BLOGGING RESPONSIBLY
Hey, guys! Guys.
I just realised that to anyone who has been crazy enough to subscribe to ajaonthego at LJ, all my GORGEOUS YET HUGE Gankutsuou pics showed up completely uncut on your friends lists.
SORRY, SORRY. It’s so tempting to just NEVER CUT ANYTHING because here there IS NO LJ CUT! And there IS NO FRIENDS LIST! so WHO CARES HOW GLORIOUSLY LARGE MY UNCUT IMAGES ARE?
Yet obviously there must be limits, Aja. There must be moderation. I must thread and my anime shit.
I have no updates. I am about to post to vesperholly.wordpress.com and go “OKAY GUYS I UM MOVED AGAIN” and I hope that you won’t all throw things at my head.
At least it is the last move I will ever make. Oh NQR, you feel like home.
Read MoreTIL I STRIKE!
I should be making some official post about how I’ve moved – oh and I really need to update my LJ to state as much, oops -
but right now, typically, the only thing on my mind is how amazing Gankutsuou is. SO AMAZING.
It’s one of the most visually stunning things I’ve ever seen:
death note i hate anime wallpaper Read MoreRecs: Tezuka/Ryoma.
♥♥♥♥♥
Read MoreRecs.
Hi. At some point I am going to move six years’ worth of livejournal recommendations to this site. Please watch this space for updates.
Fandoms you can expect to find here:
- harry potter (primarily harry/draco)
- prince of tennis (primarily tezuka/ryoma *_*)
- hikaru no go (primarily akira/hikaru)
- miscellaneous other Book, Television, Anime, Science fiction, and J-pop fandoms.
(I would like also to issue the disclaimer that I hate anime. and sci fi. Just so you know.)
Obviously, this page will be a work in progress.
Read MoreWhy the Hikago manga ending is necessary
W
(Originally posted here.)
…. I think if anything Hikago fandom needs to focus more on being spontaneous. I feel like sometimes we kind of lumber along without really going anywhere, haha. And as much time as fandom has had, I still feel like none of us (self included) have ever really delved deeply into the mythical aspects and the ongoing character development concerns the manga leaves us with.
Which brings me to the end of the manga. Which I am now going to talk about excessively, in response to Dorrie’s post.
Dorrie basically felt (probably because I always build the end of the manga up so much) that the end was a let-down. She felt that it moved away from the focal point of the series up to then, which had been Akira and Hikaru’s intense rivalry.
Personally, I don’t think that the Akira/Hikaru is diminished in any way by the final arc. In fact, for me the pivotal Akira/Hikaru scene is actually the final scene in the manga.
I’m not objective about this, at all.
Excessive meta analysis, manga scans and spoilers follow. And and if you read below this warning before you have read to the end of the manga I will WEAR you as a HAT.
Hikaru no Go, the entire show, is epitomized in the moment when Touya just looks at Hikaru and says “This isn’t the end – there is no end.”
That line, oh my god. That line gets to me so intensely. That line is the summation of the entire series. And it has to be Touya who says that to Hikaru in that moment.
It has to be Touya because Touya is the only other person who understands that eternal walk that they are on together. He is the only one who can and will pull Hikaru forward after losing Sai.
I also think that moment shows how clearly Akira can see Hikaru’s Go, too – not just Sai’s. He not only trusts Hikaru to tell him about Sai when the time is right – and he doesn’t need to know about Sai, which is something we only see in that final arc when Akira thinks about asking Hikaru why he’s so upset about the Shuusaku insult, and then chooses not to – it shows that Akira is letting go of his obsession with Sai and focusing on his and Shindou’s mutual growth.
Akira not only sees Sai’s Go in Hikaru’s, but he also sees the eternal chase in Hikaru’s Go. He can see it in Hikaru’s go even in that very devastating moment, and he knows that is what Hikaru’s after. He doesn’t offer him consoling words or pity, he just offers him the one thing he knows he needs, which is perspective. And that line just snaps the entire arc and the entire series into place. It just breaks my heart every time.
Something that new readers of the manga (Dorrie and Dorrie’s husband, but anyone else too) may or may not have realized, but which I want to talk about anyway, is the significance of May 5th.
- May 5 (Boy’s Day) is the day that Sai disappeared.
- The Hokuto Tournament in the manga takes place exactly one year to the day after Sai disappeared. In other words, that tournament is ALL about Sai, completely immersed in symbolism that gives the outcome of that tournament a tremendous, weighty significance even beyond Yong-ha’s insult.
