Saki

The premise reminds me of another anime about a gifted individual who initially hated or disliked the gift that allowed them to do insane things. Saki is kinda like that. Though it may seem like a contrived coincidence, I actually do play Mahjong, using Cantonese rules though, with family for pocket money. If not for that link, I probably would not have picked up what my friend described as "Yu-gi-Oh with Mahjong".

Getting down to business, Saki's story is actually quite formulaic. Not that I dock points for that. Its all about the Mahjong tournaments. The preparation, the climax and ... the conclusion is logical. It makes sense since its an anime about Mahjong and what better way to see it being played than in a tournament. For me it was a foregone conclusion, but that is exactly why they made the journey tense, eventful and generally thrilling from how the game is taken so seriously. Sadly however, outside the game there really isn't that much there for me. There's comedy/fanservice here and there but nothing really spectacular or as moving as when playing Mahjong itself. The attempts at drama are laughable and most of it can be easily skipped without doing much harm to the main plot or character motivation. Then there's the ending. It is screaming for a sequel and I cry foul play. They could have tied it up right there and then with the end of the tournaments instead of hanging on for some cooldown filler just to reach that 24 episode mark.

Most of the 25 episodes you will be treated to are of high standard. That said, coming in to the final stretch, there are bad art shifts. So much that I can't believe were deliberate choices to have such jarringly low quality. Otherwise though, there are good are shifts and probably would not stop the likes of Koromo from being even cuter than this other blond haired, weird eyed little lady with incredible power I know. On a side note, Nodoka could be a real rich landlady with those huge tracts of arable land. The animation is smooth and the 3D art doesn't stand out like a sore thumb. Well okay, maybe I still think those tiles are made of some weird otherworldly material and looks so very unnatural, but that really is just a triviality. Though if you pay enough attention to the scenes you may catch glimpses of reused animations, something I didn't really catch during the first run through. On the second run, they started appearing but at that point I didn't care any more because it certainly didn't do anything except indicate that production is a bit cheap; mostly harmless.

Now the sound, that is something of a treat. The background music is exactly the reason all the action on screen is so great. Nothing less would get you pumped when that miraculous draw from the dead wall happens. Heck, most of the tunes would spice up any of the scenes regardless. Even the music for the openings and endings are catchy and cheery pop tunes, going on about Mahjong I reckon. As for the sound effects, I can't say they're anything special, though I am a bit partial to the clicks of the tiles. Then we come to the voice talents. Its a great pool of names you may already know or have heard of which you should be able to judge for yourself.

In an anime so steeped in Mahjong, you need characters to actually play it. And play they do, with relish I might add. Their character really comes out when they play and sometimes this is pretty literal. Alter-egos, superpowers and godly/demonic luck aside, the characters are not much more than that. Each of the players are given some sort of motivation from flashbacks when they are in a tight spot and give it their all but mostly, that's it. There is a lot of staring, blushing and hugging. Yes they're a lovable bunch and yes, the anime does like heavy-handed subtext. Maybe the staring and hugging has something to do with telepathy but I doubt it was going to open up anything special. Very few of the characters that speak do not get characterisation though, which is a pretty good thing, considering the varied cast (from phase-shifting butler to average salary man father to aloof big sister) is upwards of twenty, maybe thirty of them running around on screen.

I was generally amused and entertained though. The Mahjong is over the top, with enough comedy and fanservice to not have my mind dulled by certain other parts. Even the small details like the fact that Hagiyoshi plays a mean game of Mahjong online. I'll see if after watching this, I can improve my own game a bit :p

Saki originally attracted me through its moe schoolgirl designs, as I've not the slightest idea how to play Mahjong (and I have to admit I have only slightly more of an idea now than I did before watching it). The mahjong scenes, interestingly enough, turned out to be some of the most riveting variations on 'battle' scenes I've seen in awhile. If lightning blasts and magical girls really popped put when people slapped down the tiles, I'm sure this game would be much more popular in the US.

