3-Gatsu no Lion is a manga written and drawn by Umino Chica. The anime adaptation is being aired this Fall 2016 and produced by Shaft. So for you guys who are familiar with Shaft’s animation, you can expect to see several head tilt animations inside.
Simply put, the story is about a 17 years old boy named Kiriyama Rei who’s currently a 4th dan shogi player. He lives alone, financed by his salaries as a professional player. However, in the story’s progress Rei discovers that he’s yet to mature, still stuck with his old self as a boy with a tragic past.
This story is a really heart warming one and a sad one in the same time. Both the main and side characters all had their own complicated situations and back story. Though the plot may seem simple, the way the author narrates this story left a deep impression in me. I could somewhat relate to the situations that each of the characters are in. I even started to think that they exist (the feels!). Reading the manga ahead, I discovered that this story sucks me inside and it’s hard for me to put my phone down after reading it continuously. It keeps making you curious about what is going to happen after the end of the chapter.
The flow and the pace of the story was nicely controlled. The author seriously knows when to put a cheery moment and when to make you experience a ton of different feelings in a chapter! I love the series for that reason! I will probably purchase the manga if I spot it somewhere in the local bookstores nearby where I’m living now. Until then, I’ll just have to save more money for it!
I’m going to let my husband and his best friend know about this series! They watch anime faster than me, but it sounds very interesting, and I’m sure my husband and his friend will share it with me too!
To my pleasant surprise, 3-gatsu no Lion contains some drama as well as comedy having a few entertaining and gripping moments, covering and merging multiple tones, alternating introspective and dark scenes with lively and funny moments, features which helped progress the story in a more fluid way while the show did a fairly decent job explaining the Shogi game in a way that anyone can understand.