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“Just as I existed for Hikaru…. Hikaru will exist for someone else…. and that person will exist for someone else….”
I believe Hikaru exists for Touya, and that Touya exists for him, and that the two of them, the combination of their Go, will reach such a level that they will, in essence, become the next Shuusaku – they will move the game of Go to a level where the strength of one player fades beside the ability of two players of such strength coming together again and again to develop a game strategy that builds off every preceding match they share. And in doing so, they will have existed to inspire and move generations of Go players hereafter.
Throughout the manga we have all these subtle throwbacks to Hikaru claiming that he is going to use the Go board to build a new universe. That metaphor of universality is a constant throughout the story. There’s this constant move to expand – to grow as a player, but also to expand the game of go and the far-reaching impact of players across the generations, so it really does become this eternal cycle. So structurally, it makes sense to physically expand the scope of the manga in the last arc from Just Hikaru and Akira to The Rest of The Go Universe.
This idea of building the universe is implicit in the last lines of the series: Go is, explicitly, a metaphor for “why we are alive.” We are *all* here to provide continuity, to link the past, present, and future. Which is why the final line is: “Can you hear my voice?” – Sai’s voice, speaking to the audience from
The Go God’s HaremThe Astral Plane.The manga has to end without ending. That is pivotal to me. The whole point of the story.
If you just read the final arc as “there’s this other tournament and Hikaru loses” you’re just like, what, why would I want to read that or, after you’ve read it, wtf, what was the point of that?
But, if you understand the power and the significance of that match, and experience everything that came before it with the fight over Shuusaku, and if you realize the significance of the game occurring on May 5, and then – and then – after all that, you experience Hikaru’s loss (oh god) –
Then that moment when Touya says to him, “let’s go, Shindou. This isn’t the end. It never ends,” just snaps everything into place.
sanalith pointed the cyclical nature of the loss out on my Hikago Top 5 Meme (which I think is maybe one of my favorite lj posts of all time), so I’m going to quote her:
I love, love LOVE the fact that Hikaru loses that last match in the manga. At first I was like, what? How can he not pull a win out like always? And knowing is was a loss so tiny (like half a moku or something, right? It’s been a while…) I just couldn’t believe it. But then I remembered how Hikaru lost his first pro match against Akira, and that just brought it full circle for me. It doesn’t matter who wins and loses – it never will. Go for Akira and Hikaru won’t *ever* be about winning. It will always be about the journey, and that journey never ends.
I’ll go back even further and say that Hikaru losing on May 5, as he played in Sai’s name, brings us back full circle to Akira losing that first match against Sai. Because Akira and Hikaru are completely together on this path, that penultimate page of the manga says more about their equality, their ability to build their Go universe together, than any of the earlier moments where they were trying to get their shit together and be rivals already.
Touya’s response to Hikaru when he loses is no longer disappointment or frustration or impatience. He says two things: “Let’s go, Shindou;”
and, “this isn’t the end; it never ends.”
A) We are in this together; your loss is my loss, just as my loss is your loss -
B) – and there will be other losses. It never ends.At some point in the waiting game before Hikaru’s pinnacle match with Touya, he says “Let’s play, Touya; we can’t start until we play.” The reason the final arc leaves off in medias res is because it *is* just the start – they both realize that.
If the series had stuck to showing us just the development of Hikaru and Akira’s rivalry, then it would have been satisfying, but it would have been narrow. With the entire mythology of Hikago pointing towards eternality and expansion, we had to see them operating together in a larger plane, one that moves them beyond the scope of their own limited rivalry and allows them to finally *start* together.
So what we see in that last arc is Hikaru and Touya becoming more than rivals – we see them becoming partners, aware of their roles in the long march toward the Hand of God. “Go is a game for two” isn’t just about competitive challenge, but about the need for partners to pull you along in that journey.
Ultimately, the final arc shows us Hikaru moving beyond his dependence on Sai (GOD MY BABY), and understanding clearly what his role as a player is, for the first time: “to bridge the far past with the far future.”
It’s not just Hikaru who struggles with his role in the eternal saga – that struggle defines Sai’s conflict throughout the story. He doesn’t understand what his role *is* until the very end: “Just as I existed for Hikaru, so Hikaru will exist for somebody else.”
And that somebody else, the manga makes clear, is Touya. The role of bridging the past with the far future is one that Hikaru shares with Akira. It’s a role that is larger, much larger, than both of them, but a role they are both committed to, both in love with each other
‘s goenough *to* commit to.Which is why Akira was the only one to discover the truth about Sai in Hikaru, why Akira played Sai more than anyone else, why it was Akira’s loss to Sai that galvanized him into demanding more from himself *and* Shindou.
