Източник:
http://homepage.mac.com/bjornwendsjo/go/egc2008/6.pdf
Hotta on Hikaru
As a part of the symposium "The Representation
of Go in art and history" on 30 July,
Hotta Yumi was invited to answer questions
about the Go manga Hikaru no Go, which
is about a young Japanese boy who (initially
reluctantly) learns to play Go with the help of
a ghost of a strong Go player, Sai. The manga
is very popular in Japan and worldwide, and
has been important in getting young people
interested in Go.
She had only just begun studying English, so
the seminar was held via a translator.
We learned that she was about 10 kyu (she
is now 3 kyu) and struggling with a cruel
Go teacher that never let her win, when she
thought that it would be nice to have the
help of an invisible, strong player. That's how
she came up with the idea of Sai.
Sai is not based on a master from Go history
that has existed in reality, since that would
have put the onus on her to get every detail
of his biography right. By using a fictious
character, she has more freedom to let the
events flow the way she wants.
She took the story she had written to the cartoonist,
who was free to create the characters
the way he wanted. She was surprised when
seeing Hikaru drawn the first time; it was not
how she had imagined him, but she liked it,
and never asked for anything to be changed.
Initially, she was the only one on the team
who knew how to play, and she was not very
strong. This made it hard to find appropriate
game records. After a while, though, they
made contact with people at the Nihon
Ki-in, and now they were lucky. There were
several pro’s who were very interested in
Manga. They helped the team by selecting a
few appropriate game records based on the
particular synopsis, for them to choose from.
On some occation, a particularly interesting
proposed game made her make changes to
the story. For example once, she wanted
a game that started on Tengen! They did
take great care in making all games, briefly
passing by, as realistic as possible, not only
the games that were central to the particular
episode.
She has children of her own, and the youngest
boy was about the age of Hikaru when she
started writing the manga. When they were
small they didn't see her work as anything
special, but now that her children are older,
they realise the great impact the manga has.
Since her own children play go, Hotta now
enjoys seeing her own family, who are, kind
of, repeating the Hikaro story.
One question that was asked more than
once was if there would be a continuation of
Hikaru no Go. Her answer was, that "if you
put legs on a snake, it is no longer a snake"!
Thus, Hikaru fans will have to accept that
the manga is completed. [EE text+photo]
