Ranked #995

Saki

What do you get when you take mahjong, you shoot massive amounts ridiculous special effects, you add a huge cast of high school girls, you give them POWERLEVELS, and then you make them 90% lesbian? Does it sound ridiculous yet? Regardless of how you feel about what I just described, Saki somehow managed to take all the above points, mush them up together, and regurgitate one of the most fun and entertaining show I've seen in a while.

Story:
+ Simple and straight through story
+ Easy to swallow and get into
+ The mahjong games are SO MUCH FUN to watch and the show has PLENTY of them

- It tries to create drama that just doesn't fit in sometimes
- It can get really corny when it comes to character development
- Game time gets interrupted right in the middle in favour of "development" time from time to time.

Art
+ Cute character designs
+ Bright and very nice colour palette
+ Special effects used on mahjong games are very cool to watch and greatly increase enjoyment

- Animation quality can get poor at times (but not very often)

Sound
+ An all star cast of seiyuus makes the show very fun to listen to
+ The background songs used for the mahjong games are upbeat and GREATLY increases the enjoyment of the matches

- I wasn't a fan of the OP and ED songs but they are not bad

Characters
+ Large cast of characters and all with different personalities. You are bound to find someone you will like.
+ Every character is likeable and they are all unique in skills (mahjong POWERLEVELS)
+ When a series is able to match up 2 or more characters in a game and make you go "OH SHI- THIS MATCH IS GOING TO BE EPIC" every time you know the show has succeeded in creating their characters

- If you are not into yuri moments, you might feel ackward watching this because girl on girl moments happen.....A LOT!
- Although the show succeeds in giving most of their characters reasons to move forward and continue playing. Sometimes some of those reasons can get a little corny (but its not a big issue)

Enjoyment:
THIS SHOW WAS SO MUCH FUN TO WATCH, every time a game was going on the show suddently became so entertaining that the episode would end and you wouldnt feel like u had just watched 24 minutes of Saki. Even though the show could have some improvements I cannot complain about the work GONZO and Picture Magic has produced here.

Overall: Saki is not a masterpiece, it does not have amazing production values, nor does it have a compelling story....however what it manages to produce is a level of entertainment that just leaves you wanting to have more. The ability of taking a generally quiet game like mahjong and turn it completely over the top and extreme and yet still keep it from becoming chaotic is 1 of the reasons why Saki is a show that everyone should give a try at one point, it will surely entertain you. read more

I have to admit I went into my viewing of Saki with next to zero knowledge about the game of Mahjong, its terminology, or its rules. Besides a short wiki article and just the visual similarities to some domino games I have played before, most of it still is quite vague and mysterious. I was drawn to Saki by the cute character designs, a hint of yuri romance, and my own curiosity over the game of Mahjong.

Despite my curiosity, the idea of a 25 episode anime revolving around a table game doesn’t sound all that exciting. Most likely that is going to be the reaction of quite a few people who just give Saki a casual glance. However they would be wrong. Saki manages to take something that doesn’t have any real action or makes for an interesting spectator sport and injects energy and excitement into it. While it’s decidedly over the top and completely implausible, it nonetheless works brilliantly.

The basic premise of the story revolves around Saki Miyanaga, a high school freshman who finds herself participating in the schools Mahjong club even though she hates the game. Though she is a very skillful player, bad memories of playing with her family has left a bad taste for the game with her. However she finds playing with people other than her family to be fun and her love of the game begins to be rekindled. Soon Saki and her new friends set their sights on making the national Mahjong tournament, and it’s this goal which dominates the plot.

As I mentioned, Saki does an excellent job of creating drama and action from something that isn’t in reality exciting. Characters are animated making special "finishing moves" when completing important hands and also some have special powers to intimidate or confuse their opponents. So don’t be expecting a lot of realism, both in terms of game play or the players themselves. Besides the game action, there is a fair amount of character building and touches of yuri themed romance. Saki overall is quite fun to watch and entertaining.

However it’s not all positive. While the actual plot revolving the Mahjong tournament is exciting and compelling the story does manage to derail itself quite a few times. The most glaring being the open ending. While it seems extremely likely that a second season is probable, I really wonder if it was even necessary. There were too many filler and service episodes and way too much story time devoted to developing unimportant and often nauseatingly annoying characters. I would have much more preferred the story spend its time developing the relationship between Saki and Nodoka. While the yuri aspects of the story are quite obviously present they are also unsatisfying. Beyond the wistful stares and blushing glances there is nothing of substance.

My opinions of the characters are decidedly mixed. Saki and Nodoka, as well as their friends in the Mahjong club are very enjoyable and interesting characters. Particularly in the case of Yuuki who steals the show a bit, adding comedic moments and also just being a funny character. Saki and Nodoka have a lot of chemistry together and make for a cute pair, though an unfulfilling couple. We get some background on both of them but really considering how important they are to the story it really is quite small. All of these subplots are left unresolved by the ending, so it will take a new season for them to be satisfactorily completed.

What really drags Saki's story and characters down is an enormous amount of dead weight in the supporting cast. There is absolutely no need to have this many "named" characters. The middle portions of the series give way to much screen time to developing the rival schools and players characters. This is not to say it shouldn’t have been done at all, but there was no need to have this done with basically everyone! It doesn’t help that I was completely uninterested in the majority of them and downright hated a few others. Annoying cat girl Kana? Please go eat a bowl of cat food laced with arsenic. Disappearing girl Momoko? Please get run over by a speeding city bus. There are a few memorable supporting characters but most are just various standard stereotypes we see in every other anime made.

The voice cast turns in a solid performance. Saki's enormous cast is brought out well by a bit of a dream team of seiyuu performers. However despite their talent the very fact that there are so many of them means that there just wasn’t enough screen time for many of them to make much of an impact. Additionally I found the music to be pretty plain and uninspired with a few exceptions. Some of the songs were catchy and they were cute many of them sounded like the singer was off-key. Others like the second OP theme I just didn’t like.

Artistically, Saki is very good. The character designs are typical of what you would expect in a Gonzo production. Saki reminds me of another series protagonist from this studio, Miyafugi from Strike Witches who is almost identical in both looks and personality. Also typical of Gonzo, they enjoy mixing in a lot of CGI effects with mixed results. The Mahjong automated tables looked pretty good but the "Nodocci" vs. Touka battle animation looked silly and out of place when compared to the rest of the series artwork. The visuals did a good job though into bringing in excitement and action into the games.

While I would classify my viewing experience of Saki to be very enjoyable, the overload of unnecessary characters and the lack of a proper ending or any substance in yuri relationships bring its score down. Hopefully a sequel will be coming soon that will address all of the plot issues and relationships that were left unresolved. I would say my own lack of knowledge of the game also hampered my enjoyment, though I did watch a sub version with notes that explained most of the terminology, it was still pretty confusing. It’s still overall, a fun and light hearted comedy that I recommend.
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