What we see in the final arc of the HnG manga doesn’t devote as much physical time to Hikaru and Akira – but it doesn’t *need* to (and not just because when they are together in that arc they’re married, married, MARRIED AND SQUABBLING ABOUT DIRECTIONS AND GROCERIES ♥).
When Hikaru marches out of Touya’s salon and declares he won’t stand before him until he can face him as a member of the team four months later, that’s not a diminishment of their rivalry, but an enhancement – because they no longer have any insecurity about what they are to each other; it’s being so secure of your partner that you can pursue your own path knowing that they’ll still be there to join you when you’ve found your way.
That’s why the half-moku loss on May 5th is as fully connected to Akira as it is to Hikaru, and Akira knows that instinctively. He knows automatically that Hikaru being upset over the Shuusaku insult is connected with Sai, and when he chooses not to ask Hikaru about the mystery behind Sai, he is putting his faith in *their* Go, as it exists right now.
Because it’s enough for him. And by the end of Shindou’s match against Ko Yong-ha, Shindou will know that it’s enough for him as well. Not because it’s perfect, but because it *has* to be enough.
It’s not a triumphant ending, but it’s the *perfect* one, because the divine move, whatever it is, is not a finishing move. If anything, it might just be the opening. The goal of the entire series is for Akira and Hikaru to start, not to end.
It never ends.
eta: kindofspark has a beautiful response post to this. It made me cry. Everything about Hikago makes me cry. It’s such a beautiful, beautiful show.
Hikago fandom: a 5-minute primer.
Originally posted here.
i was recently told that I made some sort of Hikaru no Go fic primer for those of you who were just getting into the fandom and wanting to know where to go for fic.
I vaguely remember this post, but I just searched through five months worth of posts (why so much Yamapi spam, Aja, why?) and I couldn’t find it, so I figured it was as good an excuse as any to make a new post, properly tagged and sourced this time. Especially since, for some reason that I suspect has to do with Dorrie, I’ve been repeating the following information a lot over the last 4 days.
HIKAGO FANDOM: A QUICK FIC PRIMER
Where to go:
- My fic recs in my memories, because they are pretty selective and high-quality and i love them.
- Toko’s Frankenpost, which basically hits the high points and covers all aspects of the fandom
- svz_insanity’s memories because she has tons of fics
- best_of_hikago – sadly no longer updated, but if you need to read ravenously without a terribly high quality filter, it is the place to go. i love that journal, i wish it were still active.
- issen4 – she recs more frequently than anybody else in the fandom. Not always as vetted for quality as toko’s recs, but very reliable.
- blind_go – the archives will have a ton of stuff of variable quality.Must-read authors:
thehoyden: (EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING by her)
arboretum’s “Flowers and Go”
mousapelli
mirabellawotr
murinae for gen fic, harukami and flonnebonne for humor – especially harukami’s truth or dare fic adsklf, and murinae’s fantastic fucking hikago AU. and i normally hate AU but oh my god this one is thrilling. Oh, and I really think the God of Go drabble Flonne wrote for my prompt the other day is an instant classic.The most popular fic in the fandom is probably rageprufrock’s “Inertia.” Which I hate as I hate few other fics – in fact, I can actually make a list of the fics, there are like three. But you know, it’s a very beloved fic, don’t let my hatred keep you away.That’s pretty much it. Oh, and:
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the Hikago tag on delicious. Which you should all be contributing to, because this fandom always, always needs more love/fic/etc.All of my Hikaru no Go fic is in my memories. (Which will eventually be moved here.)Oh, and if you’re just starting out, let me issue my habitual PSA, and remind you to read the manga. all of it.
- Read More
5 OTPs (and how this post grew.)
This was supposed to be a short post and it just took off and turned into a post about why i slash, what i slash, and how i slash it. It started out with a simple, okay, seriously. Shindou and Touya are so in love why is this fandom not churning out a MILLION FICS A DAY. They arguably are the biggest canon ship that ever sashayed its way into a canon without ever exchanging a kiss.
I’m going to talk about what I mean when I throw out terms like “canon slash.” I have this sort of vehement belief that ALL of my, uh, current major ships, i guess, are basically as slashy as you can get in canon without actually being gay. So this is long and rambly, but it’s basically me going on about how Hikaru no Go’s OTP is more beautifully OTP than anything, and specifically, why given a number of infinitely slashy canons, Hikago still manages to be infinitely more slashy than ALL of them.
