Saturday 15 February 2003

Pic of the day: The hand of Go! No, it's not a typo, though the associations it may give are not unwelcome. As one of my fictional characters once told me: To believe what is true is not faith. To believe and make something become true, is faith.

An angel of Go

Sometimes art imitates life, other times life imitates arts. The latter happened to the work of writer Hotta Yumi and artist Obata Takeshi, when they did the unthinkable and wrote a comic about a boy playing Go. This ancient board game requires a dedication and contemplation that has in most of our lifetime made it mainly a pastime for the elderly. But the comic, published in the magazine Shounen Jump, caught on thanks to its vivid characters and engaging, optimistic atmosphere. In the comic, Go is a mental sport that commands admiration and envy. To some extent this probably was so in real life too, but it has become ever more so as a result of the comic.

By the time the comic was made into an animated movie series, it had already spread to the point where local Go clubs had doubled their attendance and high-level Go players were deluged with requests for tutoring and advice from young hopeful players. The anime spread this wave even further. Closely based on the comic, it features realistic environments and the matches are based on actual games played by high- ranking Go players. The surge of young Go players spread beyond Japan as the series was released in neighboring countries. Lately, fan translations have spread over the Internet, raising the same new wave in English-speaking countries. The International Go Server is buzzing with activity at all times of day and night: No matter what your level, you can find a match here or study games in progress.

I realized fairly soon that the anime portrayed real life quite closely, except for the mysterious ghost of an ancient Go player that was essential to kick the whole thing into action. What I did not know until today was that the comic, and later then anime, had played an important role in restoring this life to the mental sport of Go.

***

In the comic, the nameless god takes pity on the restless soul of a young brilliant Go player who committed suicide after being unfairly accused of cheating and chased from the Imperial Court. Fujiwara Sai is allowed to return to the world twice, once in the mind of Shusaku Honinbo (an actual player of the mid 19th century, and still a legend in Go) and the next time in the (fictional) Shindou Hikaru. Unlike the first time, Shindou-kun is not satisfied to be the hands of a ghost. He wants to become like his teacher, and if possible surpass him, heading higher than anyone else.

Thus the torn soul of Sai, in his single-minded and almost childlike love for the game, twice renews the sport of Go. Once as Shusaku sets new and higher standards for top-level players, and again as Shindou unwittingly causes a spreading youth movement of Go. Ironically, this last part has carried over from the comic and the animated movie into the real world. So the character Sai, who is literally nothing but a spirit residing in someone else's mind, actually manages to do the same thing in life as in the dream world into which he was born. Out of the love for Go came an angel of Go, to change the world. Where does the fiction end and the fact begin? Where does art stop imitating life, and life start imitating art?