Beautiful! You show superb insight into everyone's favourite blonde pro player, and that without villainizing him.

A poignant fic. Snapshots of Ogata's life as a pro, from start to dwindle. I loved the child!Akira scenes... Absolutely adorable. It was a bit challenging to keep up with the scene shift-did FFN eat your line breaks?-and the denoted age shifts were a bit jarring.
But you're completely correct. Ogata's on neither crest. Stuck in the trough, along with just Kurata and maybe Saeki.
This is a very well-written character study of my favorite character. This will be reread!

Well-written! Thank you! XD

This is great. I loved seeing Akira and Ashiwara growing up from Ogata's perspective. I like how Ogata's perspective changes as his life goes on too and how he had grown up without a rival his own age.

One thing that I thought should have been in there: Ogata's temper. There was definitely the irritation there, especially when he asked Akira why he was coming to the study group if he wasn't going to contribute. But I kept thinking - what about when he grabbed Shindou off the street to play Touya Meijin? What about the time in the hospital where he held Shindou against the wall? And what about the game with Shindou when he was drunk? I would have loved to have seen those things written in your excellent style. Ogata was very obsessed with Shindou and Sai in his own way, even telling Akira to ask Touya Meijin about it.

But overall your style and characterization was very good. I really enjoyed reading a good Ogata-centric fic! Ogata's calm voice was great. (I still miss the temper voice, but hey, I still loved this.) Great fic!

I thought this was a carefully thought-out POV fic, with a tone takes the same reserve as the main character.

Nothing dramatic or unexpected happens, rather it’s a gentle progression though Ogata’s development and maturing outlook. Although it starts earlier and ends later than the canon period, it fits so well on to what we know that we don’t question this.

I liked: meeting Ashiwara as a kid, Ogata’s reflections on Kouyo and their distance, anchoring to the canon with little mentions of the other players, the ending in a possible future.

I missed: The ‘detonator’ scenes where Ogata is deliberately provocative, e.g. by showing Akira that Hikaru has become an insei: I’d love to see his logic behind this; Ogata chasing or speculating on who/what Sai is.

The logic of some paragraphs is occasionally difficult to follow: 'There were times when it was hard to forget that Touya-sensei was more than just the stern teacher who had driven him through his time as an insei and then through the lower dans. This was not one of them.' but then…Ogata’s a complicated guy:)