In its two cours Saki develops a huge cast of girls, both Saki's teammates and their ... rival schools. I kept waiting for Saki and Nodoka to make their obvious yuri love official, but other than some suggestive scenes of sleeping together there's never even a kiss. There's a LOT of implied yuri in this series, but again, nothing beyond excessive blushing at one another and sparkles. Well, and Saki ogling her girlfriend's huge boobs, but so does everyone else in the series. There are virtually no male characters to speak of, and those that exist are mostly ignored since every one of the girls is a raging lesbian. Mahjong makes little girls gay, I guess?

The massive cast is as much a weakness as it is a strength, as you almost can't help but pity all these girls who have motivations for winning but are going to get steamrolled anyway by the monster that is Saki. Seriously, as OP as Ichigo is in most of Bleach, Saki is in her own show. There are some tense moments where the show almost convinces you she could lose, but a glance at the episode count and/or title will remind you of who the mistress is.

My scores:
Story 6/10 (largely revolves around two tournaments, a brief training arc, and yuri)
Art 9/10 (who knew mahjong could be so badass?)
Sound 8/10 (nice and dramatic soundtrack, stellar cast)
Character 7/10 (some are a bit shallow but you could fall in love with almost any of them)
Enjoyment 8/10 (I followed this when it originally came out, and it kept me riveted from episode to episode)
Overall 7/10

I went into this show about a year ago, with not many expectations. And since Zenkoku-Hen is coming up in the following month I thought it was time for a short review.

This is probably one of the most charming anime series I have EVER came across. The characters are fantastic, the OST is good and helps to build a very unprecedented amount of both suspense and action during the Mahjong games (A game myself, that I didn't know any of the rules of till I went into it). The animation looks pretty nice overall, with the characters, setting and the Mahjong games being well presented. ... Glossy MMM is a superb opening track for the 1st season. While the plot lacks some level of depth, it's very simple to follow and doesn't stop it from being up there with some of my favourite shows of all time.

This anime is for the mahjong fans, by a mahjong fan....

I am going to state upfront this anime is for mahjong fans and players. As basic understanding of mahjong rules and play is required to understand most of the plays in the game.

Saki is an anime named after its main character, Miyanaga "Saki", a normal high school girl in a rural area of the Nagano Prefecture in Japan. Saki is a girl who detests playing mahjong, because she gets scolded at home whenever she either wins or loses, and has hence developed a style of always playing just to break even. Not winning or losing ... a single point or dollar, regardless of opponent skill and number of games. For anyone who understands basic mahjong, they would realise to make this happen in reality, the player has to be extremely skilled in:

1) reading her 3 opponents concealed hands/tiles
2) be able to read and control the flow of the game
3) have excellent arithmetric skills to calculate the point differential and the exact tiles, play needed to break even
4) be able to predict which tiles are being drawn next
5) and to have inhuman luck to execute the plays and draw the required tiles

in summary, Saki is a mahjong genius!

However, through a set of coincidences and making friends with her school's mahjong club members, she rediscovered the joy of winning in mahjong and decides to join them in aiming for the japanese national high school mahjong championship

The story of "Saki" is very sports-shonen style. Main character has undiscovered talent in the particular sport/game, finds common minded friends in his school, and they aim to be national champions together. Even though the formula is so tried and used, it works based on the fact that any boy or girl who has joined a school club for competitions can relate to the struggle and difficulty in winning a school competition, as the odds are like usually 1/1000 and you only have limited tries based on how many years you are in studying in the school. All these kids, or in my case, once-a-kid, can fantasize about how lucky they would be to have some gifted talent in their genre, and can dream of the joy of winning.

However a anime about a table game isn't particularly exciting, given the lack of action sequences. And how this anime pulls this off is through its amazing cast of characters. Saki has so many characters that its almost on the level of "one-piece", that the viewer would easily lose count of how many characters have appeared through the middle of the anime series.
The amazing thing about the characters is that each and every character appears unique, in terms of looks and personality. Every character has a unique look to them, whether its their hair, shape of their eyes, body shape. And each character has a special personality attached to them as well. Whether they are playful, careless, strict or just outright funny, its amazing and so awfully realistic that each and every single character has this uniqueness to them.

Another trick up its sleeve is in the special moves, and their respective animations, used by each key character. Key characters like the adorable, rabbit-like Amae Koromo has her "deep sea scooping moon" finishing move. Miyanaga Saki has her "Rinshan blossoming flowers" finisher. And the sexy, cute-moe Hanamura Nodoka has her digitial "Nodochii" mode transformation. These animations provide tension and excitement to the otherwise dull, intellectual plays in a table game like mahjong.

