Shion no Ou

[kenshinvn]

Quite a good start for the first episode. Will watch the next one for further hope.

The art is not so impressive to me as I do agree with most of you. I'm a fan of DEEN (since my most favourite anime of all time is Rurouni Kenshin). Some of production can be trusted such as Maria-sama, ROD, etc... but somehow, recently, DEEN makes me sad. Their art work is very poor. Portrait of the face is OK but in general, the visual gives me the "flat" effect. Once I read about Shion no Ou, I did hope for the good art in anime but as you could see, it failed. Anyway, I will keep following because the direction had something good in it.

Some of us may watch this anime since we are fans of the production company/studio, or might figure out good things in plot/direction, or whatever. Just the way we want to do, to watch, to enjoy anime and that's all. I cannot capture the idea "If you have respect for yourself, you should want more than this bogus" by Mr/Ms SATAN. May a person be evaluated by some "low rate" anime or the genre of the film? I really don't think so. Everyone has his/her own interest and you can't force them or "teach" them as per your own idea. Neither the good or bad interest, it's personal. We discuss with each other, but we should not "judge" or "teach".

[Tiberium Wolf]

If this anime is to teach us about shouji then it completely fails.

[NoOneKnowS]

Just finish watching the first ep earlier. Not my type of anime though but kept me interested onto how the hell will she solve the mystery of her parents death just by playing shouji(sp?). And one more question; will that blue haired crossdresser guy have some romantic feelings towards shion or something? (yeah, Im a sucker at romance lol).

[pathyfinder]

Don't know how I crept about to this anime, but I'm sure glad I have

I loved HnG! (even bought Dubs for my mom to enjoy), but I'm surprised I like it seeing as I'm not normally drawn into mysteries (as I'm grossly impatient)

Thanks Live Evil for a great sub, sure look forward to seeing more I hope, looks like there may be a lot of eps for this one.

[Jaden]

Unlike HnG, the players in this anime don't start from scratch, they're almost professional level to begin with. So there won't be a chance to learn shogi from watching. While it's similiar to western chess, you won't understand what's going on there without expirience because it's hard to recognise the pieces at first and there are rules that add complexity compared to westrern chess. Still, I'd say Shogi is easier to learn than Go. Read up on the rules somewhere and knock yourself out.

[Kanos]

Ok so if the blue hair guy is a boy, then how did he gets the fake boobs? I'm thinking breast implants, but that doesn't seem likely as they're expensive and he might as well use that money for his mom AND it's obviously not implanted cuz in his casual wear, he has a flat chest. Can anyone fill me in on HOW he got his magical boobs? Just doesn't make sense

[gvozden]

I thought same till I started reading about cosplay.

example

NSFW http://www.special-trade.eu/store/si...-size-h-12.php

Don't forget prosthetics that are used for women that had mastectomy.
-----

Hope that stalker is not main killer, since it is possible that famous people develop admirers.

[way2slow]

Spoiler for .:

After the move made by Saito to beat Shion, Hani and Saori most likely knew there was something different about her (him).

[kiseki_gurl]

Episode 2 Summary/Impressions:
http://anime2manga.com/20071021/shio...out-style.html

A LOT OF STUFF crammed in this one episode. It just shows what going on and brings us to our current setting. The whole stalker aspect is majorly overplayed when compared to the manga. Still, it's a good episode and very informative if you look carefully.

On another note, the animation dropped down EVEN FURTHER . Is Studio Deen still in debt from Kenshin or something o.O?

[Guido]

Shion's Road

The first episode turned out better than my initial expectations when I first saw the pics at Omni's blog.

The animation was fitted for HD-TV which makes the colors rich and vivid, though the lighting is somewhat too flashy IMO.

I have never seen Hikaru no Go, but from what I could tell on the first episode is that Shion no Ou is an atypical sports anime.

Shougi is used here as a plot vehicle, and, therefore, it is not the theme for this series. The theme for this series lies that through shougi Shion would be approaching once again her grisly and murky past, and sooner or later she would have to face it or be haunted by it.

In fact, the other two main casts must have as well experienced their own share of mess in their pasts.

On another note, I was really glad to pick this title, since definitely it falls into my liking.

Furthermore, I researched a little bit further, and what I gathered is that the manga has been ongoing for about three years. So far five volumes have been released.
Henceforth, I presume the anime would only be adapting up to volume four, since the fifth manga volume came out on May this year.

