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Summary: The episode starts off with Shion being taken to the hospital in Hani-meiji’s car. As Shion is rushed off into the ER, her mom asks Hani-meiji if shougi is that important. Hani-meiji replies that when he was at that age he and his brother relied on shougi as their only comfort after his dad died. He says that Shion’s in the same position.

Meanwhile, Ayumi and Saori confront each other without saying a word. Saori is upset that Hani-meiji complimented Ayumi so heavily while Ayumi takes his usual attitude. Later, Saori bugs Hani-meiji about what he said earlier and Hani-meiji tells Saori to frustrate Ayumi.

Saori takes Hani-meiji’s advice to heart and plays with her newfound style. Ayumi messes up from frustration and Saori manages to figure out that Ayumi is playing just for the money. Saori finds that she’s enjoying the match and watching Ayumi grow more and more pissed off. Saori and Ayumi continue to exchange moves relentlessly. At one point, Saori messes up one move but she is able to counter and win the match.

Later, Ayumi is in the hospital in his man garb. He is only able to give the hospital 150,000 yen and promises to pay back the rest next month. Meanwhile, Shion asks this one lady to give her nothing but melon bread and other sweets (Shana anyone?). Shion’s mom tells her that Shion can’t eat just sweets and that she’ll make broccolli at home when Shion says that she needs “proper nourishment”. By then, Shion recognizes Ayumi-kun at the hospital.

Later on, we see Ayumi getting in trouble for losing. His master said that this is what happens when he enjoyed Shougi and that he was only worth second place. But nevertheless, he gives Ayumi some cash. Meanwhile, Shion is at home eating broccoli. Her parents tell her that they’re going to take her to an onsen that is run by her father’s friend.

After this, Saori protests about a newspaper article that claims she has a love affair with Hani-meiji. However, Hani-meiji says he doesn’t really care and it gives the women’s division publicity. Saori continues to bitch about it until Ayumi comes in saying that from the picture it really does look like they’re having an affair. Hani-meiji offers to play a 2 on 1 match with Saori and Ayumi teaming up against him. Nevertheless, being a much higher level player, he beats the living crap out of them. But Hani-meiji makes a remark to Ayumi that age and gender don’t matter in shougi. The glasses guy, who intrudes on the match, tells Hani-meiji to be careful of the press. Hani-meiji replies that he has a lot of interesting stories. Meanwhile, the mysterious blond guy in that fancy apartment is shown.

Impressions: Well I must say I’m really enjoyed this episode, much more than a certain series with another melon bread lover anyways. This episode managed to have a bit of everything with even a little mystery added at the end. The match between Saori and Ayumi was probably the most enjoyable one so far because it was really more of a mind game than anything else.

The light, humorous elements were good too. In the manga, we never actually see Shion eating broccoli so that was rather cute. I must say I enjoy seeing the way she tried to sneakily buy all those melon bread. It really goes to show that despite being kid shougi genius she is a normal girl in someways.

Lastly, Hani-meiji is really a mysterious character. He gives the impression that he knows a lot of things happening behind-the-scenes including the glasses guy’s involvement with the press. Also, from his words, it may imply that he is suspicious about Ayumi’s real gender. Considering how Ayumi’s master could tell, I wouldn’t be suprised if he could too.

Tags: Shion no Ou

Category: Episode Synopsis

I believe myself~