But for some reason, he's stuck with Hikaru, a sixth-grader with absolutely no interest in go. Even in death he strives to play the Divine Move.

Although Sai died long ago, his spirit lingers on due to his great love for the game. Instead, he finds that he must share his consciousness with the ghost attached to the board, Fujiwara-no-Sai, a go master from the Heian period. While scavenging through his grandfather's attic, Hikaru Shindo comes across an old go board which he hopes he can sell for some extra cash. Viz Media first serialized the manga in issues thirteen through sixteen of Shonen Jump before publishing the collected volume in 2004. Hikaru no Go, Volume 1: Descent of the Go Master was originally released in Japan in 1998. Hikaru no Go received a Shogakukan Manga Award in 2000 and was later awarded an Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize in 2003. I was pleased when Hikaru no Go was selected for the December 2012 Manga Moveable Feast because it is a series that I'm quite fond of. But I was so impressed by what I had read, I went and bought myself a complete set of Hikaru no Go, all twenty-three volumes. I had first borrowed Hikaru no Go from my local library, but less than half of the series was available there. Hikaru no Go, written by Yumi Hotta and illustrated by Takeshi Obata (who is also the artist for the very popular manga series Death Note), is one of the first manga series that I made a point to collect in its entirety. The characters are well written, and the illustrations are great. It is what introduced me to Go and got me hooked to the game.

Hikaru, with Sai directing his moves, absolutely destroys Akira, and there begins his journey towards becoming a professional Go player himself, with the help of Sai. Reluctant, Hikaru agrees to play a game against a kid the same age as he, not knowing that his opponent is Akira Toya, already a professional player. But Sai wants to play, after centuries of being trapped in that Go board. Sai possesses Hikaru, who does not have any experience with Go at all. Hikaru Shindo is a young boy who one day stumbles onto his grandfather's old Go board which is haunted by Sai Fujiwara, a ghost who was a professional Go player in his past. Invented in China over 2,500 years ago, it is believed that this is the oldest board game that is still played to this day. This Japanese Manga series is based on the game of Go, a two-player territorial board game played with black and white circular stones on a 19x19 board.

Hikaru no Go, Vol. 1 by Yumi Hotta