The next day, the results for the third chapter of Hikaru no Go were released.
Its popularity ranking in Dream Comic Weekly rose again, this time landing at 13th place.
The reader rating also increased slightly, though its rating rank remained steady at 6th place.
By this point, both the Hoshimori Group and the broader manga industry in the Japan had reached a clear conclusion: This manga wasn't just a temporary novelty.
One or two weeks of good performance could be attributed to curiosity about a new theme.
But three consecutive weeks of: rising popularity, rising vote totals, rising rating, almost no negative reviews proved that, this series had real momentum.
Even more interestingly, manga analysts looking into Shirogane's career noticed a pattern across all three of his works since debut:
Every one of his mangas starts slow, builds fanbase for a few weeks, then suddenly explodes when the plot hits a turning point.
Exactly the same pattern as his previous titles.
This raised a burning question inside the industry:
"Is Shirogane really a new manga artist?"
This was Dream Comic Weekly, the third largest weekly manga magazine.
Every artist serialized here was a monster-level talent, selected from tens of thousands of hopefuls.
Yet this high-schooler was quietly climbing week by week, completely unfazed by the competition.
Soon, the manga industry media began flooding with articles:
"Genius Shirogane's new work achieves stunning results in its first three weeks, is Go manga becoming a new trend?"
"Hikaru no Go ranks 13th in week three, the best opening performance for any new Dream Comic Weekly series in the past three years."
"Shirogane: Winner of last year's National New Manga Artist Award, will he become the rare exception who actually proves the award's value?"
"Simple Go, deep emotion, Shirogane's new hit brings traditional culture into mainstream entertainment."
"Vice President of the Go Association praises Hikaru no Go for increasing youth enrollment in Go classes."
News spreads fast in the six-magazine ecosystem. Many readers overlap, and word that Dream Comic had an unusually gripping Go manga spread rapidly.
Of course, this alone wouldn't immediately make fans of other magazines switch their loyalty. But when the collected volumes eventually released, curiosity sales would be enormous.
Mid-February
Rei continued working through the Lunar New Year holiday, drawing nonstop.
He knew exactly how many masterpieces existed in his past life, and he had no idea how long his memory would last.
So his plan was simple: Finish all of Hikaru no Go within a little over a year.
Some arcs from the original manga he found unnecessary: the long Go club group-promotion subplot, the arc where Isumi is defeated by elementary school kids, and especially the long slump after Sai disappears
He wanted a tighter, more emotional progression without damaging the core themes.
Since each of his chapters already had far more pages and higher art quality, his version could end earlier while still feeling complete.
"Life is short. Even if I live to eighty like Hayao Miyazaki, how many past-life masterpieces can I bring into this world?"
That urgency pushed his hand every day.
New Year's Eve
Misaki sent him holiday greetings in the morning.
Miyu personally arrived with New Year's gifts.
When she saw Rei STILL drawing manga on New Year's Eve, she nearly exploded.
"Fine! Keep grinding yourself to death!"
She fled home to revise her own manuscripts out of sheer competitive panic.
Later, Professional Go player Rika called to request joint-creation materials for an interview about Hikaru no Go.
The Hoshimori editorial department called to offer official greetings and informed Rei a New Year gift package would arrive soon.
Despite being a second-year high schooler, Rei felt like a fully booked salaryman, drowning in responsibilities outside just drawing manga.
And he knew this was only the beginning.
Chapters 4–5
During the two-weeks, chapters 4 and 5 were serialized.
These chapters remained close to the original:
Under Sai's influence, Hikaru slowly developed real interest in Go.
He began attending free Go lessons near his home.
He joined Akari at a junior-high anniversary festival.
There he met Kaga Tetsuo and Tsutsui Kimihiro.
The two chapters introduced:
Kaga Tetsuo, Tsutsui Kimihiro, their internal conflicts, and their reluctant formation of a temporary three-member Go team with Hikaru
They entered a regional junior-high Go team competition.
Because this part of the story was transitional, the rankings stayed stable:
Popularity: 13th place
Rating: 6th place
However, the vote count rose significantly again, narrowing the gap with the 12th-place series.
Moreover, manga readers were well aware that the upcoming highlight of the junior-high Go team arc would be this mismatched team: the shogi-club president pretending to be the captain, the weakest Go-club president taking the second seat, and Hikaru, still not even a junior-high student yet, as the third player.
Would Sai, the thousand-year Go spirit, crash the junior-high Go world again by force?
It sounded a bit like bullying.
But people nowadays simply lacked martial virtue. Everyone loved this kind of development.
February passed in the blink of an eye, and March arrived, the beginning of Rei's second semester of high school.
On the first day of school, the gate was even more chaotic than Rei had imagined.
A crowd of Hikaru no Go fans from all over Tokyo had been waiting since early morning just to see him.
It took Rei a long time to settle them down and get them to disperse.
As soon as he entered the classroom, he was called to the office by his homeroom teacher.
There, the school's dean spoke to him earnestly, hinting that if he ever accepted media interviews again, he should try to speak well of the school.
From the dean's tone, Rei understood immediately: the school staff had clearly seen the national media coverage of Hikaru no Go and "Shirogane" during the holiday, especially the coverage where Japan's Go Association praised the manga for boosting interest in the game.
Naturally, the school intended to ride the wave of Rei's growing fame.
Drawing "picture books" would normally be considered a distraction, but drawing for Dream Comic Weekly, a magazine selling tens of millions of copies per week, and having his manga reported by multiple TV stations?
That was another story entirely.
Strictly speaking, wasn't Rei's manga being publicly praised for promoting a traditional cultural art?
With a student from their school contributing to national culture, of course the school wanted to borrow that prestige to decorate their own résumé…
In early March, as the weather warmed, the latest issue of Dream Comic Weekly hit the shelves on Wednesday as usual.
