of computer Go remains about that of a human who has studied Go for a month.
Richard Bozulich
Studying go is a wonderful way to develop both the creative as well as the logical abilities of children because to play it both sides of the brain are necessary.
Cho Chikun, among the world's strongest players and one of the three great prodigies in Go history
The difference between a stone played on one intersection rather than on an adjacent neighbor is insignificant to the uninitiated. The master of Go, though, sees it as all the difference between a flower and a cinderblock. Certain plays resonate with a balletic grace, others clunk, hopelessly awkward, and to fail at making the distinction is a bit like confusing the ping of a Limoges platter with the clink of a Burger King Smurfs tumbler.
From The Challenge of Go: Esoteric Granddaddy of Board Games, by Dave Lowry
That play of black upon white, white upon black, has the intent and takes the form of creative art. It has in it a flow of the spirit and a harmony of music. Everything is lost when suddenly a false note is struck, or one party in a duet suddenly launches forth on an eccentric flight of his own. A masterpiece of a game can be ruined by insensitivity to the feelings of an adversary.
From The Master of Go, by Yasunari Kawabata, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature
There are Oriental folk tales reminiscent of Rip Van Winkle in which people have been stopped by an old man [one of the Immortals], played a game of Go, and upon getting up from the board have found a hundred years have gone by. This purely mental aspect of the game is in its intellectual dynamic. These Chinese had seen it as encompassing the principles of nature and the universe and of human life, as the diversion of the immortals, a game of abundant spiritual powers.
From The Game of Go, by Robert Buss
You're striving for harmony, and, if you try to take too much, you'll come to grief.
Michael Redmond, American Go player when 23 years old and already a 5-dan professional
About three hundred years ago an eminent Chinese monk came to Japan on a visit and was shown the diagram of a game of Go which a master of that time had recently played. Without knowing anything of the game save the sketchy description they gave him, the monk studied the moves as shown on the record, and after a few moments remarked with much admiration and respect that the player must have been a man who had become enlightened, which was indeed the case. It is interesting to note that this story is told on the one hand by Go players to illustrate the quality of the game and on the other hand by Buddhists to show the acuity of the monk from China.
From Go and the Three Games, by William Pinckard
The board is a mirror of the mind of the players as the moments pass. When a master studies the record of a game he can tell at what point greed overtook the pupil, when he became tired, when he fell into stupidity, and when the maid came by with tea.
Anonymous Go player
Beyond being merely a game, to enthusiasts Go can take on other meanings: of a nature analogous with life, an intense meditation, a mirror of one's personality, an exercise in abstract reasoning, or, when played well, a beautiful art in which Black and White dance across the board in delicate balance.
Terry Benson
There are on the Go board 360 intersections plus one. The number one is supreme and gives rise to the other numbers because it occupies the ultimate position and governs the four quarters. 360 represents the number of days in the [lunar] year. The division of the Go board into four quarters symbolizes the four seasons. The 72 points on the circumference represent the [five-day] weeks of the [Chinese lunar] calendar. The balance of Yin and Yang is the model for the equal division of the 360 stones into black and white.
From The Classic of Go, by Chang Nui (Published between 1049 and 1054)
If you want to learn more about go I suggest these websites:
http://www.gokgs.com/tutorial/1.html
http://playgo.to/interactive/
http://www.kiseido.com/ff.htm
http://senseis.xmp.net/?PagesForBeginners
http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/lesson/index2-e.htm
The Fanfic...
I do not own said characters, well except the ones I make up. Ask me and you can probably play with them too. (Not that I have made any characters up in this realm of fan fic yet.)
I welcome all comments, prejudices, and flamage. Go ahead flame me I can take the heat, but do not expect a response (I rarely return e-mails).
Hand of God: Crossover between Hikaru no Go/Death Note, G Rated 454 words created for a challenge to cross the two worlds. Hikaru is at a Go Salon when he learns about Kira.
Journal Entries: Hikaru's feelings about Sai
Boards: The differences and similarities between boards. It starts out on the water... I don't know where it will end up, but we travel throughout different areas of Japan. Look at different boards and how they change a character, or stack up to igo, or... well you'll just have to wait for the other chapters. Takes place after Hokuto. (Again I may or may not continue it.)
home
Hand of God
Journal Entries
Boards
Send E-Mail to: blndsn8ke@yahoo.com
Copyright © 2008 . All Rights Reserved