10 Second Anime - Saki - The Nationals - Episode 10

Saki - The Nationals - Episode 10

More mahjong monster magic from Toyone. The other schools will need to adjust.

With this heavy-into-mahjong episode, we have time to flash back to when the Miyamori school recruited its 5 member team, with the inclusion of the tall Toyone. Coming from a small mountain village with few children, she could only play mahjong by watching matches on TV and setting up the tiles and playing the positions herself. This is probably what led to her chatty playing style, where her last words before she receives the winning tile sound like a childish sing-song incantation.

Toyone had targeted one school to get back a whole bunch of points, and change ranks within the match, now she needs to get into the top 2 to advance to the semifinals, and she needs points from everybody to do that, especially from Kiyosumi, Saki's school. She introduces a new trick, the naked wait, where she openly calls all the other combos and is left with only one tile to make a pair. A combination of chis and pons skip over and retraces turns from the drawing wall, so she can draw the winning tile in the right position. That she can do this at will, and that she draws the win, means she can continue to be dealer until she loses, amassing a ton of points from the other players. Bonus hands forever.

While the other schools try to figure out how this new trick works, we get to see how Toyone was introduced to her teammates, and how happy she was to play with other people.

Japan's low birthrate has made it into pop culture, so you know it's actually a serious issue over there. With Non Non Biyori last season showing how rural areas' shrinking children's population means combining classes into one room of what used to be a huge school, and this season's Sakura Trick showing a girls-only school in the process of shutting down by not accepting any new incoming classes, we see that these situations are common enough that they make for plausible settings for stories targeted for mass consumption.

But back to the mahjong match. The shrine priestess from Eisui doesn't have time to play defense only, and instead of just figuring out the mahjong monster rules, she figures it's time to get a little monster crazy herself. But I really want to see Saki show off her new stuff. Rinshan kaihou is good for a nod to the first season, but we know she's powered up somehow. She's not getting lost going to the match stage anymore. You know that means something!