Add to the fact that the show keeps introducing stronger, unique opponents to challenge Saki and her clubmates for the national championship at every tournament round, and you have a anime series that is good enough to hook you in and keep you watching eagerly for every next episode.

Of course this show isn't completely without weakness, but in my opinion the weakness is due the simple fact that mahjong by itself isn't an exciting spectator sport in the first place, especially so if the viewer doesn't understand the general rules of mahjong.

In summary I feel Saki is a great anime to follow and entertains its viewers. The highlight of the show is definitely in its huge, varied, unique cast of characters (almost all cute, teenage girls). This is a show that any anime-viewing mahjong player cannot miss. I eagerly await its second season, but fans of the anime should continue to check out the side story series "Saki: Achiga-hen: Episode of Side A" to see the story that is being developed in the other national tournament rounds, which are omitted in the "Saki" main story.

This review is the first one I've ever wrote, and I want to write one right now because I enjoyed this anime so much that I even started following it's manga. Basically this anime tells a story about a girl who at first hated mahjong, but decides to play it again because of specific reasons. I enjoyed it a lot because the main character is an absolute monster at mahjong, and can make seemingly impossible things happen. I also loved how the character's relationship improve because of mahjong. It shows how if a person has one thing in common with someone else they can build ... a strong relationship, and people don't have to be similar to be friends.

I really like gambling anime and among those were some really great mahjong anime like Legendary Gambler Tetsuya and Akagi, which I watched and thoroughly enjoyed without knowing the rules to Mahjong. I decided to learn richi mahjong as a result and now that I have become reasonably cocmpetant I wanted a new anime to watch and see if I appreciate it more now that I know the game.

I really didn’t know anything about Saki other than it being a Mahjong anime I knew nothing about it. Its actually not really a gambling anime, whilst mahjong is a gambling game, its not played for money ... just friendly points, and it comes off more as a sports manga with highschool girls trying to get to nationals with their respective clubs.

The plot synopsis isn’t really much more than that, its about a girl named Saki, who doesn’t like mahjong much, she gets pulled into by her friend Kyou into joining the Mahjong club, after discovering she enjoys playing Mahjong to win her and her club aim to compete in the nationals, which unlike regular mahjong is played a team where you take in turns swapping between members after one has played both an east and a south.

Saki isn’t as enjoyable to me as a regular gambling anime what I like is the high stakes thrill the psychological warfare and tension, Saki has this a bit, but it doesn’t have this much. A few characters namely like the president focus on reading people and gauging their weaknesses in order to out play them which I really love, but mainly this anime is about absurd powers, rather than outplaying each other for the most part.

Think Kuroko’s no basket, and how you like have emperors eye, invisibility, copycat, but I would say this anime seems even less grounded than that one. Abilities to see the future, being possessed by Gods, and just straight up drawing the tile you want are all abilities you can see in this anime.
And that’s my problem its fun in how absurd it is and it can be pretty cool, but to me it’s a bit too ridiculous, that and I dislike the main character’s ability.

Saki the main characters, isn't bad per se, but she is quite bland and passivein terms of personality. What's more she comes across as the superman of mahjong despite not playing since she was a kid. She has absurd luck and game sense and the ability to draw any tile she needs when she gets kan. Whenever she is loosing its because of her own mentality, whether she doesn’t want to win, lacks confidence, or is scared by the other characters, its more her own mental blocks which stops her. Her ability is so op when she is in the right frame of mind nobody can really stop her.

The other main character is probably Nodoka who gets sexualised a lot through this anime as the big breasted champion of middle school, she plays a more logical style of mahjong based on probability, which is nice, however she mostly zones out when playing so I don’t get see her thought process as much as I liked.
The coolest club member to me would probably be the club president, she is the cool schemer always watching over her group, and her style of mahjong is about exploiting her opponent’s weaknesses, she was always the most fun to watch whenever it was her turn to play
The rest of the club members are there but I don’t think there is much to say they’re kind of flat to me, I think the worst culprit of this is probably Kyou, he is like the one male character in this show who sucks at Mahjong to the extent they state he isn’t even worth training. Alls he does is run errands and think of sexual fantasies of the other characters, It would be better if they did something with him, as it stands he seem kind of pointless.