I discuss at length Nobuta, House, Prince of Tennis, Hikaru no Go, and Harry/Draco below (with gratuitous references to SV, SGA, SPN and any other S-show I can think of), so there are very mild vague spoilers for the end-dynamics of shows that have ended. I don’t know how you compare five such different fandoms to each other in terms of content, but when you examine them in terms of shipping, it actually breaks down pretty easily.
Slash overkill, also known as “blatant fanservice,” also known as ‘House, M.D.’
said something on her lj recently that I have been trying to put into words forever: the power of a canon to be inherently slashy without actually becoming so slashy that it loses the sizzle of slash and just becomes blatant subtext. You can read subtextual House/Wilson from the very first episode; for me, probably 80% of the joy I get from House is watching the show just constantly ratchet up the House/Wilson slash, because every time, every damn time, I say House cannot possibly get more obvious or overt with the slash than it is, they do something else to pile it on just that much more.
But Mira’s exactly right; there is nothing, nothing in the world as completely canonically gay as Hikago is without actually being gay. Other canons (like House/Wilson, and I think TezuRyo) are so blatant without actually being slash that it’s almost overkill. Hikago, though – Hikago gives you the goods. Hikago delivers. Hikago says “these two kids are in love and they will be in love for all eternity and that is all that we need to say.”
(I suppose at the opposite end of the spectrum would be Smallville; the homoeroticism is canonically acknowledged out the wazoo, but said canon is in fact trying to go the opposite direction and not legitimate the sexual tension with any kind of happy resolution, even a platonic one.)
With Nobuta, which is so slashy, so beautifully slashy, I don’t actually need them to be slashed and would actually prefer in-character gen to pairingfic of any kind. Because the point of Nobuta is about true friendship. To some extent this is true of House too – it is has blatant homosexual undertones, but the beautiful, comfortable, poignant and platonic friendship of House and Wilson is part of the point. I don’t need fanfic for these shows the way I do others because what canon gives me is enough. Fanfic for these shows is beautiful and wonderful and unnecessary for me, I think. I love it when it is good; but I don’t think I need it to fulfill anything that the canon hasn’t already put in place.
The part where Hikago is really gay and otherwise this section doesn’t really have a point
Hikago is different for me, however. The entire POINT OF THE SHOW is: Hikaru and Akira are destined to be together. To me, lol, on a very ridiculous blatant self-indulgent level, Hikaru no Go fanfic that does not get on with the business of letting them just fall in love and play each other forever already is, in a way, sidestepping the inevitable purely to be coy. We all know they are married. No two people in any canon that ever canoned been more married than Hikaru and Akira. I include Brian & Justin in this sweeping blatant over-generalization, as well as every yaoi pairing ever. I include Tezuka and Ryoma in that and they even had a marriage ceremony officiated by 14-year-olds on a tennis court where they exchanged flying tennis balls for wedding rings.
For Hikago, I don’t *need* fanfic to *tell* me that they’re married, because the beauty of Hikago fanfic for me is found in the journey through which they realize they are, in fact, so married to each other, and that they want to be, and that they are each other’s destinies. by the end you know that this is true love without anyone ever actually saying it. Without actually ever being that subtextual, even. Their feelings are so intense for each other that there is no room for subtext. Everybody in the Go community knows these two kids are meant for each other. They encourage the obsession. THE UNIVERSE WANTS THEM TO BE HAPPY TOGETHER FOREVER. Hikago no Go canon implies a soulmate journey that I was initially drawn to in Harry/Draco (oh, oh, oh), and it is completely structured around that soulmate journey.
And then it cuts off mid-journey, with the words, “it never ends.” It reminds me a lot of the ending to Angel, with the implicit message ‘and the fight goes ever on’ at the core of the (lack of) resolution.
The purpose of Hikago slash fic to me is describing the rest of that journey – where it goes, how everyone in canon grows and develops, and how they all pursue the hand of god together. I read two Hikago fics yesterday that made me so ridiculously happy, not because they were slash (neither of them were – one was “Left-Handed Go” by and the other was ‘s incredible in-progress AU which I need more more more of), but because they were all about that journey, that progression, and how both Shindou and Hikaru are going to push each other to grow and move forward no matter what.
