go

Another day, another bizarre pop culture obsession. This one's another anime called Hikaru no Go. In the mode of many good anime series, it starts with what sounds like a really dull premise and becomes utterly fascinating. In this one, Hikaru is a teenage boy who, while rooting through Grandpa's attic, finds a haunted Go board. He becomes possessed by the spirit of a dead Go player, who wants to play tons and tons of Go.

No, really- it's lots of fun.

I think there's a little not so subtle meta-commentary in this series, making fun of the typical 'fight of the week' macho stuff in many animes targeted at adolescent males. The fight of the week is replaced by the Go match of the week, and it turns out that with cool special effects and heroic music, watching two 6th graders play Go is every bit as exciting as watching two spiky-haired tough guys with improbable powers beat each other up. Beyond that, the series has (at least for the first few eps I've seen) a nice story and charming characters.

Now if it just didn't have so darn many episodes, I might get something done this month...