Nearly done with my catch-up posts on this series! This time, it’s Shion no Ou episodes 9 to 15. For each episode, brief summary + impression is again written as one. ^^
Episode 09: “Master and Apprentice”
We learn that Ayumi’s mother needs another surgery. Shion looks so adorable asking for Ayumi’s e-mail address. ^^ It’s Kamizono vs. Saori . Apparently, Kamizono has been sick for quite sometime. Saori wins this match fair and square as Kamizono is brought to the hospital after to finally undergo treatment. In another match it’s Honma vs. Shion. Honma is an elementary student and amateur shougi participant in this open tournament who has only played shougi online.
Episode 10: “Magic Spell”
It’s Shion vs. Honma. There’s an online opponent Honma had been playing, a guy called “noname-san” who says he knows a “magic spell” that will be able to help him win against Shion. The “magic spell” that Honma learned from “noname-san” was inscribing the kanji for “king” on his forehead. Shion is taken aback by this as she is reminded of her parents’ murder and starts to quietly cry. Honma is surprised that the “spell” seemed to work, wondering what it means but taking advantage of Shion’s distraction from the game. Hisatani takes a peek at Shion’s game and notices her crying. On another note, Hisatani is also getting suspicious of Satoru’s actions. Back in Shion’s game, she decides to face her fears with respect to her memory of the murder, gets her act together and fights on. Thinking that she has been shaken, it surprises Honma when Shion smiles at him. This makes him panic and second guesses his moves. Shion manages to turn the game around and wins the match. They note that this is the real game, shougi offline, you have to deal with emotions as you play face to face. After the match, the detectives are notified of the “king inscribed on forehead” incident so they question Honma how he knew about it since the only people who know about this is the murderer, the witness (Shion) and the police. They suspect that “noname-san” is the murderer himself. As Hisatani gets up for a moment and leaves his things on a desk at the association, we see his cell phone being taken by someone. Later on, as Shion is about to go to bed, she gets a call on her cell phone from an unknown person. Guess who? It’s the murderer from 8 years ago.
Satoru has been acting really suspicious ever since he showed up, so he was the first person I thought of when Shion gets this call, but it seems to me he’s acting too suspicious that it makes me doubt and wonder if the writers are just trying to throw us off and that someone least expected is the real culprit… hmm.
Episode 11: “Doubt”
Picking up from last episode, the murderer gives Shion a call, saying “It’s been a while, Shion. Eight years, hasn’t it?” This totally caught Shion offguard as she realizes who the caller is. Surprisingly, she manages to barely utter the word “Who?” to which the caller immediately responds, “You broke your promise” then hangs up. Remember, on the night of the murder 8 years ago, the culprit covers little Shion’s mouth with his hand and told her that if she wants to live she should forget how to speak (way back in episode 2). Meanwhile, on his way home from the Yasuokas, Hisatani realizes his cell phone is missing and wonders where he left it, whether at the Association or at the Yasuoka’s residence. He is about to go back to the Yasuokas but then hides himself as he sees Satoru and Sachiko meeting up around the train station and exchanging some documents. The next day at the Association, Hisatani seems preoccupied as he walks on completely oblivious to Saori greeting him. (They look cute together! ^^) The detectives drop by the Association who asks about Histani’s cell phone. He informs them that he lost it last night. In turn, they let him know that a threatening call had been made to Shion from his lost cell phone last night
It’s Shinji vs. Ayumi, Saori vs. Hani-meijin and Shion vs. Satoru coming up. LOL @ Shion being a bit of dilemma, saying she is cheering for both Ayumi and her father… too cute! ^^
Episode 12: “Fox’s Prediction”