Early that morning, many readers were already lining up in bookstores, each picking up the latest issue.
This time, Sai occupied a large, prominent section of the magazine cover.
Though he still wasn't the central promotional character, his depiction was no longer just a partial face or a pair of eyes squeezed into a tiny corner like in earlier issues.
Sho picked up the magazine and examined Sai's full-face illustration carefully.
As a long-time manga reader, he knew exactly what this meant:Hoshimori was officially starting to push Hikaru no Go forward.
"Shirogane-sensei, keep going!" Sho thought silently.
No matter how people online criticized Shirogane, Sho never felt anything negative toward him.
He didn't care about "students balancing schoolwork."
Just the fact that Hikaru no Go released 30 to 40+ manuscript pages every week, equivalent to one-and-a-half or even two chapters compared to most series, made him refuse to tolerate anyone bad-mouthing Shirogane.
Talent and relentless effort deserved recognition. It was only natural that Hoshimori started valuing him.
Sho went home and unwrapped the magazine.
The sixth chapter of Hikaru no Go picked up right where the previous one left off.
The makeshift Go team formed by Hikaru, Kimihiro Tsutsui, and Kaga Tetsuo had miraculously made it through the local junior-high Go team tournament, squeezing out win after win by sheer luck, desperation, and teamwork.
Of course, Sai did not directly intervene this time.
Having him bulldoze middle-schoolers every round would make the plot pointless.
Readers would quickly lose interest if every match lacked suspense.
So although Hikaru was technically the team's "secret weapon," he didn't let Sai take over during the official matches.
Instead, Hikaru played on his own.
With only a few months of study, it was inevitable that he was crushed by many opponents.
Yet, through each defeat and each narrow escape, Hikaru felt something awakening inside him, a growing desire to learn, to understand, to improve.
By the time he and his teammates, somehow scraped their way into the semifinals.
Kaga, their "ace," could only defeat one opponent. He couldn't carry the entire team on his own.
And the second board player, Tsutsui, resigned mid-game and walked away from the match with a pained, downcast expression.
Sho let out a long sigh.
Was the junior-high Go team arc, which the manga had been building up for nearly three chapters, really going to end like this?
'Hikaru, what are you doing?'
'From the very first round, you've been fooling around and losing every game.'
'You're playing happy-go-lucky Go… but what about everyone else?'
Before this, Kaga Tetsuo and Tsutsui were strong enough to carry the team into the semifinals. But now that it's the crucial match, others have fought so hard to get here, and you still refuse to let Sai play?
It really is selfish.
Then the plot hit a dramatic turning point.
Kaga, who had already been frustrated for a long time, finally exploded.
The elementary-school kid who had once beaten him at Go had been behaving like a clown since the moment they entered the tournament, tossing out ridiculous moves.
Now he had won his game, Tsutsui had lost, and if Hikaru lost again, their entire team would be eliminated.
Kaga clenched his fist and shouted:
"I didn't tell you earlier because I didn't want to pressure you.Tsutsui's Go club isn't an official school club yet, if he doesn't get good tournament results, the school won't approve it.If you lose here… his Go club won't even exist.
Do you understand that?"
"Play seriously. Show them your real strength!"
Kaga's furious roar made Sho feel unexpectedly satisfied.
Hikaru wasn't a bad kid, but sometimes the protagonist really made people grind their teeth.
And in the sixth chapter, the manga immediately showed Hikaru realizing the weight of the match for Tsutsui.
He froze for a moment.
Then he spoke to Sai in a choked, trembling voice.
But as he continued, his expression shifted from hopeless guilt to urgent desperation.
"Sai… please play. I still can't do it. I just… can't win."
Tears gathered in Hikaru's eyes.
He was already at a massive disadvantage on the board.
Even Sai was startled for a moment, he hurried to comfort Hikaru, promising he would win this game for him and help Tsutsui get his club officially recognized.
A pang of pain hit Sho's heart.
But he also understood exactly what Shirogane-sensei was doing.
This was the moment where Hikaru's love for Go first bloomed, not because he was strong, but because he was weak, ashamed, and desperate to improve.
As expected, later in the chapter, Sai brilliantly reversed the completely losing position.
The makeshift trio somehow reached the finals.
In the finals: Kaga, their main player, lost his board.
Tsutsui, pressured and cornered, seized a tiny mistake from his opponent and pulled off a comeback victory.
And Hikaru, guided by Sai, played a dazzling match that stunned the entire venue.
The second half of the chapter captured the raw passion among all the junior-high players, their joy when they won, their heartbreak when they lost, and their pure, simple devotion to improving their Go.
Sho felt a faint melancholy well up inside him.
These kids in the manga loved Go so much.
What about himself?
Could Go really be that captivating?
Maybe… he should sign up for a Go class too.
Thoughts spiraled through his mind.
But his hands didn't stop turning the page.
On the final page, Tsutsui finished his miracle comeback.
Filled with joy, he turned toward Hikaru…
Only to find Hikaru completely surrounded by students from various schools, all talking excitedly around him.
And standing right beside Hikaru's board is Akira, eyes blazing with excitement, staring at Hikaru's moves and at Hikaru himself.
The opponent Hikaru had just beaten bowed deeply with tears in his eyes.
"I resign!"
Sho suddenly felt his own eyes sting.
He was genuinely moved.
No villains. No cheap drama.
Just a world full of kids who genuinely loved Go.
A world that made him want to love Go too.
And then…
Shirogane-sensei did it again.
Another cliffhanger.
What would happen between Akira and Hikaru now? Would they have their third match?
How did Shirogane manage to make every chapter ending so addictive?
...
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