Ah, Shogi. Shogi is a chess-like table game (sometimes called “Japanese Chess” in the West) with a long and storied history. Notably, compared to Chess, Shogi is seen as a much more complex and difficult game, both for computers and for humans. The reason for this is that Shogi, unlike chess, is not purely reductive in nature. That is, rather than being gone forever, captured pieces can be deployed instead of moving, thus preserving the complexity of the game well into the late game and generally preventing draws and stalemates.
Thus, Shogi matches often take many hours, even multiple days when masters of the game play against each other. It’s a fascinating topic with history and, like any good game, its share of drama and determination.
According to The Ryuo’s Work is Never Done! (the title is excited), it also includes little girls, crazy chuunis, and various other bizarre personages. Let’s watch it!
We open with Yaichi Kuzuryuu, Shogi prodigy, becoming (at sixteen) the youngest ever Ryuo, a title that marks a shogi player as the best of the best. A few months later he’s hit some kind of slump and is considered awful by the community. This is when a nine-year-old girl shows up at his place asking to be his disciple.
She turns out to be an even more obscene level of prodigy than Yaichi himself, having reached a competitive level of play in only three months of training mostly alone, with mental math that puts other grandmasters to shame.
Naturally, this leads to an extremely contrived sequence where, after a long night of games, said little girl, Ai Hinatsuru, is bathing when Yaichi’s sisterly friend/rival Sora Ginko comes over, resulting in a futile struggle to avoid a naked loli introduction.
These jokes are bad enough when all the characters are roughly the same age and at least drawn as adult-ish, but this is just painful
Continuing on, we find out that the professional Shogi scene seems to mostly consist of weird eccentrics like the ice queen sister, a flamboyant chuuni, and way too many lolis that get way too much focus as such. There’s a bit of plot when Ai’s parents come to town and mom especially wants to take her back, but that’s resolved quickly and of course with the awkward ultimatum that if Yaichi really wants to train Ai (and her skill means that’s a strong yes) and she doesn’t earn a full title before she’s out of middle school, he’ll have to marry into the family – presumably her. This is neither funny nor charming.
We then introduce another grade-school girl named Ai – Ai Yashajin this time – who Yaichi is pressured into taking on. Unlike Hinatsuru, she’s an unpleasant, spiteful, and prideful little piece of work. She is good, though, and he agrees to work with her in order to promote her skill. At first, Yaichi keeps Ai #2 a secret from Ai #1, until they deploy what is framed as a “caught cheating” scenario.
With fourth-grade little kids. The show seems to take place in a fictional universe where this is normal and Yaichi’s reactions are seen as sane, and it really doesn’t come off well. He even says when he decides to take on #2 it’s at least in part because #1 needs a rival to help better her skills through on-par live play, but then later in the episode he lies like he’s guilty rather than, oh, introducing them as would make sense with that motivation.
Well, at least rivalry is well and truly on, since Ai #2 goes and lays on the innuendo just to piss off Ai #1 when they finally meet. Eventually (after too long really) a shogi match breaks out where we find they really are natural opponents, with Ai #1 being Aggro Ai while Ai #2 is Control Ai. After the match, Ai #1 (who was angry at Yaichi for understandable reasons yet in a way that could only have come out of a troubled mind) returns to her master, even if it’s clear the two will be nonsensically competing for Yaichi’s affections.
Supposedly, Sora is in that game too, but she plays frigid tsundere to the max despite the adults largely seeing it. It’s even said to be why she wants to break out of the female-specific lists and make it as a full ranked pro player, on the same field as Yaichi. She actually has a nice moment or two – moment, not scene, since she can’t sustain a pleasant demeanor for too many lines – but I think at fourteen she’s older than the writers’ strike zone.
Not Yaichi’s, the writers’. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
We deal with an intertwined arc. The first part involves Yaichi learning a new strategy from – who else – another complete eccentric. This is to defeat a rival of his who is – you guessed it – another free-spirited oddball. Going by this show, I don’t think anyone well-adjusted plays Shogi.
