Shion no Ou

According moonphase, Andou Shirou and Katori Masaru's manga series Shion no Ou will be adapted into anime.


Shion no Ou
しおんの王
The Flowers of Hard Blood

Genre: Drama, sports, mystery
Synopsis (by gia from anime online):
The manga follows a girl named Shion Ishiwatari whose parents are murdered when she’s a mere four years old. The only clue left behind was a shogi board. (Shogi is often simplified to “Japanese chess;” it’s a war-based strategy board game.)

Shion was adopted by her neighbors, the Yasuoka family, and her adopted father taught her to play shogi. The manga picks up when Shion is 12 years old and considering a path as a professional shogi player - which may also lead her to solve the mystery of her parents’ murder.

Manga covers:


Thought:
It's been awhile since I have seen another shogi anime, other than Hikaru no Go. Hikaru no Go itself is quite interesting, but the long story (with more than 26 eps) for Hikaru no Go made me boring. Therefore, I hope that this series is either 13 eps or at most 26 episodes.

The story itself might be quite interesting since it not only talk about shogi, but also might be the murderer of Sion's parents.

The only negative thing that I can find in this series is that this kind of anime is hard to understand. Since most of the people who are not from Japanese does not understand shogi at all (like me)...

I would love to see this anime and I'm planning to read the manga soon....probably in late June (of this year of course).

Shion no Ō (しおんの王, Shion no Ō? lit. The King of Shion), with the subtitle The Flowers of Hard Blood, is the title of a Japanese mystery manga series written by Katori Masaru and illustrated by Jiro Ando. It started serialization on March 25, 2004 in the Japanese seinen manga magazine Afternoon published by Kodansha.

ANN Announcement: - http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-05-23/shion-no-ou

Also Saiani.net Announcement: - http://www.saiani.net/article/42698600.html#trackback

Shogi......I would I describe it, Japanese chess...perhaps. I'm can play with chess pretty well and I've played a gameboy version of Shogi once...entirely in Japanese......I just pressed randomly.......probably get one of my Japanese friends to teach me to play...so I can understand the manga and anime series more.

Plot:

Shion no Ō centers around a young junior-high school girl named Shion Yasuoka who witnesses the murder of her parents as a child. At the time of the murder, her father leaves behind a game piece from shogi, a Japanese strategy board game similar to chess. This leads her to believe that the murderer is a shogi player. Although Shion refuses to speak after the murder and communicates only through writing messages, she eventually decides to take up shogi herself to gain clues about the murder of her parents.

(~taken from WIKI~)

Funny how I just started the Wiki article yesterday and now this. I read the first chapter of the manga, and it does seem interesting; Shion is so cute with her notebook. I'm going to try to download the rest of the chapters, but it has proven difficult...So far the first 9 chapters have been translated, but most of the torrents are dead, so I'm trying to get them off of IRC now. I'll upload a batch later once I have them.

I'll be looking forward to the anime!

I agree with Jul10 very much that I hope it is 26 episodes (dont like 13 episodes animes so much) becuse like Hikaru no Go was way 2 long...and once again like Jul10 said this anime sounds like it is not just about shogi it even have a murder case in it so I am looking foward to it....

QUOTE (Juhachi @ May 26 2007, 05:08 AM) Funny how I just started the Wiki article yesterday and now this. I read the first chapter of the manga, and it does seem interesting; Shion is so cute with her notebook. I'm going to try to download the rest of the chapters, but it has proven difficult...So far the first 9 chapters have been translated, but most of the torrents are dead, so I'm trying to get them off of IRC now. I'll upload a batch later once I have them.

I'll be looking forward to the anime!
Thanx Juhachi for your hard-work. I found a place, where I can get the manga scanlations up to volume 2 chapter 9......is that the latest chapter to be scanlated....or is it the site I'm using hasn't been updated with the uploading of new releases ???

Oh wait, I took a closer look at Juhachi's post and it seems the site I used it pretty much up-to-date.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U1R0LCJC

There's the first 9 chapters translated; and yes, only 9 have been translated so far.

QUOTE (Juhachi @ May 26 2007, 11:24 PM) http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U1R0LCJC

There's the first 9 chapters translated; and yes, only 9 have been translated so far.
Thanx Juhachi for informing me on the status of the scnalation's progress......I won't be reading the manga anytime soon though, got stuff to do as well as continue to read all the other mangas as well as watching many on-going anime series. Plus, I want to be able to play shogi and understand the game.....since its meant to be "japanese chess"......I think I can get into it pretty easily. After that, its "mahjong"....I've been wanting to know how to play this game for a while now.

QUOTE (Juhachi @ May 27 2007, 07:24 AM) http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U1R0LCJC

There's the first 9 chapters translated; and yes, only 9 have been translated so far.
thanks juhachi, i'll try to read this up.

edit : omg! after i saw that scene, i was like wtf! bishounen ftw! i wanna see how people will react when that scene is animated

I'm trying to dl the first episode, but how was it? I got good reviews from randomc.....

And another thing, will this be 12 episode long?

Hey, just so everyone knows... Hikaru No Go is about a game called Go. Go is separate to shogi. They aren't the same game. Nonetheless, an anime about shogi does sound pretty interesting, especially when the mystery element of the murder is present. Could be good. Now to download the first episode!

Just watched 1st ep and it was great! I cant believe they left us on cliffhanger... cant wait for the next one!

I like sports anime but this one has much more in it!

Hmm maybe I should try reading the manga.