Continuing from last episode, it’s Shion vs. Satoru, Ayumi vs. Shinji and Saori vs. Hani-meijin. At Shion’s match, as she opens the bag where the shougi pieces are placed, the “king” is the only one out of the bag. Satoru feigns ignorance, but it seems that he is the one who arranged it that way. Sneaky guy. As their match begins, he leaves the room after his first move and peeks at his brother’s game. Shion reckons leaving is part of Satoru’s strategy to make her overthink the move she should make. As Satoru comes back, he sees Shion has made her move. Being the clever girl that she is, she leaves the room now that it’s Satoru’s turn to think and takes a peek at her father’s and Ayumi’s match. It’s quite obvious now that Satoru is skilled in shougi. Meanwhile, Hani-meijin and Shinji have a short talk regarding Satoru. Shinji also asks Hisatani what he knows of Ayumi’s situation. As Shinji goes back to their match, he apologizes to Ayumi informing her that he asked around a little about her situation. He found out that Ayumi hasn’t been able to study shougi much on his spare time due to certain family circumstances and Kamizono-sensei is sick, so Shinji invites him to his study sessions whenever he can manage to. Shinji is such a nice father figure! ^^
Episode 13: “Duality”
Shion loses against Satoru, but instead of being gloomy about it as Satoru wants to see in her expression, Shion smiles as she holds her notepad with the words accepting her defeat and congratulating him, surprising Satoru. LOL, in your face! It’s like Shion saying I won’t do as you please, you bully. xD This obviously bothered Satoru, making him think why he feels unsatisfied even though he won the match. Ayumi loses to Shinji, Saori loses to Hani-meijin. After the match, Hisatani, Ayumi, Shion and Shinji are gathered at the scoreboard. Shion says it’s okay that she lost since “loser gets to become stronger” and it’s Shinji who told her that, adding “that’s why I often lost when I was young.” Haha. That’s Shion being a cute smart aleck! xD Ayumi asks Shinji why he’s being nice to her (he invited her to their shougi study group). He says he thinks Ayumi is young and talented with great potential. Also, it turns out that Kamizono helped Shinji out and supported him in his decision to adopt Shion back then. With a smile, he adds that maybe in a way, it can be thought of as returning the favor to Kamizono as well. As they are about to leave to eat, they find that someone played a prank on Shion, cutting her shoelaces. Ayumi offers his shoes for the meantime (which are too big! LOL). It seems that childish prank was done by Satoru. Since the 3 girls (well, technically 2 girls and 1 guy, since Ayumi is a guy posing as a girl) lost their matches, they get another chance to fight in the finals if they manage to win 2 consecutive games that night. Shion and Ayumi win both their matches, but unfortunately Saori loses her 2nd match.
Satoru hangs out at Hani-meijin’s place. Hani-meijin tells him to back off bothering Shion’s family especially while the matches are going on. Satoru says he was just trying to help out with the investigation on the murder case, but he’ll back off as his brig brother wishes. Satoru then says he left his cell phone so he asks to use Hani-meijin’s cell phone to send a “business-related” text message. Later, we see Saori receiving a text from Hani-meijin asking her to visit Ayumi’s mother in the hospital in his place. Hmm. Obviously this is sneaky Satoru’s doing. It seems that he knows Ayumi’s secret and is trying to let Saori “accidentally” find out about it. What is he up to?
Episode 14: “Timbre of a Challenge”
Saori visits Ayumi’s mom in the hospital and inadvertently finds out Ayumi is actually a guy. She thinks when the Association finds out about it, it would make quite a stir more than what Ayumi is anticipating. Saori thinks Ayumi would have people on her side, but lots will be against him. She thinks they should tell Hani-meijin about it, but she won’t meddle if Ayumi thinks otherwise. She agrees to keep his secret and lets him know she’s on his side. I wonder what Satoru was hoping to attain letting Saori find out about Ayumi? For them to fight? Saori to blow the whistle? If that was so, then he failed since Saori supports Ayumi, unless Satoru is foreseeing something to happen much later. Hmm. He is so sneaky. Speaking of Satoru, it seems he is planning something fishy with regard to the upcoming finals match-up ceremony, asking Kobayashi to do something to “spice up” the tournament.
