celticbride

This "revenge story" ultimately had no revenge. The setup is super juicy. Her famous shoji player father decided shogi was all that mattered to him, so he abandoned her and her mother. Her mom got sick and our lead struggled for years to make ends meet and get her care. She even tried to reach out to her b@stard dad for help/closure, just to be rebutted. So we're on a revenge quest to ruin him with the very game he prides himself on.

The quest was already muddled by some mixed messages. Is she a mega shogi genius or just a fairly gifted rookie who needs to steadily learn the game and get better after losing a bunch? Does she actually love this game and needs to work through her negative associations with it to embrace her passion, or is this a means to an end, the tool she can use to destroy her father? Is she taking down him, her own feelings, or this misogynistic/patriarchal system? It really changes from scene to scene, episode to episode. But it was still kind of cool to see her rise through the ranks when that WAS shown.

And then in the end…the message is still all over the place. Revenge? Not achieved. Goal? Honestly I couldn't tell you if she reached what she was aiming for. She is in a better place than where she started, but ultimately the through line of the show is a jumbled mess that kind of didn't go anywhere. It was an ok enough ride, but because it didn't amount to anything, I can't really call it "good." It can only be ok.