10 Second Anime - Saki - The Nationals - Episode 13 [END]

Saki - The Nationals - Episode 13 [END]

The cute girls doing cute mahjong things anime ends for the winter season, but we have some special episodes scheduled for release. This is more like the middle, not the end.

The last episode of the season ends in transition, as we follow Yuuki and Nodoka around the venue to visit old friends. This serves as a good device for waking up late, getting back to our no-pan roots, and seeing earlier characters from previous seasons.

We also get a dramatic flashback montage from Saki, who is reluctant to enter the same building her older sister is playing in at the moment. We see a girl in a wheelchair, possibly a cousin or older sister, and this same empty wheelchair ablaze in a burning building. We're finally getting a dark hint to the family trauma that split up Saki's family.

In transition to the specials, and hopefully the final competition sometime soon, we're introduced to some of the other schools and their players, plus some of the other announcers covering the other side of the bracket. They are also full of personality.

But we also have to say goodbye to the losing schools. Some of their players will be still featured in the show through the individual tournament, but as a group, they will be left behind. What better way for an anime farewell than a compressed beach fan service episode?

10 Second Anime - Saki - The Nationals - Episode 12

Saki - The Nationals - Episode 12

Saki wins but still lacks confidence. The losing schools plan for the individual tournament. Is there a new mahjong monster without monster powers?

Saki lets Kyouko win the second to the last hand, throwing everyone for a loop. They had thought they understood her playing style, but losing on purpose, and then finishing out with a cheap hand despite everyone's full powers at maximum: it's hard to understand. But if you're a fan from way back, you know what happened. She played to keep her score 0 points, like she used to do, but this time, she made sure she spread the other players' points around so she ended up in first place. She explains to Hisa that she tried to follow the game plan of thinking that she was only starting with 1,000 points, so she could gain 99,000 points, but in the face of such strong players, she reverted to her old way of playing with her family. And, ominously enough, she claims that that Kyouko, who supposedly has no monster powers, is her toughest opponent and she was unable to knock her out of the semifinals. Hisa says, she did pretty good for forgetting to take off her shoes and socks. Ah Saki, still ditzy and a bit clumsy.

Speaking of Kyouko, she realizes after the game that Saki kept her score plus-minus 0 between the two halves of play. Her analytical mind, plus knowing how to shift around tile draws to nullify monster powers, may prove Saki right that she should be the most feared player as the tournament progresses.

The rest of the show is our cute girls doing cute things to finish off the winter season. Many of the girls have their places in the individual tournaments, and will have a lot of down time before it starts. Serious planning for serious fun! So, even though our characters are out of the team tournament, we'll still get our chances to visit with them as the show continues.

Next time: Nodoka's old friends from grade school get to show more of their stuff. We last saw them on TV through 2012 and 2013, so it's not like I miss them too much. But this time around, we get to see them with our main girls from Kiyosumi. Way to work in some continuity, plus gratuitous amounts of no-pan!

10 Second Anime - Saki - The Nationals - Episode 11

Saki - The Nationals - Episode 11

We've not only got a mahjong monster, but a boobie monster too. Saki turns on her monster power, with some new twists.

Sorry, ladies. Your chasing riichis, naked waits, demonic possession for single suit wins, and your 3 person isolation tactics are all very nice, but the name of this anime is not Toyone, Kasumi, or Kyouko. It's Saki, and she's going to make you remember that. She'd been very quiet after winning a couple of times with her patented rinshan kaihou, but she's been busy figuring out how all the players' styles work. Remember, she comes from a family of mahjong monsters, her sister is the reigning national high school champion, and to avoid fights in the house, Saki figured out how to always score zero points by the end of the match. This means, not only with her gift of attracting 4-of-a-kinds to her hand, but she knows exactly how to win, with which tiles, and with how many moves to get her desired point total. Now that she has confidence in herself, watch out.

And so it begins in this match. She let the "normal" player Kyouko figure out a way to stop Kasumi's single-suited wins, and supported her with that. She played into Toyone's chasing riichi, but just used that winning discard to make a 4-of-a-kind, and drew her own winning tile from the dead wall, and it wasn't even a rinshan kaihou. And while Kyouko was skipping over Kasumi with her 3 person isolation game, Saki figured out that Kasumi's demonic possession gifts do not extend to the dead wall. Saki's got them all figured out. Which is why in the last hand, when they felt her power-up was at its maximum, they were all surprised she discarded instead.

