Now despite the title of this post, I am not making a dig at the more well-known Zero (who is in this show), but rather, the power of Miyanaga Saki, our protagonist, to score 0 for each full round of mahjong. Saki remains one of my more anticipated shows of the season, and if you kept updated with the blog, you would have known my spring anime watchlist was for the lulz. I leave it to you to find out how you can know what shows I really want to watch for this season, and quite frankly, this spring is disappointing for me. I already hear rumors about the other shows I want to watch and it might be that I will drop about 3 of them. Then again, I will only know after I watched them.

Boobage? In my Saki? It’s more likely than you think.

Now I am unsure if I want to blog on Saki episodically – as you already can tell I am way behind in several episodics and anime reviews, not to mention the ever-late 2008 in Retrospect series I still want to do. Thus, at this point in time, you can consider this to be a first impression for the anime. Yes I watched the subbed version, and yes I know mahjong, but to be honest, Saki takes on competitive mahjong. I never even touched that in my life except in a certain computer game called Four Winds, thus I have no idea how to calculate the scores. Competitive mahjong in this sense also uses more ways of winning than our casual types, for example the winning set that Saki gave up at the end of the third round when she first plays in the mahjong club. Though I know about that winning set, it is never used in casual mahjong.
 

Haramura Nodoka, the grand champion of the Mahjong Club and my new heart. Pink hair is always good…with bewbs.

I am going to assume, if I do episodics, that you know mahjong from here on out though, sorry about that. Only if you understand mahjong can you understand why it is so difficult to get a plus/minus zero each time and the way Saki plays to get it. Seriously, incredible.
 

I want a mahjong table like that. It should auto-shuffle the tiles, auto-roll the dice, and so no one can cheat rofl. It will probably cost a bomb though, and you will miss the fun of having to shuffle it yourselves. The three members of the mahjong club along with Saki are featured here – Kataoka Yuuki, Haramura Nodoka and Suga Kyoutarou from left to right. Saki’s back faces the viewer.

In any case the first episode made a good impression thus far. I am likely to finish this series, despite Gonzo being the studio behind it. The biggest reason is mahjong itself. I do play a bit of it but just casually, it is a good game to pick up because if you go a little deeper, you will realize that you have to always guess what the other three players have and not just depend on luck, though obviously, in any such game, luck is a huge factor. But the biggest point is that you also must know what to wait for, what to do, and not just see if your luck can hold out.
 

Takei Hisa, the Student Council Congress President. Voiced by one of my favorite seiyuu who also does Katsura Hinagiku, another Student Council President.

Lovely.

Also Nodoka has huge boobs. I am so in. She is my favorite character of the show now.
 

The impossible – plus/minus zero for three consecutive rounds of mahjong.

This show also has, as I mentioned, quite a few famous seiyuu. Koshimizu Ami stars as Haramura Nodoka, Itou Shizuka as the student congress president Takei Hisa, which makes two of my favorite seiyuu right there. The others include Fukuyama Jun as Suga Kyoutarou, Ueda Kana as Miyanaga Saki, Shiraishi Ryoko as Someya Mako and popular loli seiyuu Kugimiya Rie as Kataoka Yuuki.
 

This image is significant for one reason – the blank tiles are joker tiles, also usually never used in casual play. Blank tiles add quite the flavor as jokers, but I prefer not to use them. They make it very difficult to guess the opponent’s titles though. Usually there are four of them. Also this hand is obviously a qing yi se, or what could be called a set of the same type (all wan zi in this case).

Lulz.

Looks like another above average OST as well so far, I liked the music that played during the first round when they first played in the mahjong club, it kind of reminds me of Hyakko’s music. The games themselves are going to be lost on people who have no idea how to play mahjong, despite the explanations though, because the explanations on the side only serve to either enhance your knowledge of competitive mahjong and winning types while the basics are still very simple and serve only as reminders to those who know. The problem with mahjong lies in its types and ways of winning, not playing the game. The game is simple to play, but winning is a whole different matter.
 

Yuri is always hot.

The last member of the Mahjong Club, Someya Mako.

The four girls that play in the shortened east round. Note that fetishes are again catered to here. The loli, the meganekko, the boobage, and the flat/plain-looking.

And consider that Saki can still get an even score of 0 after each round. Now if it were the full 4-round mahjong, the chances of breaking even is not that small, but she did it in a shortened east round version and with red tiles. I never heard of the red-tile version, I am assuming it is a Japanese mahjong thing (please correct me if not). Unless I learn the way they calculate their scores as well, I am lost on the final points.
 

Yuuki’s lulzy explanation.

An “an kang” (hidden kong). “An” here means hidden or dark in Chinese. Unless you are the West Wind, or the round is in the West Wind, it does not give you one tai (fan). I am not sure if a kang gives you any dora/han under their rules though. Han, I doubt it, but dora…WTF is a dora anyway?

But to those who know how to play, man, the suit that Saki had with no honors, 1 or 9’s, she actually gave up a 6 wan to draw a 9. Lolwut? And as Hisa mentioned, 9 wan as we all know, is not even a risky tile. Reduced her points by a whole lot with that move.
 

I am sure this kind of scene happens in other board game/sports anime as well.

