Read Online A Gathering of Spirits: Japan's Ghost Story Tradition: From Folklore and Kabuki to Anime and Manga by Patrick Drazen - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Patrick Drazen
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own. This is another example of a common theme in Japanese pop culture: young people would do well to look to their history and revive the arts and traditions of the past.
The shifting relationship between Hikaru and Sai is the backbone of the series. Sai is eager to return to his roles as player and teacher, and sometimes throws Hikaru in over his head. But, as Hikaru gains understanding of go, he begins to assert himself, needing Sai’s guidance less and less (although Hikaru is perfectly capable of getting himself in too deep at times). This leaves Sai with decidedly mixed feelings: pleased that the pupil is successful, but uneasy about his new place in this new Japan once Hikaru no longer needs him. But that’s a much later installment in the story.
While Hikaru and Sai seem an unlikely couple brought together by fate, the similarly unlikely team that created the manga was brought together by an editor at Shonen Jump . Like Hikaru, writer Yumi Hotta knew little about go, but, while playing a game one time against her father-in-law, she thought that a manga about go had possibilities. She drafted a scenario and sent it to Shonen Jump ’s annual Story King Award. It didn’t win—and neither did the artwork of Takeshi Obata, who was a runner-up for the Tezuka-Akatsuka Award, also sponsored by Shonen Jump . An editor assigned to Obata found Hotta’s story, and realized that the two artists would complement each other. The addition of go master Yukari Umezawa as a technical advisor completed the creative team.
The manga debuted in late 1998 and ran for 189 episodes, giving rise to a popular 75-episode anime series broadcast on Japanese television from 2001 to 2003. Once the series ended, Obata struck gold with the popular, edgier manga series Death Note .
Entertaining as well as educational, Hikaru no Go also inspired what one writer called a “micro-renaissance” for go in Japan and other Asian countries, even generating interest in go in the United States. It’s a tribute to the manga/anime that, since the series appeared, anime conventions in America, in addition to spaces for screening anime, playing video games, and selling and displaying fan artwork, usually set a room aside as a go parlor.
Sai is certainly one of the most “kid-friendly” ghosts, in every sense of that word. Knowledgeable yet emotional, wise and naïve at the same time, understanding of both the game of go and the way to think while playing it, he is a ghost who poses no threat at all to Hikaru.
xxx
In another story from the anime series Gakkou no Kaidan [22] , the suicidal ghost is hardly as benevolent as Sai.
21. The Da Vinci Code
“Da Vinci” is the name given to a ghost, formerly an art teacher who had killed himself, haunting the art studio at the Miyanoshita family’s old elementary school. He had been imprisoned in a painting of the old school building by a talented student artist: Satsuki’s mother. Fortunately, she left a diary detailing all of the ghosts and spirits she’d subdued and how; unfortunately, the book is a little too full. Satsuki didn’t have a chance to read that, if anyone painted the same scene that Da Vinci had, the ghost might be free to strike again. When he strikes, he paints a picture of someone (usually a pretty girl) who’s never heard from again.
The next day, the entire school knows about Da Vinci: overnight, bloody red paint has dripped out of the studio window in the painting of the old school building. Something similar happens to the real old school; the principal goes in to investigate what he thinks is rain water, and the kids watch the principal—until they realize that a student named Momoko is missing. Da Vinci has apparently selected her to be his next model.
The notebook says that Da Vinci can be put to sleep by burning incense and chanting a spell; unfortunately, they have no incense and the spell is smudged. The kids get a little help from other ghosts in the school: the
The shifting relationship between Hikaru and Sai is the backbone of the series. Sai is eager to return to his roles as player and teacher, and sometimes throws Hikaru in over his head. But, as Hikaru gains understanding of go, he begins to assert himself, needing Sai’s guidance less and less (although Hikaru is perfectly capable of getting himself in too deep at times). This leaves Sai with decidedly mixed feelings: pleased that the pupil is successful, but uneasy about his new place in this new Japan once Hikaru no longer needs him. But that’s a much later installment in the story.
While Hikaru and Sai seem an unlikely couple brought together by fate, the similarly unlikely team that created the manga was brought together by an editor at Shonen Jump . Like Hikaru, writer Yumi Hotta knew little about go, but, while playing a game one time against her father-in-law, she thought that a manga about go had possibilities. She drafted a scenario and sent it to Shonen Jump ’s annual Story King Award. It didn’t win—and neither did the artwork of Takeshi Obata, who was a runner-up for the Tezuka-Akatsuka Award, also sponsored by Shonen Jump . An editor assigned to Obata found Hotta’s story, and realized that the two artists would complement each other. The addition of go master Yukari Umezawa as a technical advisor completed the creative team.
The manga debuted in late 1998 and ran for 189 episodes, giving rise to a popular 75-episode anime series broadcast on Japanese television from 2001 to 2003. Once the series ended, Obata struck gold with the popular, edgier manga series Death Note .
Entertaining as well as educational, Hikaru no Go also inspired what one writer called a “micro-renaissance” for go in Japan and other Asian countries, even generating interest in go in the United States. It’s a tribute to the manga/anime that, since the series appeared, anime conventions in America, in addition to spaces for screening anime, playing video games, and selling and displaying fan artwork, usually set a room aside as a go parlor.
Sai is certainly one of the most “kid-friendly” ghosts, in every sense of that word. Knowledgeable yet emotional, wise and naïve at the same time, understanding of both the game of go and the way to think while playing it, he is a ghost who poses no threat at all to Hikaru.
xxx
In another story from the anime series Gakkou no Kaidan [22] , the suicidal ghost is hardly as benevolent as Sai.
21. The Da Vinci Code
“Da Vinci” is the name given to a ghost, formerly an art teacher who had killed himself, haunting the art studio at the Miyanoshita family’s old elementary school. He had been imprisoned in a painting of the old school building by a talented student artist: Satsuki’s mother. Fortunately, she left a diary detailing all of the ghosts and spirits she’d subdued and how; unfortunately, the book is a little too full. Satsuki didn’t have a chance to read that, if anyone painted the same scene that Da Vinci had, the ghost might be free to strike again. When he strikes, he paints a picture of someone (usually a pretty girl) who’s never heard from again.
The next day, the entire school knows about Da Vinci: overnight, bloody red paint has dripped out of the studio window in the painting of the old school building. Something similar happens to the real old school; the principal goes in to investigate what he thinks is rain water, and the kids watch the principal—until they realize that a student named Momoko is missing. Da Vinci has apparently selected her to be his next model.
The notebook says that Da Vinci can be put to sleep by burning incense and chanting a spell; unfortunately, they have no incense and the spell is smudged. The kids get a little help from other ghosts in the school: the
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