It’s a raffle for the finals match-up. There are 12 finalists for the tournament and each will choose a cell phone with an e-mail containing the specific number to know who will go against who. LOL @ Shinji being all serious as he held the cell phone, he was serious because he didn’t know how to use a cell phone, to Shion’s embarrassment! xD When it’s Shion’s turn, she freezes as she opens the e-mail and sees her raffle number. Shinji walks up to her and reads the number off. Ah, it turns out the “something fishy” I mentioned earlier was related to this. Shion and Shinji are in the same group and will be facing off against each other for the first eliminations match, so it’s going to be a father vs. daughter. Shion is left behind staring at the board listing the matches as Satoru walks in and bullies her again, saying harsh words as he touches her face, like it probably doesn’t bother her emotionally since Shinji’s not her real father anyway so it should be okay to fight against him head on. Ayumi walks in on this scene and defends Shion! Yelling at Satoru saying he won’t forgive him if something happens to Shion. Satoru responds he wasn’t doing anything and remarks that Ayumi is scary when she’s mad, “almost like a boy.” It’s pretty certain now that he really knows Ayumi’s secret. Heh.
Remember it was mentioned in passing in previous episodes that Shion remembered the murderer had beautiful hands/fingers? (as early as episode 1 and again in episode 6) Well, as Satoru held her face, Shion remembers something from the past… She thinks there is a resemblance between the feel of Satoru’s fingers and the sound of his voice just now, and the murderer’s 8 years ago. I have suspicions on Satoru, but as I mentioned before, I think he just seems too obvious to be the actual culprit. I think he may be related to the incident somehow, but perhaps not directly. It’s getting really interesting.^^
Saori lets Hani-meijin know that she gave Ayumi’s mom flowers in his stead as he instructed in the text message he sent her. This baffles him for a bit but then realizes Satoru probably did it when he borrowed his cell phone the other night. Shion’s match against Shinji begins. Hani-meijin tells Kobayashi that Shinji won’t take it easy playing against Shion since the kifu (record of the game and all the moves made) will be kept in record forever and Shinji won’t burden Shion with the other people thinking he let her win merely because she is his daughter. Hani-meijin puts on a scary angry face, telling off Kobayashi to not take shougi lightly ever again.
Episode 15: “Time’s Answer”
It’s Shion vs. Shinji. Kamizono and Ayumi watch the game via a laptop in the hospital. It’s a good game. I know I mentioned this a couple of times or so before, I’m absolutely clueless about shougi so I don’t really understand what’s going on with the matches, but I think it doesn’t matter much because you can sense the intensity of the game and the emotions they feel since we get to hear their thoughts as the game goes with each move they make. This entire episode focuses mainly on the father and daughter. In the present game, Shion thinks she won’t be able to win in terms of skill and experience but may have a chance by playing quickly. Meanwhile at the spectators area, Saori tells off Hisatani for leaving his own match to peek at Shion and Shinji’s game, saying he should focus on winning his own game instead. LOL. Scary but cute. They’d make a nice couple. 
We get glimpses of the past with chibi Shion and her first ever shougi match against Shinji. Apparently, they played it when Shion was 4 years old. Shinji played against little Shion with just the king and easily won, not holding back even though he was playing a child. Naturally, Shion cries after losing then asks Shinji if she could get stronger, which Shinji assures she will if she likes shougi that much. Present Shinji wonders if he was able to give Shion happiness as her father. Incidentally, Shion was also thinking about the same memory of their first game too. Shinji makes a move that Shion wasn’t anticipating so she stops for a bit and thinks. He remembers that’s how Shion has always been like, always trying to figure it out until she understands the move.
In the spectator’s area, Satoru makes the same observation and tells Saori that Shion’s habit is that whenever something happens that she didn’t predict, she’ll stop and think then she becomes unable to make the final move, adding “maybe that’s why the murder case isn’t solved yet.” Saori observes that the faster Shion plays, the shorter the opponent thinks and that’s what she was trying to take advantage of against Shinji since he won’t be able to predict entirety of the endgame without much time. Shion wins the match. We learn yet again that Satoru is indeed very good at shougi though he didn’t pursue being a kishi.
After the match, Satoru is trying to anger Shinji by playing the “you’re not her real father” card. Shinji being the calm person that he is, states that he doesn’t mind that at all “if by his sacrifice the child could grow” and that he means that. This obviously wasn’t the kind of reaction Satoru was hoping for, and what Shinji said reminded Satoru of his own father’s sacrifice (Remember, his father died in a car accident by pushing his son out of the harm’s way). This, however, puts a different kind of smile on Satoru’s face. Not mischievous but sincere, quietly thanking Shinji for letting him witness a good game.