The second thread is centered on Keika, the biological daughter of the Shogi master who taught Yaichi and Sora. She wants to become a female pro, but she’s been scraping by at the bottom edge of that rank and evidently she’s running out of time, being 25 going on 26 now, when 27 is the absolute limit for a player to promote. If she doesn’t make pro in a year and change, she’ll have to retire.
This sounded… just absurd enough to potentially be real. And in fact it is real – the world of professional Shogi is not a kind place for ladies, who are segregated into their own league, which does have a maximum age to qualify or quit. It seems that male qualifiers have similar rules, but not necessarily identical. Further, they aren’t considered equivalent, with the best female players being held to be in league with low-ranking male pros, if even that.
So, if it seems odd that in this anime with lots of fierce, devoted, and skilled female players they’re worried about aging out or not measuring up to the boys, that oddly enough seems to reflect the reality of the Shogi scene.
Incidentally (and I’m not just going on a digression because real shogi is more interesting than lolicon shogi) it seems that our main character also kind of has a real life counterpart, with a current dominant player having achieved pro status by age 14, and within four years having claimed the major titles of the Shogi world including Ryuo. I’d say that Yaichi was clearly based on this lad, Fujii Sōta, but the real version only became a pro in 2016, while the light novel this show was based on debuted a year sooner. I guess when this thing’s not being weirdly fascinated by grade school kids, it actually has its finger on the pulse of things… though I do suspect that most pros aren’t as wild and crazy as the show depicts.
Anyway, back to the anime. In Sora’s best scene, she gives Keika an epic pep talk, which helps her prepare for a comeback. She doesn’t quite manage, but finds the spirit to keep on going, now with real hope of making it. Also there’s a love confession scene between Keika and Yaichi (Which while not quite as troubling as the normal material since they’re both drawn and treated as adults, is a 10-year age gap), but I wouldn’t read too much into it given the directions this show likes to go.
We then have a womens’ tournament, with Yaichi doing commentary on the side. Ai #1 sees fit to embarrass her master on live TV, and brings all the other shogi-playing grade-school miscreant girls along for the ride. We also get into this round’s most important crazy weirdo, who happens to be Yaichi’s shark-toothed borderline-yandere stalker ex. Not that he’s bright enough to realize that her advances might be something other than Shogi related even when it might as well be writ in giant neon letters. However, Ai #1 manages to knock shark teeth out in the prelim.
Thus we put that tournament on hold for Yaichi’s title defense against a legendary player, said to be the best who ever lived. It’s a best-of-seven series and Yaichi gets mentally destroyed in the first match, and goes 0-3 in short order. His rolling mental break as he studies for an out spreads to Ai #1 as well, and being traumatized she both loses her match and has an episode on doing so.
In this hang time we have Sora take her shot (both with a swimsuit scene and coming over when Yaichi is in the pit of despair, which was not a smart move and gets her yelled at), resolve Keika (she wins a pivotal match, earning the right to become a pro), and to an extent resolve Ai #1. In Ai’s case, after her tournament loss she wins enough regular matches to make pro, which leads to an actually heartfelt scene between her and Yaichi when he comes out of his funk… or so it would be if it weren’t followed by an exceptionally awkward mock marriage to declare her formally a pro (and thus on the rolls as Yaichi’s disciple for good).
Thus, with everything else seemingly as in the bag as it’s going to get, we go into the final battle against Yaichi’s opponent, the Meijin, the one Shogi player in this universe to not be a complete clown. Rather, his face is kept out of frame and he pretty much never speaks up until the final episode, presenting him as an indomitable monolith. The last matches are fittingly intense – first a scuffed match ending in a draw (even though that’s normally impossible in Shogi. This is explained.), and then the final on screen battle, where Yaichi manages to actually score a win against the Meijin (revealed to be… kind of a normal dude, with a similar intensity to Yaichi himself). We then get an ending narration that Yaichi managed to repeat the performance and defend his title. Everybody goes flower viewing, the end.