I figure this is where Saki's true gift is going to shine next episode. She's figured out what point total she wants, she knows how many hands are left, and she's going to get the score she wants this hand to make it add to the blowout score she wants in the final hand. That would be Saki-style monster mahjong! However it turns out, I'm excited we're seeing Saki back in some real mahjong play. It's been 2009 since the last time we saw this for real.

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.

10 Second Anime - Saki - The Nationals - Episode 9

Saki - The Nationals - Episode 9

Nodoka keeps on keeping on, even taking the round's biggest shot. The true mahjong monsters come in for the 5th round.

I don't know if the producers wanted to rush to the 5th round so that we can see our eponymous heroine in action, but I was a little disappointed with the first half of the episode. Two of the girls decide to stop blocking the loli-miko and let Nodoka take the hits of her South-West Gate wins, but somehow she keeps being blocked and they're not quite sure how. We get a hint from Nodoka being proud that she picked up on the weird coincidence with the wind tiles that Hisa warned her about. It wasn't explained explicitly, but perhaps Nodoka has begun to take into account individual players' statistics with her digital style play. Nodoka is figuratively playing in a different dimension, one of pure computational analysis, than the others with their understanding of mystical or magical guidance of the tiles. They can't see her using her powers, while Nodoka also cannot notice the others' powers. Their planes of mahjong existence are orthogonal to each other. Even when Nodoka takes the biggest hit from the South-West monster, she calmly takes it as if it were expected. The loli-miko was crying earlier when she was being blocked, but with Nodoka in the zone, it's just the end of that hand, and she's on to the next one.

I wanted to see some Nodocchi power going on, but we're being moved on to the main event. The anchors, the true mahjong monsters on the teams, face off now. Most of them haven't even played in the tournament yet, so dominant are their teammates that they've taken all the points from one team before the last round. This is Saki's first time playing all tournament, as is the other shrine priestess. Saki immediately gives us what we want: the rinshan kaihou - getting a four-of-a-kind, and then the winning tile on the extra draw that comes with it.

The fans have all seen this before, so we need to see what the other girls do. The tall one with the hat has the ability to exploit a specific rule in mahjong. If someone openly declares her wait, a riichi, she can double, or more depending on how much she wants to wager, her score, but a chasing riichi means that if another player wins the hand before the waiting one, all the points she wins will come from her, instead of being spread around the other players. Toyone, the tall one, is like a mahjong hitman, and when she gets serious about killing someone, she takes off her hat. She is openly gunning for the school in the lead, taking all their points as her own, effectively doubling her points in respect to that school.

I expect this round is going to take a while. We're going to need to see the back story on the three other players besides Saki, and how their mahjong monster powers work. What I hope to see is what Saki learned to do when her play style is being blocked. The best players have one or two tricks reserved for those situations.

10 Second Anime - Saki - The Nationals - Episode 8

Saki - The Nationals - Episode 8

Two players try to stop a third from winning in her usual style, while Nodoka plays her own digital style obliviously. Or does she?

This is a mahjong heavy episode, concentrating on one strong player's strengths, and the efforts of two of the other girls to stop her. They're relying on who sits where, what's been discarded, breaking up their own waits, and using their own mahjong monster power, even if it's tiring. Meanwhile, Nodoka obliviously plays her online digital style, discarding whatever helps her, not caring what the other players are worried about. The other two also have to account for her, which makes things more exhausting.

However, we have a flashback to Hisa warning Nodoka about what some players do with the "honor" tiles, the unsuited tiles without numbers on them. In online play, it's all about the numbers, but in mahjong monster tournament play, luck, power, magic, or mysticism seems to follow those tiles around. And Nodoka should know, after playing with Saki and her ability to draw 4-of-a-kinds whenever she needs them. Nodoka dismisses being able to draw certain tiles as less than coincidental.

I sense something ominous about how she phrased that, and how she keeps angling to win so as to keep a certain player in the North seat. Has Nodoka added strategy to her skills, where she doesn't believe in these mahjong monster powers, but accepts that others believe them, and will use that to her advantage? Is she going to keep winning hands by forcing the other players to concentrate on trying to stop the one mahjong monster? Oh ho, that would be pretty sneaky, Nodocchi!

10 Second Anime - Saki - The Nationals - Episode 7

Saki - The Nationals - Episode 7

Hisa savors her time at the Nationals. The 4th round is the no-pan round. Kinue kicks Etopen. Nodocchi rises.

With Hisa back to having fun and getting back to her game style, she gains back some of the points she lost in the first half of the round, and savors her time at the National Mahjong Tournament. She's the queen of hell-waits, and assembling her team and getting this far was definitely long on odds.

