This was an amazing show and I'm sorry I didn't give a try earlier. I was vaguely familiar with some scenes in the first few episodes so I must have seen clips when it first aired but for some reason never put it on my watchlist, maybe because I didn't know literally anything about the game of Go and I didn't think a 41 episode drama that centered around that would interest me?

Now I have actually watched it I have to say this is one of my favorite recent Cdramas in its genre. It really brings all the emotions out, there are times you are laughing, sometimes you're rooting enthusiastically, you find yourself immersed in their world effortlessly, when they suffer a loss, or a setback you feel it too.

Without posting a spoiler, there's the final 2-3 episodes that resonated with my personal experiences in life and I was expecting the final few episodes to be pure fluff but this dealt with something we will all to differing degrees deal with and I felt it elevated the show quite a bit to be realistic and not just fairies and pixie dust lalala happy ending for everyone....don't get me wrong, I love a good fluff drama, but this one, I felt, kept the spirit of the original intent from the first episode all the way to the very end. A great, realistic, and sweet romance between our leads dealing with life as it's thrown at them even if it's setting was heavy handed with some common c-drama tropes, somehow those never overshadowed the story and the real emotions.

To address the concerns about the drama focusing heavily on the game of Go, even if you know nothing about this game (like me), you will find the drama very interesting. There are times where the games are very important to the plot, but you aren't just watching two people put a white or black stone on the board...in the most intense moments, you are transported into a visual metaphor for the actions of the game. Sometimes it's an old style video game, sometimes it's two assassins battling it out, sometimes it's magical warriors fighting in a bamboo forest...each time is unique and manages to capture the essence of the emotions and the meanings behind the moves on the board. I really enjoyed that part and I love the writers for creating an opportunity to bring the game of Go to life in an interesting and new way.

There were several times where the sismance and bromance was strong in this drama. One thing that really stuck out for me was a few moments of real conversations between men about life, love, loss, and emotions. I like to see that expressed and shown more in dramas. Men have emotions just as much as women do, and it's healthy and good to show normal interactions...men don't always have to be smashed drunk out of their minds to open up to each other, sometimes you can sit across from each other and play a game of Go/chess or whatever and just talk to each other about life. It was amazing and I hope more dramas show men like that.

I would have given this show a perfect score except that I wish the writers would have dealt with Kao Ye a little differently, I felt his actions were undetected for too long and his very deep and overwhelming suffering wasn't seen by either his Shifu or his fellow apprentices or at least they didn't see it as something they need to make an effort to interfere or intercede with like they did when the ML had issues. The show wasn't about Kao Ye, so maybe that's why he was allowed to go into an inescapable spiral of obsession but his actions really had far reaching consequences and I wish someone had noticed him a little sooner. He was the root cause of his problems but still, I wish the writers had given him a little of a break once in a while.