The Flowers of Hard Blood

, subtitled The Flowers of Hard Blood, is a Japanese manga series written by Masaru Katori and illustrated by Jiro Ando. It is published by Kodansha in the seinen manga magazine Monthly Afternoon, and is collected in eight bound 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
A young junior-high-school girl named Shion Yasuoka witnessed the murder of her parents as a child. At the time of the murder, the killer takes the king piece from her father's shogi board which leads her to believe that the murderer may be a shogi player. The shock of the incident renders Shion unable to speak, forcing her to communicate by writing on a 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 who her parents' murderer.