天下制覇

Nor Akagi either, for that matter.

Impressions:

There were a few things going wrong from the very start. The show can’t seem to make up its mind whether it wants to have some overall shogi theme, or whether that’s just some generic pretext for the thriller portion of the show. I have played shogi before, though I rate my abilities at it somewhere below my mastery of the ACBL Standard Yellow Card System. If you have no idea what shogi is at all though, you’re going to be totally lost during those parts.

The meat of the show though… despite whatever the OP lead me to believe, was more of the thriller parts. Shion’s parents were murdered, and there’s some dude stalking her, and she gets kidnapped (well, grabbed) at the end. Unfortunately, the exposition is totally hamhanded. Shion doesn’t speak at all, except in very rare inner monologues… I think she had three the entire episode… which means that there’s a lot of other characters doing really REALLY forced commentary on her thoughts and actions that ends up being completely unnatural and awful. Add to this some occasional facial distortions on the art side and all the cracks begin to add up.

No summaries for the first episodes. I write as I watch, and I don’t know if I’ll care about a show until after the first episode.

Shion no Ou OP