Next up is what all the cameramen have been waiting for: Nodoka's turn to shine in the 4th round. This is, apparently, the no-pan round, but the other otaku fetishes are well represented. We've got oppai, red glasses, lolis, shrine priestess uniforms, zettai ryouiki, and even school swimsuit tan lines. Sheesh, the Saki producers need to calm down a little...

Because Nodoka's style of play is very methodical and features strong defense, she doesn't even bother studying the styles of her opponents. This is why she is so shocked to see the loli miko just appear in front of her, while Hisa is not surprised at all. Nodoka cares not for your superstitious juju talk... except the loli miko is wearing a voodoo mask. Hisa does the best impression of Nodoka evar!

When Kinu walks in and sees a round stuffed penguin on the floor, her soccer goalie instincts take over, and sends Etopen flying. Silly penguin, you can't fly.

Things settle down, and the match starts. Nodoka has practiced getting into her zone as quickly as possible, and starts off with an immediate win. The other girls, used to sensing mahjong monsters, feel nothing from Nodoka. One wonders if she's like a machine. They don't know that she is the number one online mahjong player in the country known by her avatar as Nodocchi. The other players are starting to power up too, and first off will be the loli miko activating her voodoo juju. How will Nodocchi's defense handle this mahjong monster?

10 Second Anime - Saki - The Nationals - Episode 6

Saki - The Nationals - Episode 6

After lunch, it's time for Hisa to shine, or not... Oh, she forgot to add one more thing to her checklist: Have Fun!

At some point, the pressure was going to get to Hisa, who had been working to get her club to the National Tournament for 3 years, starting from one person to where they are now. They don't have a faculty advisor, they don't have any alternates, and she's also the Student Council President. Not only that, her mahjong power is the single hell-wait, which is very long on odds, and very nerve-wracking. How did Hisa come this far without feeling overwhelmed at some point? After the 2nd round, it's lunchtime, and then it will be Hisa's turn. Oh, the genki girl announcer sure knows how to declare lunchtime!

10 Second Anime - Saki - The Nationals - Episode 5

Saki - The Nationals - Episode 5

Demon possession? One of the mahjong monsters thwarted by a "regular?" And a joke setup from last week gets its punchline this week.

It looks like Yuuki is going to finish strong in the first round, but the shrine priestess falls asleep just as she's about to explode with a huge point total, and a lightning demon takes over and takes her big point total from Yuuki alone. Falling from 1st to 3rd doesn't sit well with Yuuki, but Mako and Hisa console her.

There were supposed to be more explosions of points than the one at the end, as one of the special abilities of Suzu was to get one big hand per round. So instead of being branded with "Shame" on her forehead, she gets 未 ("mi", not yet). So cruel.

The mahjong monster for the 2nd round is supposed to be a New Zealander who likes to draw on a dry erase board. Her tendency is to win every single hand. She visualizes what her winning hand will be, and fills in the other tiles for her opponents. Her teammate, in passing the other school members doesn't feel any special strength from any of them, so she thinks things are in the bag for this upcoming round. Well, don't underestimate the power of megane.

Mako's power is recognizing the pattern of discards as if they were faces. That's a good memory! She remembers faces she likes, and ones that are good for each of the seats. However, what she's been working on is changing the face if she doesn't like it, which totally spoils the Kiwi's power of visualization. Even taking cheap points is better than losing tons. The other schools are starting to realize that Kiyosumi isn't just about Nodoka and her "style" from the news coverage. Everyone on the team is a monster in some way. At the end of Mako's round, Kiyosumi is in first place for the match.

After Hisa's turn will be Nodoka's. Penguin power and oppai jokes coming up soon!

10 Second Anime - Saki - The Nationals - Episode 4

Saki - The Nationals - Episode 4

Even deep into heavy mahjong action, we have time for no-pan, ki presence, and puns on names.

With the first round of Kiyosumi's match, that means it's time for Yuuki to shine. Using the expository device of a different school using their research notes on the other schools, we're reminded of Yuuki's strength as the first dealer, but we're also shown how much she's matured as a player. She still relies on huge points during the first few hands, but now she throws in some surprise wins, has learned to break up hands when they can't get any points that round, and can get some more wins even when she's not in the dealer position.

Through Suzu, we also learn of the other girls' supposed powers. One gets better and better hands when she begins to hesitate on her discards. The shrine maiden plays strong defense while she sleeps through early hands, and then awakens. We haven't seen what her awakened power is yet.

