The MC, who I thought would be an arrogant and distant, is humble and friendly. He laughs with his friends, loses League games with them, and banters with a smile on his face. One of the earliest chapters states that he regrets dedicating his whole life to Go in his first life, and his actions in his second life support that claim. Yet as the story goes on, he actually goes through some character development. He rediscovers his passion for Go, and you can really feel the amount of weight he puts on the game even though he never loudly proclaims it. He respects every opponent and never tr*sh talks. He's willing to guide his friends and the other members of the Go team. Yu Shou is a sports anime protagonist in the best way possible, lifting up all those around him.

At first, Xu Zijin seemed like a stereotypical "cold beauty". She was distant from everyone, her grades were at the top, and everyone had crushes on her but nobody dared to confess to her. Then she sits down at the Go table and flips my whole understanding of her character. Remember how I said this novel was like a sports anime? Xu Zijin proves it as well, as you can just feel the passion radiating off of her any time she plays. As you learn more about her, it completely destroys any "cold beauty" sentiments. She has passion, she has emotion, she enters a slump and recovers from it, she reflects on herself in ways that I wish every character ever would do so. I didn't have a single negative thing to say about her. Then, Chapter 101 arrived and hit me right in the feels. I give the author my congratulations, as they have successfully gotten me to actually become attached to a female character in a Chinese novel.

In another novel, he would be the protagonist and it really shows. There's a ton of parallels to Yu Shou's own story, and the novel even has small interludes that exist to hype him up just like a main character. Of course, Yu Shou is the protagonist here, and their ultimate showdown proves it. But the story never treats Su Yining as a stepping stone for Yu Shou. He's kind, humble, willing to learn, and just like many others is very passionate towards the game of Go. It's made very clear that Yu Shou respects Su Yiming a lot, and the reverse is also true, and this is part of why I'm loving this story a lot. There are no one-off characters. Nobody exists just to let the MC show off, nobody exists just so they can get face slapped. Everyone is the protagonist of their own story, it's just that we're following along to Yu Shou's perspective.

greatest Go genius of all time vs greatest Go player of the future with AI-assisted knowledge