The Masked Carnie

I've finished watching all of Hikaru no Go.  I can see why people would enjoy it, though not being Japanese myself, it's hard to actually get myself involved in something so foreign to American life.  If I change the premise to being Chess though, I can understand it clearly  enough.  I'm going to see if I can find the manga that handles a part of the story that the anime doesn't cover.  All in all, this is certainly a quality anime, but it lacks any explicit action.  To fully appreciate it, you need to be a Go player yourself.  I'm not really that, but as someone who appreciates gaming in general, I can certainly appreciate the spirit even if I don't see exactly what's going on in their minds.  Anything less than that, you'll probably find it uninteresting.  Yes, this actually is an anime about Go.  No, they do not artificially inflate the action similar to Yu-Gi-Oh.

I've been watching a lot of Hikaru no Go lately.  I was initially really hesitant to watch it, even more so than how I felt about Yu-Gi-Oh way back when it was new.  An anime about a game, and an extremely non-symbolic game at that?  I figured the only way they'd be able to make it interesting would be to make the various shapes appear as some kind of creatures, and when it turned out to actually what it sounds: an anime about a guy playing a classic, abstract board game, I initially concluded it would be no good.  Actually, all that really drew me in was that in a small spot of the first opening, Hikaru's made to look literally identical to Shuichi Shindo in the Gravitation OVA. I've watched 58 total episodes out of 75 (sometimes I really hate that rule of 75).  Needless to say, I'm in love with it.  I'm experiencing a phenomenon watching this that I normally only experience when playing Street Fighter.  When two pro players go up against each other,...