It takes until the fifteenth page of the first chapter till the protagonist Rei speaks. Before then, he's woken up from an unpleasant dream, mechanically dressed himself, walked through the city, and arrived at his appointment to play his stepfather in a professional shogi match. Rei beats him, but refuses to answer the usual fatherly questions - "How have you been? Have you been eating properly?". Seemingly resigned, the last thing his stepfather says before leaving is "Ayumu and Kyoko have been very worried about you". Once alone, Rei only says one word in response: "Liar". The overwhelming impression throughout the first half of the chapter is one of enigmatic sadness and loneliness, of a young man - a kid, really, in a deep depression, barely living his life.

After getting up and leaving, he is aimlessly wandering the streets before he gets a text from his friend, Akari Kawamoto, the oldest of three Kawamoto sisters, asking him to get them some groceries for dinner. Once he gets to their cramped little home, the silent, washed-out scenes of urban solitude which filled the chapter to this point are replaced by a bright, cluttered and cheerful atmosphere, like an oasis of happiness in his misery. He has dinner, and then goes to sleep right there in their house. He cries in his sleep.

The first chapter left me with an overwhelming impression both of the silence and loneliness of Rei's sterile life, and the kindness and warmth he was lucky enough to find with the Kawamotos, which seemed to rescue him. At this point, I didn't know where that sadness came from, but I was interested enough to read on so I could find out. The delicate and restrained style appealed to me, as did as Rei's internal monologue, where he would reflect on how he felt and on his situation. So as I read on, I was mostly interested in finding out what made him like this, and in seeing whether his connection to the Kawamotos could help him find some happiness.

In these respects, the manga completely delivers. We find out all about what made Rei this way, in some incredibly poignant flashbacks intercut with his present-day musings on how he's trying to deal with that pain. At the same time, he also begins to grow up a little, coming out of his timid, depressed, inward-looking shell and beginning to stand up for himself and pursue something meaningful in his life for the sake of his connections with others. He makes friends and acquires the respect of others, and he learns from them - not just his elders or mentor-figures in the Shogi association, but most notably from the younger Kawamoto sister, Hinata. As he learns and grows, he begins to deal in a more healthy way with the crushing psychological weight of his childhood miseries and his present circumstances. This journey happens in fits and starts, with setbacks and times where he lapses into depression again, as well as with incredible leaps. It's a lot like life.

At the same time, the "circle" of the manga expands to include people on the periphery. We meet and become invested in a diverse cast of Shogi players with their own ambitions, personal histories and struggles, such as Rei's best friend Harunobu, or their senpai-figure Shimada, as well as Rei's wonderfully honest and passionate high school teacher Hayashida. There are arcs in the manga which move away from Rei entirely and focus on Shimada, or on the 66-year-old A-rank shogi player Yanigahara as he reflects on the strange position of being the oldest active player and being treated by many around him as if he will soon disappear or as if he only exists to vet the youngsters, although he still desperately believes he has more of himself to burn. Despite only knowing Yanigahara for a few chapters, the mangaka masterfully compresses his struggles into vivid images of burnt fields and a man draped in sashes representing the hopes of all who have gone before him, in a way that poignantly communicates the essential truth of who he is.

As the manga goes on, it certainly changes, in that it expands its cast, it pursues new storylines, it depicts dramatic and romantic conflicts, and the characters evolve. But its core appeal for me has always remained the same. The delicate, relaxed pace with which it depicts life, the poignant and heartbreaking honesty of its emotional moments, the brilliance of Umino's visual metaphors and how they perfectly illustrate the psychological states of its characters, and the earned optimism with which it follows them as they grow and heal from their wounds, all remain, and make it worth loving.