The end of that final east round was even more pwnage though, I have to admit. She changed her half flush (ban se in Chinese, see end of post for a glossary of the terms I am familiar with in Chinese for mahjong which I have yet to fully translate into Japanese without the help of subs) to a mere 2-tai (fan) and drew a West Dragon tile. She already had 3, and she drew a fourth. WTF luck is that?
 

The holy light of mahjong shines on Haramura Nodoka.

So far the animation is ok, the humor is definitely there, but like I said, if you do not know mahjong, this series might not make it for you. Still the lulz that can be had might just be what you want for this season, with the number of sequels coming out and some of the other series failing so hard.
 

Mahjong Terminology

Chinese/Cantonese/Japanese is the way I am going. If I do not know, you will see something weird in its place. Please help correct me especially for the Cantonese and Japanese parts if you know the right terms and pronunciation/romanization.

Wan zi – The Chinese character you see in one of the types is called “wan“. Wan zi is just a generalized term for the entire set.

Yan jing/?/? – The pair that serves as the “eyes” (the Chinese term is literally “eyes”), since you require 14 tiles to win. The rest of the tiles, 12 in total, are done using either pungs, chis, or a combination of both, depending on what you want to do.

Tai/fan/? – What you need to win. It is difficult to explain in English. Without these you are unable to calculate your score as well. Casual mahjong usually has a limit of 5 tai’s, but as I remember, the HK style goes to no limit. Each subsequent tai is double the cost of the last. For example, if you played 1 tai as the worth of 1 buck, then a 2-tai victory is worth 2 bucks, a 3-tai victory worth 4, and so on. Without a limit, you can imagine how much you will lose. Tai’s are the backbone of your victories and most mahjong games require that you have at least one tai in your winning hand or in your flowers before you can declare a victory.

Hua/?/? - Literally “flower”. These tiles do not appear to be in competitive mahjong. They are optional tiles that do not fit into anything and are displayed when you get them. Depending on their number or type (there are 2 sets of 4 flowers, numbered 1-4 each, and 4 animals so making it 12 hua’s in total) you get one additional tai.

Chi/Chow/Chi – Sequential tiles that are taken from the previous player. Pung takes precedence over this, see below. You cannot chi (literally “eat” in Chinese) from any other player except the one before you.

Pung/Pung/Pong – 3 of the same tile. For pung, a tile can be taken from any player and takes precedence over chi. Because of the total number of tiles available of a single number or wind (4 each of the same tile), it is impossible for two players to pung over the same thing.

Kang/Kong/Kong – 4 of the same tile. This means if someone kangs a certain tile, that tile is considered “dead” for that round (no more of it is possible). A special type is known as “an kang“, which means you drew the 4th tile yourself, like Saki did in the last round. You then draw a replacement from the “dead wall”, and throw out that tile or another depending on what you are trying to do and what tile you get.

Hu/?/Ron – Game victory from taking another player’s thrown tile.

Zhi muo/?/Tsumo – Game victory from drawing on your turn. This means you did not take the tile from any other player. This usually counts as more money in the victory. I may have gotten the hanyu pinyin wrong for the Chinese term.

?/?/Riichi – Not played in casual mahjong, usually anyway. This means that you must throw all tiles subsequently drawn after the declaration of riichi unless it is the winning tile, meaning you can only win using a tsumo.

Ping hu/peng hu/? – A winning hand consisting only of chi tiles and a worthless pair. By “worthless” I mean that the eyes must not be either an honor tile, and must not be a wind of the round and also not of yourself. This is difficult to explain if you do not know the game in some detail. If you are interested in knowing this particular winning hand, which is one of the more common winning types, just leave a comment and I will explain in detail. Ping hu’s are worth 4 tai’s without any flower, and only 1 with a flower (usually; some people play mahjong with the rule that without a flower you cannot do a ping hu, which I find strange). If it is done with a flower, it is called “chao ping hu” here. “Chao” is dialect for “smelly” (literally); it can also mean in this way a fake ping hu in some sense.

Pung pung hu/?/? – A winning hand consisting, as you guessed, entirely of pung’s. Usually worth 2 tai’s and may go to more depending on if you are doing other kinds of winning hands (such as qing yi se).

Ban se/?/? – Literally “half color” or “half flush”. Done with winds/honors and the same type of mahjong set, for example all bamboos with one or two (sometimes more) honors/winds. It does not matter if you chi or pung the normal tiles usually, but because you can only pung the winds/honors, you get 2 additional tai if you do a pung pung hu with this particular kind of winning hand, making it a total of 4 tai’s.

Qing yi se/?/? – Literally “one pure color”. Translated, it can be called a “flush” I suppose. No other possible tile except ones of the same set (bamboo, pins/balls, or wan zi) must be used to get this. It is worth 4 tai’s, and if combined with either pung pung hu or ping hu, the tai’s are stacked.

Shisan yao/?/? – The ultimate pinnacle of achievement in a winning hand, literally “13 1’s”. You must get one each of the four winds, one each of the dragon tiles, one each of the 1’s and 9’s of each set, and the final tile must be one of the prevailing 13 that is mentioned. Quite possibly the hardest hand to ever get, I am sure we will see this in Saki…or maybe not. As far as I remember, without a limit, shisan yao is worth 88 tai’s.

These are the usual winning types and terms used in mahjong over here, I am not sure about other places, and other ways of saying them. Do correct me or help me if you like, and feel free to ask if you are unsure about anything I talked about here.

Related posts:

1. Saki 23 – This Luck