Hikaru no Go (Hikaru's Go) is a manga series written by Yumi Hotta and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. As the theme of Hikaru’s Go centered around the Go games, it was supervised by professional Go player Yukari Umezawa. The manga was serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1999 to 2003, with a total of 23 volumes.

The manga was really popular and well-loved with over 25 million copies in circulation. In 2000, Hikaru’s Go received the Shogakukan Manga Award and in 2003, it was awarded the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize. Since the time of its publication, Hikaru’s Go has largely contributed in spreading the interest for Go and increased the numbers of Go players around the world. Many Go clubs were even established by people taking influence from the manga.

Hikaru’s Go was adapted into an anime series by Studio Pierrot, which ran for 75 episodes from 2001 to 2003 on TV Tokyo. In January 2004, a special episode was aired for New Year. Not only for the manga, Yukari Umezawa also became the technical advisor for Hikaru’s Go anime series and even hosted a short segment after every episode to instruct kids on how to play Go.

The story of Hikaru’s Go began with the main protagonist Hikaru Shindou and his friend Akari Fujisaki on the attic of Hikaru’s grandfather’s house.

Hikaru was looking for something that he could sell for money since his allowance has been cut off due to recent bad grades. Akari wanted to leave the attic because it was dark and scary but Hikaru insisted on staying until he found something. There, he finally pulled out a Go board.

The board looked old so Hikaru tried to wipe it clean with a cloth. However, no matter how hard he tried, Hikaru couldn’t wipe off a weird stain that looked like spots of blood. After telling Akari, Hikaru realized only he could see the spots. That was when Hikaru heard a voice inside his head. “Can you hear my voice?”, he heard.

But there was no other people in the attic besides them. Just when Hikaru was about to leave, a figure appeared mysteriously. It was a beautiful man with long, black hair and traditional clothes from the Heian period named Fujiwara no Sai.

Sai had a pleased look on his face and he uttered “I will now return to the living world.” Right after those words, Sai started to reside in Hikaru’s consciousness which caused him to black out.

The next day, Hikaru has barely recovered from the incident and was sitting in class with a dazed mood. The class had to re-take their history quiz and when Sai saw the quiz questions, Sai got curious and blurted out his mind. Hikaru was so surprised that he almost fell out of his chair.

He hasn’t gotten used to Sai being in his mind at all. Hikaru forbid Sai to speak or come out unless he was called for. “My mind is my own, I won’t give it to you”, Hikaru declared.

Sai proceeded to tell Hikaru a little bit about his past when he was one of the two Go instructors to the Emperor during the Heian Period (794 AD through 1185 AD).

The other instructor was jealous of Sai and wanted to be the only royal instructor, thus challenging Sai to a game which decided who would keep their position. Both players were evenly matched, and in the midst of playing, Sai noticed that his opponent had cheated by placing an extra stone in his captured pile.

Sai was about to point out the cheating but his opponent noticed and pushed the claim onto Sai instead. After being told to continue on by the Emperor, Sai lost the match due to his unraveled mind. As the result, Sai was banished from the capital with his reputation tarnished. Filled with despair, he committed suicide by drowning himself in a nearby river two days later.

Unable to find peace, his soul was trapped within a Go board. He then met a young child named Honinbo Shusaku who was so interested in Go and took Sai on willingly. That child grew up to be a fine Go player but unfortunately died of illness at the age of 33. The blood stain that Hikaru saw on the Go board was most likely Honinbo Shusaku’s when he died.

Sai waited a hundred years until Hikaru found him. He also revealed his desire to achieve the Hand of God, which refers to the perfect game of Go.

When Hikaru told Sai that he had no interest in playing Go, Sai's intense feelings of sadness overwhelmed Hikaru and caused him to run out of class, vomiting. Unable to deal with the effect of Sai’s intense emotions, Hikaru reluctantly agreed to play Go. He went to his grandfather’s house, asking to play Go with him. His grandfather turned out to be a great Go player that won many awards in his lifetime.

Right before starting the match with his grandfather, Hikaru saw Sai crying, happiness overflowed from his heart.

However, after only the first few moves, Hikaru realized that if he didn’t at least know the basics of the game, he wouldn’t be able to understand Sai’s instructions. Hikaru decided to attend a class once a week at a Go Salon, where other people who wanted to would play hang out.

Hikaru and Sai saw a smug guy that took advantage of other people’s weaknesses and made fun of them through playing Go. Sai couldn’t stand by and watch the game of Go being used to bully the weak and wanted to challenge him. However, Hikaru took it upon himself and chased the guy out of the salon.

After that, Hikaru asked the instructor at the salon about Sai. It turned out that even though Sai’s name was unknown, the name of Honinbo Shusaku who lived in the Edo period was revealed as the strongest Go player of all time. He was the young child that let Sai played Go through him.

Will Hikaru finally accept his path to the game of Go alongside Sai? How will the duo enter the world of Go?