Hikaru no Go
Hikaru no Go, 고스트 바둑왕, 棋魂
Hikaru no Go (ヒカルの碁 lit. "Hikaru's Go") is a popular Japanese manga and anime coming of age story based on the board game Go written by Yumi Hotta and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. The production of the series' Go games was supervised by Go professional Yukari Umezawa (5-dan). The manga is largely responsible for popularizing Go among the youth of Japan since its debut, and in other areas such as mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea. More recently it has gained much popularity in the United States. The title is sometimes abbreviated 'HnG'.
The same basic storyline is followed by the manga and anime, with a few small changes between the versions. 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. Because Hikaru is apparently 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.
(Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, s.v. "Hikaru no Go")