Of course, this wouldn't be a Saki episode without some jokes and no-pan thrown in. One thing that threw me was the character written on Suzu's forehead. It's a name-only character, but two of its pronunciations, shin and nobu, involve concepts of "shame." That's a very specific cultural pun right there. The ki power-ups have only been hinted at, but we're starting to see them build up. Next episode is going to explode with some massive point totals!

10 Second Anime - Saki - The Nationals - Episode 3

Saki - The Nationals - Episode 3

Maho is a real wildcard. Jealous-Momo instead of Stealth-Momo. Subara! Wa haha! Taco Power! And some actual mahjong competition.

It's a bit interesting to see how much Nodoka has been around. From playing mahjong with the Achiga girls, joining Yuuki in middle school, only to have the Subara! (Excellent!) girl from another school being her original club president. Nodoka obviously has her, uh, charms.

As for Hisa's strategy in bring Maho to the training camp, she deduced correctly that she can mimic another player's style for one hand per game. Look at the shock on Saki's face when Maho pulled out a Rinshan Kaiho! But she's still a beginner, and makes nervous playing mistakes too. This all plays into Hisa's plan for her mahjong monsters to play against themselves, and for them to gather more data for Mako when someone has an unpredictable playing style.

Hisa has her own training regimen, and gathers a table of certain strong players, much to the jealousy of Momo. So jealous, she forgot to disappear! When some of the schools have to leave, she feels a pang of missing new friends because she's never had this camaraderie of mahjong club presidents before, this being the first time she's gone to the Nationals with a team. Ah youth, making memories.

But hey, there's still some actual mahjong competition going on. We see from the other schools' perspectives as they dispatch their foes how Kiyosumi is doing. The news reports that Hisa has been one-shotting schools in the 3rd rounds. Whoa, go Hisa! Now we're getting to some of the tougher schools, and it's Yuuki's taco powered time to shine. Complete with cape!

10 Second Anime - Saki - The Nationals - Episode 2

Saki - The Nationals - Episode 2

The hot baths allow for many revelations, ufufu~ More reminders of our ensemble cast's strange and terrifying mahjong powers. Also, Team Oppai vs. Team Petanko fight-o!

The main tournament hasn't started yet for our large cast of girls, so that means there's still ample time to remind the viewers of their special powers and quirks. Penguin power, taco power, wa haha, Stealth-Momo, rinshan kaiho, calm waters, and bad luck. All of this and more. We also have time for the sisterhood of the public baths to divide themselves between Team Oppai (big boobs) and Team Petanko (flat chest). Always a worthy debate...

We get introduced to a new power from Touka. Whenever she's around other mahjong monsters, her power of calm waters rises up, and she never discards a tile another player can use. It also changes her personality from the excitable momentum changer she usually plays as, but it uses up large amounts of stamina, and she faints after only four games.

By inviting so many schools to help with practice matches, the president of the mahjong club has also brought the fans of the first season all their favorite characters and personality matchups. Ah, so nostalgic. New characters are also introduced as they remember their prior matches with the girls helping Kiyosumi, which is a nice way of setting the table for the rest of the season.

One sentimental thing this episode shined a light on was how far the Kiyosumi mahjong club has come in only three years. From just one member to a whole team competing at the National Tournament, being cheered on by the entire student body, Hisa can only be grateful for their support.

It looks like we'll have at least one more catch-up episode before the crazy tournament mahjong begins, and we'll find out why Hisa wanted to invite one of Nodaka's former middle school team mates to their training camp, a mahjong monster who's bad at reading train schedules.

Preview Gif Anime - Saki - The Nationals - Episode 1

Saki - The Nationals - Episode 1

All the girls of Saki are back in the National Mahjong Tournament, complete with their devastating combos of tile slamming power-ups, no-pan, and yuri. Add in taco power for good measure!

I've been a fan of this show since the first season, and I've been waiting for the continuation of the title character's story since then too. The second installment featured the girls of another school, with the original girls on the periphery, but I wanted full Saki power. Finally she's back, along with all the girls in the first season, and the schools from the second season. Of course, we have new mahjong monsters to look out for. But all the important elements are here. We have short skirts, implied no-pan, taco power, wa haha, genki-girl announcer and shy pro player, and affectionate incipient lesbianism.

As for how I can write about this show, since the mahjong elements are deep and complicated, never mind the added magical girl visuals, it could be a challenge. Well, there's plenty of eye-candy and comedy gags in the course of a Saki episode, so I could just concentrate on that stuff. We'll see how it goes.