In every slash ship I’ve ever fallen in love with, this dynamic of a secure rivalry that develops into an equally secure partnership has been its major element. This is also, in a nutshell, why Tezuka and Ryoma to me have the greatest soulblindingly pure love ever in my heart, because they are very much like Hikaru and Touya with even *more* awareness of their own need for each other, even more desperate need to keep each other in their lives (and a lot more sexual intensity, if, uh, 12 year olds can have sexual intensity. shut up stop looking at me like that).
However.
Tezuka and Ryoma do NOT have a canon that states with utter resounding authority that they are going to be together, that the entire point of canon was pretty much just to *bring* them together, and that their being together is part of a long, destiny-approved march through time and eternity. That is what puts Hikago canon at the top for me, the pinnacle of all other slashy canons vying for the title of “slashiest.” If by “slashiest” we mean “most canonically likely to end in boys falling in love forever.”
TezuRyo is only a short level below it, though, because Tenipuri canon is structured so that Tezuka and Ryoma *are* the focal point of canon, whether it says so explicitly or not. Their interactions are the most important dynamic of the series, their interactions *shape the plot* of the series into what it is, in a way that none of the other PoT pairings do, and every single season opening/ending and every single major match, even when Tezuka isn’t even *there*, is framed in terms of how this match affects the development of Tezuka and Ryoma’s tennis. The Fly High credits occur where they do for a reason. Tezuka and Ryoma get their own opening credits twice, in the Rikkai arc which blatantly foreshadows the end, and then the final arc when they have their last game. And just. Without being canon, the Tezuka/Ryoma dynamic informs everything that occurs *in* the entire canon.
A level below that, I believe, is where you will find Nobuta, where the intensity of the slash is blatant and fanservicey, and where arguably one or both of the characters is subtextually gay, but where the emphasis is on something completely different, aka the fact that love and friendship is the most beautiful thing in the world, and where the dynamic between two characters never ever overemphasized at the expense of a larger, more universal (heartchurningly lifechangingly beautiful) look at love in all its forms. Oh, Nobuta. (
Slash as an unanswered question
I really feel that Nobuta slash is gratuitous. Not only is it gratuitous as a commentary on Nobuta canon, but (as and I were debating the other day) it might even arguably undermine the point of canon. I don’t think it has to, personally, because I love Nobuta slash; but that feeling, that slash (and even genfic) is superimposed on something that is basically complete and full as-is, makes me extremely picky and wary of how I want my Nobuta fic written. Nobuta femslash – a bit different because i do feel there is more to say about Nobuta’s relationships with the other girls. But no combination of Shuji/Akira/Nobuta, slash or het, could fill any kind of hole left by canon. There is no hole in my heart. And I know there are people who feel that attempting to slash even subverts canon, implies that there *is* something more they need from each other to be happy, when there isn’t.
I believe slash is always written, at least in part, to answer an unanswered question: it could be what if these two people were attracted to each other? but it could also be what if these two people discovered more in their dynamic together than they currently have? Asking the question, and answering it through the writing of slash, is every person’s perogative. But for me, certain canons beg certain question more convincingly and thoroughly than others. House just slavers the question all over you. Nobuta, not at all. The questions are there, but irrelevant. Their canon dynamic is enough.
And then, Harry/Draco. A level below Nobuta pairings – canon subtext, very slashy, but the character dynamic itself is not in any way the main focus of the series. But I think that Harry/Draco is a perfect example of the reason most people start slashing to begin with – there are too many unanswered questions, too many ‘aha’ moments of subtext that could be easily misconstrued, but which aren’t even acknowledged by their canon in satisfactory ways.
Convergence (Henry Jenkins-style), and also: why H/D lost that lovin’ feelin.
I would actually argue that Book 6 does acknowledge Harry/Draco slash the same way that House writers acknowledge the House subtext with very meta, fanservicey lines like “House would do Wilson before [two characters who are actually sleeping together would sleep together].” But it’s a different form of acknowledgment. It’s the acknowledgment of a fannish interest that generated subtext as much as it responded to it. Subtextually, there isn’t much difference between that and “Harry was rapidly becoming obsessed with Draco Malfoy.”
Moreover, the Harry/Draco dynamic arguably does take center stage to a large degree in Book 6; and this gets into arguments that I will be exploring in detail during my panel with Henry Jenkins, , , and at Phoenix Rising. You can, I believe, see JKR’s strong awareness of her fanbase in book 6, to such an extent that the huge fanbase for Draco Malfoy arguably was both extrapolating from his main-character potential, and at the same time creating that potential. Would Book 6 have featured Draco so heavily had millions of Draco fans and millions of fanfics about his character not existed first? I don’t think so.
