Shion no Ō (しおんの王), subtitled The Flowers of Hard Blood, is a Japanese manga series written by Masaru Katori and illustrated by Jiro Ando. It was serialized in Kodansha's manga magazine Monthly Afternoon from March 2004 to April 2008, with its chapters collected in eight volumes. It has been adapted as a twenty-two episode anime television series by Studio Deen, which aired in Japan between October 2007 and March 2008. A video game for the Nintendo DS was released on April 10, 2008, by Mainichi Communications.
Plot
Shion no Ō centers around a young junior-high school girl named Shion Yasuoka who had witnessed the murder of her parents as a small child. At the time of the murder, the killer takes the king piece from her father's shogi board (a Japanese strategy board game similar to chess). This leads her to believe that the murderer may be a shogi player. The shock of the tragic incident renders Shion unable to speak, forcing her to communicate by writing on a note pad. After being adopted by her neighbors, the Yasuoka family (where the husband is also a shogi player), Shion takes up the game herself, both for the love of the game and to possibly learn of the person who had killed her parents.