In addition, I was very surprised to research the seiyuu who are lending their voices for the characters. Once again I was pleased to listen to Ayako Kawasumi as the voice of Shion.
And a sense of familiarity returned on me when I found out that Paku Romi voices Ayumi.

Overall, this title started with the right foot to me. I'm picking this up permanently as my fourth entry for this season, and I'll be dropping Night Wizard.

[Kaoru Chujo]

Episode 2: Out. Standing. Animation dropped "even further"? Not for me. Excellent storytelling, in my book, with excellent characters and appropriate animation.

[kiseki_gurl]

Originally Posted by Kaoru Chujo

Episode 2: Out. Standing. Animation dropped "even further"? Not for me. Excellent storytelling, in my book, with excellent characters and appropriate animation.

The animation is appropriate at certain moments. For the rest...That's another story.

[S_K]

ep 2 is subbed
i cant wait to get my hands on this

[tlynnec]

I'm just curious what everyone's opinions are on the two groups subbing Shion no Ou. What are everyone's preferences on Shoku-dan vs. Live-evil?

[Proto]

This is only an opinion from ep.1 , but Shoku-Dan's translator seems new to the world of Japanese, and as such the translation has a lot of inconsistencies, innacuracies and parts when the translator just took a wild guess on sentence he probably only (mis)understood one or two words from. The edition and typesetting work is passable, but I couldn't stand a fan sub when even me with my lousy JLPT 3 level is doing better job. Live evil is your average fansub, it is quite okay in every deparment without being spectacular. But since you are a LE staffer it seems kind of a tricky question.

Personally I'll stick with raws to practice my Japanese

[tlynnec]

OK, I admit I'm fishing a bit, but we really want to know where we stand and what we can do to improve! So please, honest feedback from anyone is appreciated.

[Guido]

+

Those were my reactions upon watching the second episode. What happened? Why the animation staff reduced the quality of the animation to such an abysmal level?

The first episode is a visual experience. I think it uses cel-shaded animation with vibrant colors and crispy textures, but for the second episode it looked as if they changed the key animators staff that found easy to switch to just hand-drawn and ink to meet the deadlines in time.

At some shots it kept the quality of the first episodes like, for example, Saoris' eyes, but overall it is depressing to witness that such an interesting title is getting such an austere treatment near-right from the start.

We can only hope that the visual-animated aesthetics return to stay on next episode.

Seriously, the second episode fast forwarded the storyline by giant leaps that I nearly lost track of what went on.

Spoiler:

After Shion was rescued by Saitou (in his boy's garb) from the perverted guy six months passed from that incident.
Shion lastly advanced to the women's league association as a junior pro, but her family started to receive letters which eventually to the surprise of the managers were sent as well to the Shougi association.

She's getting death threats. The managers tried to keep cool things off by not informing the other players and spectators of threats, but someone found out and leaked that tidbit of information to a newscaster reporter whom cynically tried to interview Shion at the midst of the match about what's she's going to do.

In addition, the next time that Shion recalls the murder of her parents from seven years ago via a dream discloses why she has kept verbally silent.
The murderer threatened never to talk ever again, if she wanted to live on.

But this situation newly arises some interesting conspiracy theories:
1. The murderer likely was targetting the Yasuoka family, but misread the address numbers on the wrong and instead ended up killing Shion's biological parents.

2. The murderer might have had harbored a grudge against Shion's father for either he lost a match to him or his father chose not to lose a match as he was previously threatened maybe by the unknown assailant.

One thing makes certain to me. That incident did not happen by chance. The murderer knew where he was going and whom was his target. Overall, I think the murderer is or was a seasoned Shogi player.

Whatever obsessions and frustrations he has had experienced playing Shougi he's now venting them all over Shion.

I suspect that later on Shion would venture in the professional world of Shougi to find clues about her family's death and to disenmasquerade the criminal.

Furthermore, it worries me those two people who were discussing the three participants newly arrived to the Shougi association- Saitou, Saori, and Shion -and talked about having plans for all three of them to invite them all to work for their organization.

Who exactly leaked to the reporter about the death letters sent to Japan?
I suspect that were one of those people I have already discussed about, but how did they learn it so fast or through which medium?

Or maybe it was all along the murderer who tattle-taled to the reporter?

[kiseki_gurl]

Originally Posted by tlynnec

OK, I admit I'm fishing a bit, but we really want to know where we stand and what we can do to improve! So please, honest feedback from anyone is appreciated.