Another fabulous example of this is SGA. John and Rodney were not a canonically acknowledged ship initially. The fan interest in the show revealed a legitimate subtext, but not an intentional one. And then the fan interest became focused on their dynamic, and the ongoing comical gay subtext quickly became equal parts what the fans responded to and what the creators wrote for the fans to respond to. This is convergence culture working on a fandom, in a fandom, and simultaneously working upon the canon too.
However: once a show – or, say, a book series in its sixth installment – acknowledges or in some way legitimates or validates a fanon pairing that has previously been identifying itself based on what has been lacking in canon, what happens to the pairing? The question has been, in some way, asked for us by the creator, instead of by us. It throws us. I think that HBP was so slashy that it threw H/D shippers off our game. I know that’s what it did to me. I felt as if I were reading Harry/Draco fanfic during certain parts of Book 6; and suddenly, my ship was no longer something that I had extrapolated from canon and worked through over the years; it was something canon was giving back to me. Draco had gone from being someone I had to pull to center stage, into the forefront of Harry’s attention, to someone who was there already, center stage and completely the epitome of everything I’d wanted him to be.
The nature of the question for me had changed. And suddenly it felt as if canon might be enough. Slash might not have any further commentary to make on this pairing.
Is it? I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll know that til I read Book 7. And I think, honestly, that is why H/D fandom has felt so fragmented and so unfocused this last year and a half. I don’t actually feel really in-tune with H/D fandom anymore; but where are the major full-length fics, the massive in-depth explorations of canon post book-6? (Not that we ever really had that many, but) the fics that really analyze Harry and Draco’s dynamic at this stage of the game aren’t there. Fics are either set post-canon so that writers still have something to create, or they focus on established relationships or porny one-shots.
I want to see more Harry/Draco fics like “Finer Than Spring,” like last year’s Big Bang – fics that aren’t afraid to tackle H/D as they are now. Because those writers are seeing the unanswered questions that I can’t see right now, just at this moment in canon.
Bottom line? I don’t think the type of validation that comes from a fanpairing gaining acknowledgment from its canon as time goes on is the same as a fanpairing that has been acknowledged from the beginning. House, M.D. has always written intentional House/Wilson subtext while using its own unanswered questions as fanservice – audience-teasers to keep us intrigued about the nuances of their relationship. Harry/Draco is a fan pairing that gained more and more validation from canon as time went on, and more and more actual acknowledgment from canon in the way their dynamic was treated and dealt with. (You could say the same for Harry/Ginny. 
)
And as for Hikaru no Go? Best of everything. Best of everything. Hikago canon is an epic slashfic without the slash. It’s got canonical acknowledgment without being fanservice: it deals straightforwardly with its pairing and does not bother to ask whether this is gay, slashy, subtextual, or metaphoric, because love is love, and Hikaru and Akira are soulmates.
♥
so. my fandom pyramid of “Canonically Slashy” ships in the fandoms I consider myself currently in are, in descending order: Akira/Hikaru (HnG), House/Wilson (which i identify as “my fandom” even though i was technically only in the fandom proper for like a month 2 years ago), Tezuka/Ryoma (Prince of Tennis) – even though their love will take over the universe, Shuji/Akira (Nobuta), – even though it’s gratuitous! superfluous! redundant! unnecessary! (and, once in a while, wonderful), and Harry/Draco. That’s not a ranking of preference, but rather a ranking of how I feel the pairing dynamics as we see them in fandom are dealt with in canon.
Possibly I could have said that and skipped flirting with livejournal’s character limit. uh.
oops.
Read MoreIntro to Hikaru no Go
me: SAM, WHAT SHOULD I NAME MY HIKAGO DIRECTORY?
sam: handofgod
me: that is the first thing i thought of too.
me: after, of course, deciding “touyaismyasianprincess” was too long.
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I have uploaded one of my dear, rare, beloved most favorite of animes, Hikaru no Go, to a directory near you.
Things to know about Hikaru no Go:
Seriously, people, you could have Playboy models lined up in a hand-holding row from Boston to Encinitas, each of them watching her own personal Shindou bird fly away like swallows departing back to Capistrano, and it would still not make a dent in the Hikago gay. All you’d have in the end would be two boys desperately in love with each other and a bunch of Playboy centerfolds with bird shit on their heads.
