Special Guests
- Chidori, Author of the comic strip Empty triangle.
- Yumi Hotta, Author of the manga and anime Hikaru no go.
- EuroGoTV, Will broadcast top board games and lectures by the professionals.
Chidori
Hi fellow go players!
My name is chidori, I'm a young girl from Slovakia that unexpectedly fell in love with go last summer and stayed addicted to it like so many others. Since primarily I am an artist, I started drawing my experiences in form of short comic strips - and so, www.emptytriangle.com was born: an online comic about go that eventually found its way to players all over the world.
Now, me and my empty triangle are heading to Sweden - not only to play go, but also hoping to meet many interesting people there. I will have a small emptytriangle.com shop opened in Leksand during congress, where you will be able to buy prints of your favourite e3a comic strips in poster form. Also, I will bring my equipment along and draw things of your choice directly onto T-shirts! If you want to be sure to get one, I recommend bringing an empty light-coloured T-shirt along with you, in case I run out of my own supply.
If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to contact me either through mail or catch me on KGS, I play as chid0ri there.
See you in Leksand!
chido
Chidori has also written a description of the e3a shop in Leksand.
Yumi Hotta
LET'S PLAY GO!!
An Interview With Hikaru No Go Author Yumi Hotta by Chris Garlock for The American Go E-Journal.
When Yumi Hotta was learning to play go, she got frustrated at never being able to beat the professionals who taught her. "So I thought, wouldn't it be great if I had a strong supernatural ally, maybe then I could beat a pro someday," she told the E-Journal late Tuesday afternoon at the Nihon Kiin in Tokyo. The result was the best-selling manga and anime series Hikaru no Go, which is credited with renewing or sparking interest in go worldwide in recent years. "I had no idea how popular it was outside Japan until I went to the European Go Congress two years ago and met so many people who told me they learned about go through Hikaru No Go," Hotta said, laughing.
Petite and watchful, Hotta radiates a quiet calm, her movements precise and each word carefully chosen. These days, she says, she and her husband Kiyonari Hotta, a fellow mangaka (manga writer) who also worked on HNG with her, live quietly at home with two bunchos, Japanese rice birds they're raising. "The game of go is still very interesting," Hotta said, "and I want to keep playing," though she now prefers the turn-based version, and says that "some of my opponents are from America." Chuckling, she said that "The problem is that Japanese and Americans who learn go from Hikaru No Go quickly become much stronger than me." Interestingly, Hotta told the EJ "I never intended to teach go through the manga. It's very hard to teach a person to play go. I thought if I could show people enjoying themselves playing the game, the people who read the manga might themselves want to play." Asked if she had a message for her many fans in the United States, Miss Hotta smiled and said "Let's play go some day!"
EuroGoTV
More info later