3-gatsu no Lion (March comes in like a lion)

（３月のライオン）

Life is so unpredictable

（不思議だ　ひとは）

 

Salvation comes to us suddenly like a storm

 （こんなにも時が　過ぎた後で）

 

by unexpected way
（全く　違う方向から）

 

after such a long time has passed...
（嵐のように　救われる事がある…）

< Story >

The protagonist Rei (lit. "Zero") is a 17-year old professional shōgi(Japanese chess) player, who lives by himself, not having a real family, and has scarcely any friends. Among his acquaintances is a family, which consists of a young woman, Akari, and two young girls, Hinata and Momo, and who also keep a numerous number of cats...

  I liked "Honey and Clover"(comic version only, not a movie one if I may say), which was also created by Umino Chika. I guess "Honey and Clover" can easily attract a lot of people who weren't even born and brought up in Japan as it's theme was rather universal such as one-way love, friendship, adlescence and struggle of university students etc. before becoming adults.

 

If looked from such point of view, most of you (including me actually) must have wondered "why did she choose shogi(Japanese chess) for her theme in the next comic?". Frankly speaking, shogi is not such popular at all (especially for young adults, who must have loved her previous work), difficult to understand and it seems to be the "opposite" direction from the "Honey and Clover".

All of such questions can be answered once you read this. Although I don't play shogi at all and cannot understand details of the shogi rules, surprisingly I found myself still enjoying this just like I did for "Honey and Clover".
 

The fact this won the Kodansha Manga Award(general category) in 2011(shared with Chuya Koyama's Uchyu Kyodai(Space Brothers))must be strongly telling many people are feeling in the same way as I do. Although shogi itself is very deep, complicated and difficult to understand even for Japanese, please try not only if you liked her previous work "Honey and Clover", but also even if you didn't really like "Honey and Clover" as she is trying to create her another best story from different angle!