- mirabella
1) General Love:
I have never pimped Hikago before in a way that has done it justice. I love this show. LOVE. I suspect most people on my friends list will too. It’s not like any other anime I’ve ever seen. It’s Shounen Jump, so there is the sports/competitive element, but mostly it’s just completely elegant and supernatural and sweet. The best word I have for it is “special.” You start out thinking it’s about a board game, but then quickly realise that it’s really about the characters. And about how Touya and Hikaru are spiritual partners and lifemates forever. and how Touya is gorgeous and amazing amazing amazing and how hikaru needs to wrap him up and take him home and cure him of his deep love for lavender and argyle and asfkjl;ads
2) The OTP: No, really. I heard over and over before watching this show that it was really, um, very OTP and slashy, but there’s no way to describe just HOW OTP and slashy it is. You know how Snape tells Remus and Sirius that they argue like an old married couple? Well. Touya and Hikaru are that old married couple. there are no similes here. And they are that old married couple at age 15. *_* FOR LIFE.
There are very, very few things I’ve ever found in fandom as satisfying as Akira/Hikaru. They are created for each other. You don’t even realize that this is the Truth of Go. Go is a game for two, and Touya and Hikaru have been waiting a thousand years just to play it. with each other. Fandomwise, there really are no competing ships, nothing that gets in the way of the overwhelming and canonical love of this pairing. Waya/Isumi is the second most popular ship, for reasons that will become obvious when you watch/read.
3) SAI. Sai is the heart of Hikaru no Go, and he is a beautiful, vibrant, and unforgettable character. You will be glad you met him. When the creator of HnG, Yumi Hotta, went to Korean and Chinese Go tournaments, she discovered that the adult tournament officials had been leaving a seat open for Sai in their official tournament matches – as a way to honor the character and the series. It is worth reading/watching to find out what a lovely, lovely gesture that was. I usually tear up just thinking about it.
4) PRETTINESS. The mangaka, Takeshi Obata, is the same artist who drew Death Note. I think that the manga and the anime are equally beautiful, though I know some people like the manga art better – but this series is beautifully drawn and there are absolutely gorgeous moments in both that I think everyone will love. There are also amazing amazing hikago fanartists and doujinshi artists, but that’s a rec for a different time. Just. Overall? This show is beautiful. It is one of my favorite things, and I am proud to recommend it to everyone I know.
–>>IGOCENTRIC.<<–
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ADDENDUM.
ladysorka has uploaded the entire Hikaru no Go artbook.
Basically I’ve never seen anything so stunning in my life.
The reason that in two years I have never properly flailed myself off the map about Hikaru no Go is simple. Because I was so into Prince of Tennis, and had already inflicted so much of it on my friends list, I did not want to then turn around and go, “oh, well, there is this other thing!”
But I have loved Hikaru no Go for a long time. I watched it only a month after I watched Tenipuri. I wrote three fics for it in three months, as opposed to PoT, for which I’ve written 3 fics in, like, what, 2 years?
There is nothing, nothing in the world as completely canonically gay as Hikago is without actually being gay. Other canons (like House/Wilson, and I think TezuRyo) are so blatant without actually being slash that it’s almost overkill. Hikago, though – Hikago gives you the goods. Hikago delivers. Hikago says “these two kids are in love and they will be in love for all eternity and that is all that we need to say.” No two people in any canon that ever canoned been more married than Hikaru and Akira. I include Brian & Justin in this sweeping blatant over-generalization, as well as every yaoi pairing ever. I include Tezuka and Ryoma in that and they even had a marriage ceremony officiated by 14-year-olds on a tennis court where they exchanged flying tennis balls for wedding rings. However. Tezuka and Ryoma do NOT have a canon that states with utter resounding authority that they are going to be together, that the entire point of canon was pretty much just to *bring* them together, and that their being together is part of a long, destiny-approved march through time and eternity. That is what puts Hikago canon at the top for me, the pinnacle of all other slashy canons vying for the title of “slashiest.” If by “slashiest” we mean “most canonically likely to end in boys falling in love forever.” Hikaru no Go has the most incredible OTP you’ve ever seen. Maya (mistful) just agreed with this the other day, and you know that when Mirabella, Maya, and Aja *together* are calling something gayer and OTP-ier than Harry/Draco, you are looking at the Waterloo of all other OTPs to come.
Hikago has the best of everything. The. Best. Of. Everything. Hikago canon is an epic slashfic without the slash. It’s got canonical acknowledgment without being fanservice: it deals straightforwardly with its pairing and does not bother to ask whether this is gay, slashy, subtextual, or metaphoric, because love is love, and Hikaru and Akira are soulmates.