Going outside the main club members I have to say there opponents get a decent amount of back story and development, that there were some cool characters who I ended up liking. But equally this show could bore me with the flashbacks within in the match with the characters I wasn’t interested in so its equal sums here.
So what do I think of Saki? I think it is an enjoyably absurd show, which the knowledge of Mahjong doesn’t help too much as the absurd powers makes it feel pretty detached to me. Its fun but it isn’t great, known of the characters are well developed and the games do feel like they’re a competition of crazy powers rather than skill. But despite that there is a tension and enjoyment to the games in this anime, its just nothing compared to the other mahjong I have seen namely Akagi or Tetsuya.

Overall I would give Saki and its sequel a 6.5/10 it could be fun, but was lacking in many ways.

A warning if you do want to watch this that it doesn’t finish its final arc, and if you want to swap to the manga to finish it, it is going painfully slow and looks like it will take years to finish.

If you want a better mahjong anime which is more tense and focused on skill I would recommend Akagi. Or if you want another absurd sports show there is always the aforementioned Kuroko which has its own crazy powers and is about a highschool team going to nationals as well.

There is nothing more exciting other than *Yuri Moe Bishoujo* playing a Asian table game known as Majhong. Somehow others are irritated by the *Yuri Moe Bishoujo* fact and dropped this series because of that... How wrong are they (lol) orz.

Story: 7
There's not much going on in this series other than going to the nationals. Similar to most of the anime, with the help of Yuri settings (lol).
The story reveals around a female (male) leading protagonist Miyanaga Saki with her (his) waifu Haramura Nodoka, wishing going for the High school Majhong Nationals. On their track, they have been playing with several strong players and have ... overcome/grown stronger to over come them, or simply..... Vip Hacks.

Art: 9
The art they used in this anime is quite the catch, with all the sponsors it sure did a amazing job of creating the anime. One thing they did was really smart, most of the time the anime is set in a room with a Majhong table and 4 players around them, which did not take much effort, and yet little flaws.

Sound: 8
The sound track in this series is also done well, with very relaxing tone through out the series that just makes you want to sit back and enjoy, those hackers with VIP access and those without them (lol).

Character: 9
The characters in this series is very lovable, including the main cast, and the other cast who suppose to be the antagonist in this story. Both places and characters are explained through out the matches giving the viewers a little information about them, and lets face it.... There's simply no one alive who hates watching *Moe Yuri Bishoujos* who plays Majhong.

Enjoyment: 9
Very enjoyable series for those who doesn't understand Majhong and who does. If you do understand Majhong, you can see how ridiculous tiles they draw, its quite impossible for a normal person to have that much luck, which is implied... All of them uses hacks... those who without them... can only be owned. Orz

Overall: 8
Very good series, very recommended, and if you can't understand some of the tiles, please ask, it's will only be more interesting for you self. This series i would like to give it a 10, and it will be 10 for me, although this review is made for those who haven't watched this series, and an 8 is just a normal score... Please, watch 3 episodes at the least and if you still can't stand it, just move your mouse to the top right corner and click the red cross... not everything is for everyone but it is very stupid to stop a series for some retarded reason *Moe Yuri Bishoujos*

Yet another "cute girls doing cute things" animu. This time it's mahjong. It's a "4-way battle" to head to the nationals and such. And the focus is mainly on cute school girls. Oh yeah; some of [the better players] have weird powers when they play.

This series is mainly about Saki, Nodoka (who looks like a cross between Lucky*Star's Kagami and Miyuki) and their teammates. It's about the other characters and other teams as well...

But hey. I'm here to KILL this animu and receive "not helpful at all" points for being honest.

* The CRAP treatment of one Kyoutaro Suga
* Rie Kugimiya's "mini-b####" return as one Yuuki ... Kataoka
* "Magical Skirts" and thereby the lack of "panty shots"
* The high amount of lesbianism
* The LOW amount of "straight parings" (if you can call Kyoutaro and that loli-looking Yuuka an actual "pair")

It ain't worth watching if you want something more or other than CGDCT. And I'll NEVER trust the animu industry to make a mahjong anime where men and women are on equal footing (without turning it into "for the lulz" / "women always win" comedy).

