I personaly think that the story wasnt too original- but it didnt have to be. There are many ways you could go from "a boy finds a board game with a gost trpped inside it and the boy starts enjoying the game". With this story, i think Hotta Yumi did a lot of great things to make this concept more interesting. There was a lot of humor in the story and i think anyone would find that enjoyable. There were also moments wre you could relate to the characters and for people who know how to play go, it is really fun to listen to them reviewing a game(and even if you dont play Go, this manga will teach you many things about Go and will get you interested in atleast learning Go)

A big letdown was the ending. There isnt much i can say about the ending other than it just leaves you hanging. You will probably be left thinking about what couldve become of the main character's life-and even about the small characters that had big goals. I dont know if that was what the author was going for or not, but it does make you think a little. I think that since there is no sequel to the story, this became a bad ending and i dont know about other people, but this made me mad. Regardless of this, i still dont regret reading this manga.

The art, as expected from Obata, was great. He put a lot of detail into the art, and when there was a humorous moment, it was partially cuz of the way the characters were drawn. One thing I loved about the art was that at times you would see the characters seem older than they really are and that showed how they were growing.

The main character was the average boy who would never give up to fufill his goal, so as far as the main character goes, it was pretty average. but the athoer characters helped the main one out by making him more mature. The characters overall though, were nothing special. It is not like deathnote or codegeass, where you absolutely were rooting for a specific character nor did you fall in "love" with a specific character- eventhough you would sometimes get caught up in the moment and "tell" the characters waht to do for their own good.

This manga was very enjoyable and is definitely not a waste of time.