It’s episode 10 of Shion no Ō, and it’s time for Shion’s second round match against the genius 5th grader. However, her opponent has a secret weapon up his sleeve which may drive Shion way from shogi altogether. Also, the murderer appears to finally be making whatever move he intends on making.
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Go Straight to the Screenshots | Go Straight to the Review
The highlights of this episode:
- Ayumi asks the Shogi association for an advance on her winnings, but the girl who works there says that it’s against policy rules. Satoru says he can lend Ayumi money, but she blows him off. After Shion sees Ayumi storm off, she asks what happens, and the Shogi Association girl tells her.
- Shion goes into her match with Suo Honma, who is gleeful to meet her. As the match starts, Shion notices that Suo isn’t one who thinks about his moves too much, but that she shouldn’t underestimate him since he did beat a 9-dan opponent in the first round. Meanwhile, Satoru defeats a 3-dan opponent to advance to the 3rd round.
- Shion starts to beat up Suo due to his more reckless style of play. Suo then decides to use his trump card: he draws the character of “king” on his forehead. This reminds Shion of the murder and causes her to suddenly break down crying. He tells her that he heard from someone he played online once that it’s a magic spell to beat Shion. However, after seeing Shion’s reaction, Suo starts to wonder if something is wrong. He remembers back to when he played noname online. Noname figured out who he was, and knew that he was going to play Shion, and told him the “magic spell” to win against Shion.
- Shion feels like running away after being reminded of the murder, but decides to press on. Shion starts to look more confident, and Suo gets unnerved, even though he’s winning and makes a bad mistake, allowing Shion to gain the advantage and win.
- After the match, Shion gets Hisatani to call the police, and when they arrive, he goes with them to see Shion. Meanwhile, someone takes his cell phone from the association’s office. The visit by the police ultimately leads to them questioning Suo about the magic spell. The detectives decide to ask the ISP and online dojo for the information about where the murderer was playing.
- That night, Shion gets a call on her cell phone from the murderer…
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Well, this has suddenly gotten a bit more exciting as the murderer is coming more and more to the surface. Of course, the question still is “who is it?” From the fact that they knew that Suo was going to play Shion, that seems to suggest that it’s someone who is at the very least participating in the shogi tournament.
This would fit with my theory-of-the-moment that it is actually Hani-meijin, since he would obviously be both in a position to know who he is playing, as well as to know how strong Shion is. Now, why he may be trying to get Shion to lose, though (and a motive for the original murder for that matter) is still a mystery to me.
This is also the first time that Shion seems to have taken pro-active steps to try to find out something about the murderer, having called the police after realizing that what Suo did might have been a clue. In any case, we have something like 36 players left in the tournament, 2 episodes, and 1 murderer-at-large left, so it may get interesting from here on.
Oh, and why was Ayumi trying to get an advance for his winnings? Was it just his normal “I need money now,” or something more?
One Comment
nudey pics!!!