I still remember that time when some important Japanese person stated how popular that anime [was]; it was all over ANN. My teeth hurt every time I remember it.

what happens when u put 5 girls together, mix in a big-boobed girl, yuri undertones, OP MC, a bit of supernatural- you get saki. I have heard of majhong beofre, but the 1-player matching tile version, not the 4-player match version. watching the first episode, we see the MC do something that is thought impossible, then gets recruited. nothing unexpected. then on to the prefecturals. kiyosumi, an unknown school that saki goes to beats the the demon girl koromo with an amazing last play that knocks her down to go to the team nationals. then the individual tournament, saki, nodoka and fujiki go on to ... the nationals.

story-8.5. i thought this anime was a little weird, beng based off a game where you sit for hours moving tiles. MFW moving tiles involved supernatural power undertones in the tournaments. In the last hand of the team finals, we know kiyosumi wins with plot armor(duh), but they were so far behind it wasnt even funny. then saki pulls a huge play out her ass to beat koromo, all the tension that was built up in the one play had my eyes glued to my screen going "holy mother of god, this is happening". seeing how the plot developed from my first impression was a second-rate team turning into a national level contender was a great ride.

sound-9. the OP and ED are decent for this anime, not memorable to me, but maybe to others. the SFX used for the plays in the tournaments, loved them so much cause it emphasized the over-the-top plays that were going on.

art-8. not grand amazing but not horrible either, the art is consistent through every episode. the character designs and background are well drawn, dark auras on some of them make you shiver cause it like they have killing intent, never expected it from this.

character-9. seeing each characters backstory and how they developed through the 25 episodes was great. saki going out of her comfort zone and raping shit was just great, beating koromo in the last hand showed just how much plot armor she has on her. nodoka not being embarressed to play with eotpen took a lot of courage(i could never do that), made her look adorable when she got into her groove. yuuki is just.... yuuki, taco power and all(explains her perfectly). takei is the club president and in her last year.she cares a lot for her underclassmen and sets them up to win through the multiple training camps(making yuuki do arithmetic homework, felt so sorry for her), she waited 3 years to go to nationals at kiyosumi. mako is the character that th eanime doesnt focus a lot on, more just saki and nodoka, but she is indespensible to takei because they have been together the longest.

enjoyment-9. who ever knew that watching majhong could be fun. well IRL, it would be pretty boring unless ur a diehard fan or a pro. the anime shows the struggles a team must go through to nationals. it gets pretty intense as it goes on. if i knew how to play majhong, my overall would be a 9, but im just enjoying the ride, thats how anime should be enjoyed, like the ARIA series.

overall-8. i recommend this anime is you like shenanigans happening every 7-10 minutes or so.even the majhong matches themselves are worth watching themselves.i have high hopes for the second season, seeing how they make it to the finals, with saki going against her sister:spoiler, achiga-hen knowledge. i think everyone can agree that saki will win probably because of a last turn, last move kazoe-yakuman against her sister. and everyone shall dafaq at teru losing to her sister.

Want to watch a sports anime but don't want to feel like a lazy pos because you're watching a sports anime instead of doing..well sports?
Saki's got you covered.

It's an anime about a group of girls and their guy friend playing riichi mahjong.
Don't know anything about riichi mahjong? You don't have to. Just know it's cool as fuck to shout "Rinshan Kaihou!" like a Dragonball Z character as you win the hand. You don't need to know anything about mahjong to enjoy Saki, and if you decide to learn anything about it you'll quickly realize the amount of plot armor padded on to the main character ... in this show.

That doesn't matter because it's a blast.
There are over the top dramatics and antics at play over a game of tiles. It's Dragonball Z without the fighting, it's YuGiOh! without the monsters. It's literally a game, but they are damn serious about it.

Characters can either fall into archetypes or have fun quirks. Main character is the unnaturally gifted protagonist out of nowhere, followed by the big chested worked hard for her title character, the comic relief taco eating brat that can play and her boytoy that fantasizes about the other girls while also sucking at the game. Cool glasses chick and cool experienced chick.