Well I just got around to watching the first episode. Ever since I read the description, I've been quite interested since the story seemed really original and it seemed to have lots of potential. Watching the episode myself, I completely agree with what I thought. I really liked the way the story has come out so far- even though I don't understand how the game is played- I found the scenes when they were playing the game intense regardless. I loved the OP and I also loved the opening scene when Shion's parents were murdered. Man, they left us on a cliffhanger! >.<

And I want to give Shion a big hug- she's so cute! And I never would have guessed that blue haired girl was- a guy! Only when he had the flashback and that freaky old man tore open his shirt and called him a boy did I realize! Even then I was still sitting thinking.....wtf?!

I watched this last night before bed, wow... shouldn't have done that, it was a bit scary, especially the opening scenes! But I have to say, this anime really impressed me from the first episode! I love how all the characters are deep and there is more to them than meets the eye...
I don't understand how shogi is played at all... and it's kind of funny for me to watch it, and they are saying "WOW what an intense move" and I am like.. UHHH.. sure! lol but maybe I'll learn from watching this show.. I'm definitly going to keep up with it.. probably one of the best this season if you ask me!
to AJ: LOL my reaction was the exact same when that freaky old man ripped open the blue haired guys shirt... and said, you are a guy, or something..it took me a few mins to realize what had happened! It was just such a shocking way to reveal the truth about a character...

QUOTE (julezia @ Oct 20 2007, 04:45 AM) I watched this last night before bed, wow... shouldn't have done that, it was a bit scary, especially the opening scenes! But I have to say, this anime really impressed me from the first episode! I love how all the characters are deep and there is more to them than meets the eye...
I don't understand how shogi is played at all... and it's kind of funny for me to watch it, and they are saying "WOW what an intense move" and I am like.. UHHH.. sure! lol but maybe I'll learn from watching this show.. I'm definitly going to keep up with it.. probably one of the best this season if you ask me!
to AJ: LOL my reaction was the exact same when that freaky old man ripped open the blue haired guys shirt... and said, you are a guy, or something..it took me a few mins to realize what had happened! It was just such a shocking way to reveal the truth about a character...
Arigato, Girlie-sama, for recommending this one to me. It sounds very interesting from what has been posted here, and I remember reading about this new series on AnimeNewsNetwork but well, now that you have seen it, I will most certainly post my opinion...after I watch , of course. Scary and murder? Humm.....goody.

I was just thinking okay this chick w/the glasses sorta does a little something for me with that sassy attitude... then moments later we are revealed the startling revelation then the chest is bared and we find out the chick has a stick and it was all too much for me... As I hid in a dark corner of my room repeating to myself... "It's okay you didn't know" XDDD... Ehh but yet it still provided little solace...

Anyways Shion and the hug monster were nice characters. Though it looked like the hug monster had some other intentions especially after she ordered the background check... All in all it was an entertaining first eppy though Shion didn't say much at all this episode

QUOTE (senpai-kun @ Oct 20 2007, 05:43 PM) I was just thinking okay this chick w/the glasses sorta does a little something for me with that sassy attitude... then moments later we are revealed the startling revelation then the chest is bared and we find out the chick has a stick and it was all too much for me... As I hid in a dark corner of my room repeating to myself... "It's okay you didn't know" XDDD... Ehh but yet it still provided little solace...

Anyways Shion and the hug monster were nice characters. Though it looked like the hug monster had some other intentions especially after she ordered the background check... All in all it was an entertaining first eppy though Shion didn't say much at all this episode
Well Shion can't really say now much can she? As she hasn't spoken since her parents were murdered =) *snap crackle pop*....lol uhm so yeah.....if it's any consolation senpai, I thought they were a girl! But things turned out for the better for me now didn't they? Cuz now he's actually a pretty cute looking guy...te he he he...*rubs it in even more*

Well anyway, I wish I knew more about the game itself. Since the whole series is based around it. I think I'm going to go look it up and be cool and research it.

I watched both Shoku-dan and Live-evil subs of the 1st episode, and the Live-evil sub is much better without mistakes. I think Live-evil people know more about shogi and they can listen Japanese carefully. I hope they continue to sub the rest episodes.

this series looks great the artwork, the story, the plot, the characters. all of them are just great but certain elements are just weird like the blue hair person incident..

only thing i dont like about it is the way they do time in the second eps you see shion get attacked and the blue hair boy save here well.. next second its all back to normal and makes you at first thing wtf is going on with this family about letting her go to school right after this.. you dont figure out till 5-10mins later that it says 6months ago which was a huge shock about that amount of time passing so fast..

also i loved the part where the reporter (well i think it was a reporter) came in and told about the death threat to her while she had no idea and than you see a flash back about shion nodding and accepting if that were to happen even though she didn't know about it before hand. im not that emotional but man that part just made me almost want to stick with this series even if it hit pure fillers like what happened to naruto *shudders*... well mabey not but very very close

Shogi and Murder Mistery nice combo. Have seen the first 2 episode's and must say i like this one so far. Also seems like the murder is somehow connected to a company that searches for great players.

For all people who want to practice this fun game go to this website: Click here!!!

You need java to play the online version. More info is on the site. If you don't know the pieces go here: Wikipedia

Loved the second episode. Like Dragon-of-Rune said, murder mystery and shogi..nice combo! I've never played it before, but I've seen people play it here and there.

Love the artwork as well, and that murderer guy is so creepy - taking pictures of cute little Shion. He's so mysterious- I hope that when we find out everything that it ends up being a big shock, I don't want a predictable storyline! AND I still want to give Shion a big hug- she's so kawaii!