If you are an anime fan, you will love Hikaru no Go. If you are into ghosts, you will love Hikaru no Go. If you are a sports story fan, you will love Hikaru no Go. If you are a slash fan, you will love Hikaru no Go. If you are a fan of the beautiful soulbinding partnership/rivalry of TezuRyo, you will love Hikaru no Go. If you are a Harry/Draco fan, you will love Hikaru no Go with the intense beating lovewings of a thousand fluttering Snitches.
The last thing I want to say about this show is that you really, really, really need to read the manga. There’s an entire arc in the manga that’s not in the anime- the OVA covers half of it but not the whole thing. As you can see from the art in this post, the manga is absolutely stunning; but it’s that final arc that, I feel, elevates this wonderful little story from being only beautiful to being truly sublime.
Read Morego go honinbou
This is one of my favorite conversations ever, I don’t know why but I love it so much and reread it constantly. Not very meta, either. Wow.
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Aja: SAM, WHAT SHOULD I NAME MY HIKAGO DIRECTORY?
sam: handofgod
Aja: that is the first thing i thought of too.
Aja: after, of course, deciding “touyaismyasianprincess” was too long.
sam: crying
Aja: “goforlovers”
“gofordummies”
“gogoigo”
sam: LK;SDJAFKLDSJFALKSJDFKLSJF
Aja: “LET’S FIVE” asdkjf;lasdfjdk;ls I LOVE THAT
sam: SKAF;LSDF SAME. sam: i’m like sitting here trying to think of something that looks dirty. “bemyhoninbou”…
Aja: ASDJKLFASDJ dying. immeijinurbase…
sam: AL;’ASDKASDGSDS;’EPORKG’OKAERAOGKG i’m atari-ing in ur go, moving to yose~
Aja: safjs;dkljsd;klfa tengenital sex.
sam: DSAGDSG
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sam: netgo. go netgo. gogoigo…
Aja: gonetgo kl;jasd;fkl… gogoigo… igoyougoweallgoforigo
sam: gogonetgo
Aja: gogohikago. gogoigo!
sam: bawling
Aja: gogonetgo! this is so much fun. gogostick
sam: I KNOW KSALF
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Aja: whoissai
sam: now i keep hearing AREYOUSAI in that voice that’s like ARE YOU A CYLON?
sam: AHHHHHHFAKJDS
Aja: LAKSDFLAKSDJDS GOGOCYLON!
sam: dead
Aja: gogoigo, gogonetgo askldfj;sd
sam: laughing
Aja: gogo….honinbou! GOGOOGATA
sam: L;KJASDGK;SDLG
Aja: waya&isumiaregayforgo
sam: shittygogetsyouexiledtochina
Aja: sdfasdfjklfdsjlk beijingmeijin
Aja: wayaschinesetwinwillkickyourass
sam: KL;ASDJSDG tinychinesetwin
Aja: gogayforgo
sam: LK;AJDF NOW I WANT A NEW YM NAME. CRYING
Aja: JSDKFL SAME. NEW GO-RELATED LJS
sam: JLDJFLJSALFJSLF YES
Aja: iimpersonatedsai2003
sam: DASL;MD
Aja: touyawillbeatyouwitharmstiedandblindfolded
sam: AKLSJ;F GOD YES
Aja: *____* TOUYA *________* hetsukedmyatarisoitsukedhiminbed
sam: lk;safLFNLDSNLKNSDLAKKLFNKLNLKNSDF touyasuglyclothesdontmatteroncehikarusgottenthemoff
Aja: realmenwearlavender
sam: L;MASLDGDLKSMFKNFMDSKF I ENJOY THAT ONE…
Aja: touyaandtezukahavesamestylist
sam: VGHJBKNK
Aja: stillnotshuusuku
sam: DEAD DEAD YES YES ALKSDGJ;KSLDJGKLDSJGAFKDSLFDSJF. i still like netgo though.
Aja: aklsdjf;as I KNOW. SO CONFLICTED. fujiwaranoPSYCHE!
sam: JFKLDSJF
Aja: god. how to explain this conversation to anyone.
sam: jLK;AG I LOVE HOW CONFUSING IT KEEPS GETTING. i keep laughing at gogohoninbou.
Aja: i feel like…honinbou…there has to be something there. like it sounds like it should be some sort of dance. DO THE HONINBOU!
sam: dead. i know.
sam: btw I’ll upload the soundtrack for you when i go home. to your server or whatever
Aja: that’s right. to my hikago directory, netgogogoigo.
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