Honestly I think you guys are doing fine. Having notes at the end is a good idea so people can figure out what's going on. I'm going to be watching your subs after I watch the RAW every week .

Originally Posted by Guido

+

Those were my reactions upon watching the second episode. What happened? Why the animation staff reduced the quality of the animation to such an abysmal level?

The first episode is a visual experience. I think it uses cel-shaded animation with vibrant colors and crispy textures, but for the second episode it looked as if they changed the key animators staff that found easy to switch to just hand-drawn and ink to meet the deadlines in time.

At some shots it kept the quality of the first episodes like, for example, Saoris' eyes, but overall it is depressing to witness that such an interesting title is getting such an austere treatment near-right from the start.

We can only hope that the visual-animated aesthetics return to stay on next episode.

Seriously, the second episode fast forwarded the storyline by giant leaps that I nearly lost track of what went on.

Spoiler:

After Shion was rescued by Saitou (in his boy's garb) from the perverted guy six months passed from that incident.
Shion lastly advanced to the women's league association as a junior pro, but her family started to receive letters which eventually to the surprise of the managers were sent as well to the Shougi association.

She's getting death threats. The managers tried to keep cool things off by not informing the other players and spectators of threats, but someone found out and leaked that tidbit of information to a newscaster reporter whom cynically tried to interview Shion at the midst of the match about what's she's going to do.

In addition, the next time that Shion recalls the murder of her parents from seven years ago via a dream discloses why she has kept verbally silent.
The murderer threatened never to talk ever again, if she wanted to live on.

But this situation newly arises some interesting conspiracy theories:
1. The murderer likely was targetting the Yasuoka family, but misread the address numbers on the wrong and instead ended up killing Shion's biological parents.

2. The murderer might have had harbored a grudge against Shion's father for either he lost a match to him or his father chose not to lose a match as he was previously threatened maybe by the unknown assailant.

One thing makes certain to me. That incident did not happen by chance. The murderer knew where he was going and whom was his target. Overall, I think the murderer is or was a seasoned Shogi player.

Whatever obsessions and frustrations he has had experienced playing Shougi he's now venting them all over Shion.

I suspect that later on Shion would venture in the professional world of Shougi to find clues about her family's death and to disenmasquerade the criminal.

Furthermore, it worries me those two people who were discussing the three participants newly arrived to the Shougi association- Saitou, Saori, and Shion -and talked about having plans for all three of them to invite them all to work for their organization.

Who exactly leaked to the reporter about the death letters sent to Japan?
I suspect that were one of those people I have already discussed about, but how did they learn it so fast or through which medium?

Or maybe it was all along the murderer who tattle-taled to the reporter?

You've certainly hit the mark on the animation.

As for your conspiracy theories and etc.:

Spoiler for Shion no Ou episode 2 events AND manga event:

Wow they're not bad. From what's been given so far (and from what I've read from the manga), I'm dead sure that the murderer is a seasoned player. I personally think #2 is the case behind it but then again only time will tell.

As to how the newsreporters found out how Shion was threatened...My guess was that they found out the same way as everyone else. Through rumors. They were already planning to target Shion anyways and probably were hanging out around the shougi association for awhile so I'm sure someone must have been talking about it. After all, everyone else found out about it relatively quickly even if they weren't supposed to. I don't think newsreporters have any connection with the murderer whatsoever...They just want news.

Somehow I think Shion's going to get her voice back. This wasn't mentioned in the anime but during Shion's very match, the one before Ayumi's, her opponent thought she heard Shion "speak".

Nonetheless, I'm eagerly waiting for episode 3. Especially since some of my favorite scenes (from waht I've read so far) are coming up.

[S_K]

Im really taking a liking in this series
animation quality is really good
Just a few predictions, and if someone can answer them

Spoiler for questions:

is that Stalker guy the one who murdered Shion's real parents?
who are those reporter people at the end?

cant wait till next episode

[Guido]

Since I know nothing about shougi, I could not care less which groups are subbing the anime, as long as the quality of the translation makes a coherent sense.
And actually I would appreciate if both groups take their own time and pace at subbing the anime. I do not get along very well with speed subs.

Originally Posted by S_K

Im really taking a liking in this series
animation quality is really good
Just a few predictions, and if someone can answer them

Spoiler for questions:

is that Stalker guy the one who murdered Shion's real parents?
who are those reporter people at the end?

cant wait till next episode

For question number one: yes, he is.

For question number two: they likely are hanging around the Shougi association to get their scoop on Shion, and likely overhead the rumors going around the death threats.