That isn't all though because the cast of supporting characters is huge but it never feels bloated as most characters are given unique traits and ambitions. Some characters have "special" moves which just serve as obstacles in the plot for the main cast to overcome.

Saki is basically a giant tournament saga and it does this well while keeping momentum and never leaving a viewer bored or feel out of place despite their knowledge of the game. It's a fun time and for yuri fans there's even the slightest hint of it with a whole lot of blushing and ship teasing.

I love the mahjong games. I love the animation, music, and sound effects that go with every winning play. I love how the game jumps from one character to another, all trying to take control of the game with their unique strengths and weaknesses. It's often ridiculous, but also intense, chaotic, and exciting. And speaking as a novice player, it feels true to the spirit of mahjong.

I am indifferent to or outright hate everything else about this show.

Beyond establishing the characters' basic personalities and skills for the mahjong tournament, this anime does very little with them. There's maybe one scene for the MC's family situation ... and one scene for her yuri-bait partner's family, and we're supposed to be led to believe that these are important parts of their characters. But then for the rest of the 25 episodes, we get to see almost nothing new about them. And then they are vaguely in love with each other, but all I can see are cardboard cutouts with boobs making blush faces--hence, "yuri-bait."

The rest of the main cast is similarly criminally underdeveloped. One of the other club member's characterization ends up just being a pedophilic running gag that gets run into the Earth's core by the end and wasn't even funny to begin with. The club president has so many ways to be interesting with her connections and power in the school, but almost all of that is ignored in favor of repeating her one backstory in the mahjong club over and over. Effectively, the MC's school is just the mahjong club.

It's clear that the anime just wants to focus on the mahjong games and only wants to establish what is necessary to make them work in the end, and if the anime really WAS just mahjong games, then I'd be more or less willing to accept that. But there is SO MUCH time wasted on yuri-bait pandering and fanservice episodes that are completely devoid of any personality or substance.

It doesn't help that, in the actual tournament, the anime sometimes struggles to keep every character at the table relevant without bogging down the pacing with constant flashbacks, sometimes to scenes that were IN THE SAME EPISODE. And while I do appreciate characterizing the different opponents the MC and her club have to face, it also means that there's even less time to focus on the actual main cast, which makes the yuri-bait sequences feel even more empty and unearned.

Not to mention that it's just kind of creepy that at some point every loli girl wears very loose or scanty clothing, sometimes both. It happens too often to ignore.

This can only be a 6 for me because the mahjong battles are just that good. As someone that enjoys sports and game fiction, mahjong games being 4-player free-for-all make them refreshing to watch. All of the major battles have multiple competing narratives, and it's not always clear which one will dominate in the end. A player may be preoccupied with beating one character only to be surprised by a completely different character that was enacting their plan the entire time. It never feels overwhelming either; having 4 players has just the right balance of complexity versus emotional resonance.

The game being partially luck-based also works in the show's favor, because it gives the sense that anything is possible and any player can still come back from seemingly insurmountable odds. It's like the best parts of Yu-Gi-Oh or No Game No Life, but with the added complexity from having 4 players/teams.

There are episodes in this anime that I would absolutely watch a second time. Every character has some special strength that gives them the edge, but any other character can disrupt them with their own special strength and take over the narrative. When someone finally breaks through a character's dominance of the game, the show's excellent presentation does everything in its power to make you feel that high, even if you don't play mahjong.

Not every mahjong game is a huge hit; there are times when I think the characters' powers get too ridiculous to the point where, even when another character starts to beat them, it's not really clear HOW the other character is winning or what they did differently. The pacing being sometimes interrupted by too many flashbacks is also a bummer. But even the worst mahjong battles in this anime aren't a slog to get through, and the highs are still just as high.

In the end, I'm torn, but overall I'm glad I got to have watched this anime. It helped in my introduction to the game of mahjong and how it can be fun and interesting, but anything beyond that is just a mediocre shoujo ai fanservice schlock. I'd recommend this to anyone who can at least somewhat tolerate/enjoy those distasteful parts, because getting to those mahjong fights was well worth it.

Nice looking and entertainment anime without needing to understand anything about Mahjong such as Tsumi, Dora Dora, Rinshan Kaihou, Baiman, etc