Hikaru no-Go is a manga (and there’s anime) about playing the ancient board game Go. If you’re familiar with Yu-gi-oh, it’s like that but with Go. It was a ton of fun to read even though the plot was fairly straight-forward for the most part and character development was pretty lacking.
One of the best things about it though is all the passion in it. The main characters are all so passionate about Go that it rubs off on the reader (at least it did for me!). I’ve already downloaded a Hikaru no-Go GBA ROM that teaches you how to play Go. I’m even thinking of creating a website to play Go on (we’ll see if I get to that…).
It’s amazing how far you can go with just passion and a goal (and maybe a rival/friend).