Shion no Ou – 12

This is very rare for a sports-anime: three huge matches, happening all at the same time, and all of them turned out to be awesome. I’m so glad that this series is back again.

Basically, this episode was all about the rookies versus the veterans: Shion versus Satoru, Saori versus Hani-meijin and Ayumi versus Shion’s foster-father. The episode ended with all the rookies getting pwned. The episode ended in a cliff-hanger, but with this series you never know how much longer a fight will take. Series like Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji should really take an example from Shion no Ou, because the pacing for this series is truly addictive.

I think that Ayumi has lost for real in this episode. I’m not sure whether the match was over at the end of the episode, but there wasn’t much hope left for him anyway. His mind seemed off for some reason. Ah well, at least Shion’s foster-father offered to take him up as a student, so he can learn more. That’s quite cute. 🙂

Oh, and how I love Shion. It was obvious that Satoru would start teasing her, right from the beginning, and Shion here had no intention to let his mind-games get to her. When Satoru leaves the shougi-room for a minute to suppose to give Shion some extra thinking-time, she does the same against him right when he comes back. Still, it’s clear now that the guy didn’t just stop playing shougi after his mother died, but instead continued to play, unbeknownst to his brother, suggesting that the two of them grew apart after that incident (one flashback this episode showed that they were quite close when their mother was still alive). And indeed, he easily surprises Shion by playing innocent, and then striking with a winning move. Still, I feel that the cliff-hanger was used for a reason…

Saori, meanwhile, has her long-desired match against Hani-Meijin. A match she’s doomed to lose, though I suspect that the way it ends will give her great insights for the future. In any case, the next episode promises to be an excellent one.