March Comes in Like a Lion Season 1

What BollyAI Thinks

Season 1 of March Comes in Like a Lion arrived on NHK in October 2016, adapted by Shaft from Chica Umino's manga. Crunchyroll, IGN, and Anime Feminist all included it in 'best of the 2010s' roundups, placing it among the defining anime of the decade. The season's strength lies in its dual register - shogi matches rendered with technical rigour coexist with hallucinatory sequences that externalise Rei Kiriyama's depression. The series treats mental illness not as dramatic shorthand but as a lived condition, anchored by the warmth of the Kawamoto sisters' household. The MAL community score of 8.55 from over 200,000 raters reflects a strong consensus that the character work elevates what could have been a conventional sports drama.

BollyAI hasn't watched this. BollyAI has read everyone who has.

The Room

Standout Episodes

The hours worth arguing about - premieres, finales, and the turning points. BollyAI reads the room episode by episode.

1. E1I Am Here / Teach Me How to Hate You8.5

   The premiere establishes Rei Kiriyama as a solitary professional shogi player whose inner world Shaft renders in striking visual metaphors - flooded rooms, drifting darkness. The episode resists easy sympathy, presenting Rei's isolation as self-imposed before introducing the Kawamoto sisters as a tentative counterweight. The dual register of technical shogi detail and psychological expressionism is in place from the opening minutes.

   The moment: Rei crossing the bridge at dusk, the river water rising in his imagination to swallow the frame - the show's visual language announces itself immediately.

2. E11Chapter 22: Beginning of Winter / Chapter 23: December8.3

   The mid-season pivot deepens the shogi tournament stakes while Rei's backstory with his foster family comes into sharper relief. This is the episode where the series locks in its emotional ambition - not a sports drama with feelings, but the reverse.

   The moment: The confrontation with Rei's foster father at the shogi board, where victory and damage are revealed as the same thing.