The Shrine

Hikaru just let Sai played most of the matches? Sure it might turn into your generic stuff where the protagonist wins everything (hard to see Sai losing on a regular basis), but that'd at least be more interesting than a story about a protagonist who has never beaten anybody of significance and is losing his way into Go immortality.

I liked it just fine and the series wasn't named Sai no Go

It took a nose dive after Sai left, similar to Death Note after L stepped out of the way.

Yeah I disliked it briefly after Sai left but I feel like the ending was pretty strong, even if most of the things leading to it weren't.

Naruto is not called "The Story of Sasuke and His Eye" and it doesn't stop the latter from being apparently a lot more important in the story than the guy the story is named after.

Hikaru wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. The people who see *potential* in him really saw Sai. If there was no Sai and he decided to play Go anyway, he'd be like a slightly more powerful version of one of the many pretty faces who turned out to be completely useless when matched up against anyone of any significance. Maybe people will pay for more attention to him since he's Akira's lover, err, rival, but then to be a rival might require you actually beating the guy once in a formal situation. Then again, in manga a rival really means a guy you clownstomped 999 out of 1000 times. Hikaru was not even the second most popular character of the series. After Sai left they literally have to invent new people just to have people bad enough that are relevent to Hikaru's skill level.

I mean you sure don't see Ogata or Toyo want to play Akira for a challenge let alone Hikaru.
Yes I know they had a scene where Ogata clownstomped Akira and then said it was actually like really, really hard and he was a worthy opponent, kind of like how a sports team will talk about their opponent played with their heart after owning them 4-0 in a series.

Actually the series would be like say you're writing about a bunch of legendary figures in the Major League, and then the story moves to two prospects in high school who one day might be the greatest baseball player ever. It's not that such story is intrinsically bad but it's at least 10 years down the road before the prospects become relevent. Even fanfiction usually puts Akira/Hikaru's rise in the Go world as 10 years later. Ogata said that Go isn't something you just magically get good at with talent, and that to play well requires years of experience. Well, Akira and Hikaru clearly don't got that.

Now if this was your generic action manga you'd have one of them go on a death-defying training trip to awaken their inner Gosai power, but that'd be a bit ridiculous given the premise of the story. Ogata, a character who at the start of the series is quite a bit stronger than Akira ever was in the story, still needed something like 80% of the series' total time before he won a title and finally broke into the inner circle of the grandmasters. There's a chasm of difference in the relative power level of the series's most interesting characters and the characters it's trying to sell, and there's no Super Saiyan transformation to make up that gap. That means in terms of story development Akira and Hikaru are going to be irrelevent for a very long time since they're not going for a title anytime soon and there's nothing in between merely being a pro and a title. I mean yeah you can say OMG Hikaru got a 4-dan title but who cares about that about a guy who is destined to find the Hand of God?

Hikaru and Akira's story wasn't completely about being the best, it was about getting better and the Hand of God as an abstract notion that they were striving for in the future. It's a realistic (okay, Sai's a ghost, but ignoring that...) story about the hard work they had to put into the game to get to where they were. Watching Sai having a 100% chance of beating everyone would be boring in comparison and wouldn't have lasted as long.

There's nothing hard working about what Akira or Hikaru did any more than Naruto or Ichigo needed to work hard for super skills. The point of the story isn't about some quasi-talented guy working his way up to a 5-dan. Obviously those two guys are supposed to be ones knocking on God's door but due to the subject matter there's no way to shortcut this so they're stuck with losing to no name guys who you can't even remember their face. Now this step might be necessary but they could've said like "Five years passed and during this time neither can get past the hurdle of actually getting to a title matchup". That'd be reasonable compared to just repeatedly getting clownstomped by masters with some comment about their infinite potential (that almost sounds like Megaman X).

The whole notion of the young tiger and so on is just stupid. It's like talking about a guy being the next Michael Jordan and said well he won the Eastern Conference Player of the Week award for now while not even making the playoffs. Presumably if HNG wasn't axed dued to some poor decisions you'll eventually see something like Akira going against his father, and Hikaru either going up against Sai or the current Honinbo (if Sai already disappeared). Again the problem is that looking at the scale of HNG there is no consolidation prize after you made the pros. You got Toya Koyo who is obviously supposed to be like the best Go player in the world, and then a ghost that's obviously supposed to be the best Go player in the past, and we are supposed to be impressed the ones who are supposed to be their successors managed to beat a 5-dan? It'd clearly make no sense if Akira or Hikaru won a major title but then given the standards they've to live up to they might as well be nothing without a major title. I'd take Sai playing with a 100% chance to win over another 'worthy loss' by either of the two allegedly main characters. I mean look at the ending of HNG, Sai's back at the end after he supposed to go Heaven. It's literally like the author is saying oops I screwed up.

No, I was perfectly happy with how it ended up. I actually thought Sai leaving was a good thing

Well as equal as the hard work in Hikaru no Go and Naruto-Bleach stuff goes... I could work really hard and play Go fairly well, I imagine... I can't really be a ninja or soul reaper, though..

No normal guy is going to even make it past the training stage. Only 3 guys make it to the Pros each year and those guys aren't even going to school while training for it.

I didn't say I had any illusions of going pro.