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If this had a proper ending, it might have gone down as one of my favorite manga of all time. Unfortunately, it’ll have to settle for one of the best.

I really enjoyed reading Hikaru No Go, mostly for Sai and because I will most likely never play or get into Go. Just shown here, with how little attention they give to explaining how the game really works, go to show how complex Go can be. When attempting to look into it, I immeditately went back to Chess and happily never looked back.

The characters were mostly great. A story like this calls for a lot of side characters to hold their own weight, so it doesn’t all fall on our childhood main character. If it were all on Hikaru, this story wouldn’t have been able to stand on it’s own at all. Characters like Akira, who understandably has a lifelong rivalry with Hikaru because he got literally obliterated by a Go God (Sai) without any proper reason or explanation. It legit broke his mind, which was really awesome to see that the rivalry was far from your basic one vs. one angle.

The main pro players also got some spotlight, and even outshined whatever Hikaru was doing. Akira’s father, and many others whose name at this point I’ve forgotten had their own struggles and fights for placements that were not only well drawn, but had real tension and stakes.

The ending is clearly the only downside. There was so much that needed answers. Why was Sai a ghost in the first place; to revive Go in the 21st century through Hikaru? If that’s the case, was Shusaku only Shusaku in order to inspire Hikaru? Lot’s of implications there. I see what people say about all there needing to be said, and there not being much left to cover anyway, and I totally agree. I think we maybe needed a chapter or two of older Hikaru and Akira; the ending felt extremely sudden and I thought my Shonen Jump app wasn’t syncing.

Very strong 8 out of 10.