I always had the impression that playing games like shougi (I am more familiar with chess) is boring, and watching games like shougi being played is torture. Two people sitting on two sides of a board with a lot of pieces on it pondering for a long time, wrinkling eyebrows and stroking chin and doing other similar unconscious activities indicating that their brain is working overtime. They take a long time to finally make their move. However, the shougi sessions in Shion no Ou are a real treat.
I was glancing through the synopsis of different animes, and Shion no Ou caught my eye. A murder case made it seem interesting enough. Add to it the fact that the only person who witnessed the murder loses her ability to speak, and this qualified it as promising. On top of it all, there is shougi written all over it - the murderer leaves the king at the crime scene and challenges young Shion to a game of shougi. While shougi in itself holds no fascination for me, I found the concept of shougi closely entwined with a murder irresistible. That is not something that one comes across everyday.
The way they take the murder case forward with each episode is excellent. Till the end, I was hooked. (I was slightly disappointed with the climax, though.) But the real punch was the shougi matches. Take this from a total noob to the world of shougi, you don't have to know shougi at all to feel the adrenaline rush while watching Shion at her game. The way they depict each move being pondered before being played has been extremely well done. The hollow wooden sound that is made when a player moves a piece is, for me, the essence of the whole thing.
Then there is the character of Shion. Apart from the fact that she cannot speak, the innocent and sincere way in which she wishes her opponent good luck (by means of written words) at the beginning of every shougi match she plays endears her in the mind of the viewer. As for the art, it is not exactly the best I have seen, but I am not complaining. To be fair, I think the art deserves atleast 7/10.
Overall, I would give Shion no Ou a rating of 8/10.