Since it seems unavoidable, let’s talk about lolis.
I have no antipathy for little girl characters in abstract. I think the number of Magical Girl shows I’ve sunk hours into can serve as a marker for that, even if only a few of those feature protagonists in grade school. When it comes to little girls set up as romantic interests for older male leads, things get a little… sketchier. Historically, I haven’t actually minded much. Watch enough anime and you kind of get used to this being an occassional thing, so I’ve just glazed over it in shows like Black Bullet, or when you see random interactions like Accelerator and Last Order in the Toaru Series that people could probably read into if they wanted to. I have no affection for the dynamic, but in a number of good productions it’s there enough for those who do, without really doing damage.
Why, then, did this show of all things, which despite the gag in the first episode skews rather chaste, get under my skin with something as mildly inoffensive as cute little girls being cute?
I think it comes down to The Ryuo’s Work is Never Done! Having not enough meat to it. While Keika and Sora are there (the latter of which would be more of a mitigating factor if she weren’t playing the harshest tsundere notes this side of Louise), it’s pretty clear that the main audience this show is going for is the people who will see wish fulfillment in Yaichi having a bunch of little grade school girls all over him and possibly looking for his hand in marriage. That is the primary appeal of the show. I guess if you’re huge into Shogi then maybe all the terms that they spout will make sense and make that side compelling, but I’m a novice at best and thus was often rather lost when complex board states were meaningfully flashed on screen. There was some interest, and the overhyped emotional stakes on certain moves and matches were sold, but it was more of a sideshow.
This is accentuated by how the show chooses to spend its first episode, and how it chooses to call Yaichi out repeatedly. Most of the accusations come from Sora’s lips, but she’s rather relentless, and she’s not the only source happy to declare Yaichi a lolicon in character. Sure he denies it, but except for the fact that he outright gets a mutual “I love you” with Keika, which should be a big deal but is forgotten as soon as it’s off screen, there’s not a lot of weight behind his words.
And while it’s somewhat less creepy in that they’re both treated as adults (Yaichi may be 16 but he’s the Ryuo and living on his own, so he’s conceptually adult), Keika x Yaichi is still a hell of an age gap.
Have you ever encountered a candy bowl that’s been untouched for too long? I think most people have, in some unfortunate waiting room or at the house of an older relation if nothing else. There’s a particular smell to it. The initial impression is that just of, what else, candy. Something sweet, maybe full of artificial fruity flavors or other notes like chocolate or peppermint. But if you take a good whiff, there’s an undercurrent to it. A rotten undercurrent that’s too sweet, sickly sweet. It’s a smell that warns you that as appealing as a mere surface glimpse might be, there’s something toxic underneath.
That’s this show. Even leaving off the Shogi, which is okay, and the emotional arcs that aren’t the worst (Highlight: Keika. Low point: Sora), plenty of the scenes do work. They’re cute. Fundamentally harmless. But I’ve been around the block a time or two and I can smell the undercurrent, even when it’s not welling up as loudly as it can. It seems like saccharine enjoyment, but there’s something rotten and rancid that should and does put you off of the whole thing.
And if you’re not here specifically and emphatically to eat that poison, there’s not a compelling reason to be here. That’s what kills it. Not that the sickly sweetness exists, but that there’s nothing else of significant value.
This isn’t the worst show I’ve watched. Not by a long shot. This isn’t the most troubling show I’ve watched. It’s not even close. Heck, in both cases it’s probably not in the same dang solar system, but then that’s speaking to the fact I’ve seen some real stinkers. But it’s not a show that’s worth watching. It’s not a show that redeems itself. It’s not a show that justifies your time or your attention. Its plot is a nothing, its characters range from mostly okay to tortuously annoying, its animation is nothing special, its imagination is nothing special… I think you’ll have more fun reading the Wikipedia articles on the careers of real Shogi champions. Haruhi knows I did.
At the end, that earns The Ryuo’s Work is Never Done! a D. Just that. It’s deficient, hollow, and without purpose. Just forget you ever found it and move on.