Shion no Ou: The Flowers of Hard Blood

[Munsu]

I wrote the review for this manga a couple of weeks ago, quoted bellow:

Shion no Ou: The Flowers of Hard Blood

I just found a very interesting manga, that I think many of you will like since many of you liked Hikaru no Go. This time around is about Shogi, Japanese Chess, instead of Go. At the moment I find the story much more interesting than that of Hikaru no Go, and the characters are better also. It has a very nice art too, and the story seems much deeper than Hikaru no Go ever was. It's a story about a girl named Shion, who 7 years ago not only did she lose her ability to speak, but her whole family was murdered. Since then she has been raised by her next door neighbor, a Shogi master. Since very little, Shion has always shown great talent and skill to play the game, and the world is about to learn this as she takes her first steps towards becoming a pro. Playing Shogi because she loves the game is not her only reason for playing, it's also the only clue towards finding her family's murderer, who apparently was a Shogi player. So I'm really recommending that you guys take a look at this, Hikaru no Go is very well liked and I think this manga has the elements to surpass it.

http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=1378

The manga is being scanlated by Tsuzuku Jinsei o... & Hanashi and it can be found here:
http://fimbulvetr.no-ip.org:6969 for torrents
http://tjo.one-liners.net/shion.php for links for direct downloads

As always, #lurk has everything too.

Well chapter 9 has just been released, and it can be found in www.mangatraders.com

I really recommend it, as I said before, to all of you who enjoyed Hikaru no Go; so far I'm liking this more. So, hopefully some of you will give it a try, if you haven't done so already.

[Ryllharu]

I read the first 8 chapters, and I really liked what I read, even if I only understood about half of the chapters because the hardcore shogi terminology goes way over my head. I've played shogi before, but the detail they give is just staggering.

Shion using her notepad while smiling is very cute though.

[Munsu]

Well, I've never cared to follow the flow of the games in these types of mangas/animes. It's not what interests me, what interests me is the plot and story itself. Same shit with Hikaru no Go and Akagi, I couldn't understand shit of the game.