It had a good start, and the quality of the manga remained high throughout because of the same artist. But for whatever reasons, it didn't know how to end ( bad planning from the start? ), and the quality of the anime deteriorated rapidly after the beginning ( felt strongly like a budgeting issue -- they ran out of money to retain the original high-quality artists who did the opening and end-theme songs and the first few episodes; then low quality sank in. ). Not to mention it became pointless after Sai. Too bad.

Interesting that the original Chapter 1 title is different in Japanese (棋聖降臨) than the English version (Eternal Rivals) -- of course, the original is so much better IMO ( and why it was pointless after Sai ).

[rant] Vagabond in limbo, after 10 years. [/rant]

I didn't focus on the art; the bad art drew attention to itself like a black eye .

In the beginning, everything was nice: the plot, the writing, the art, and for the anime, the music and the voice over. Everything was interesting -- thus, "it had a good start". My anecdotal experience from chatting with a few people: adults tended to like Sai (and didn't care for Hikaru), and kids liked Hikaru; personally, I found both Hikaru and Akira boring -- your experience was different.

The manga art quality was high throughout because presumably it was the same artist for the entire manga series. The anime art deterioration was blatant -- ( example: the fingers began with a strong character with distinct segments and fingernails but later decayed into formless lumps with missing fingernails; the list of animators in the end credits changed throughout the series -- they actually wrote down for all eternity to see who was responsible for the art deterioration! ), much like certain user interfaces of certain Go clients -- but not everyone would notice it (or mind).

Thanks for your perspectives.

Episode 1, Akira's anatomically OK hand and fingers:Opening theme song, Sai's hand, with good budget:Episode 75, alien, anatomically weird hand with lazy fingernails: