Saki

Storyline- In my opinion, the storyline is awesome and completely takes on a world of it's own. This anime somewhat relates to anime such as Hikaru no Go and Shion no Ou, but the family situations in this anime allow it to stand alone. Even though the story is kind of slow moving with the flashbacks and the many matches, the details make it easier for viewers to catch on to what is going on.

Music- The music is really cute and it lightens the somewhat serious mood in this anime. What caught my eye though is that the endings change depending on the episode (episode 6 had the first ending and episode 7 had the second ending then the first ending came back in episode 8). Normally I see anime with a serious atmosphere and then out pops something cheery that destroys that tense mood, but the ending changes in Saki fixes that.

Characters- The characters definitely suit this anime and their personalities give a bit of fan service to certain viewers. Sure, the characters blush alot and you can easily spot the pairings, but I think it makes the anime cuter. The characters in Saki also relate to the usual types of characters that you see in most anime like the short one (Yuuki), the glasses girl (Mako), the clumsy main character (Saki), and some others which throws in humor to this series.

Overall- When you add my reviews from the other sections, you can tell how much I am hooked on this anime. The humor, the drama, the suspense (as in what will happen in a certain person's match), and the magic quickly swept me off my feet and left me hungry for more. Until the series ends, I can't wait to see more episodes and when it does end I hope there is a second season. That's pretty much all I have to say.

First I would like to apologise for any ensuing rants that occur within the review once I get going I tend to not be able to stop, also I didn't write this in order so it might end up a bit all over the place but I think I get the basic point accross. Also the rating is to do with comparison of animes OVERALL which is why it might seem low, I don't believe that a 5 for music happens unless your Skankfunk (Air Gear) for instance.

Well I'm personally a sucker for sports animes, though this is not technically speaking a 'sport' (though god knows anymore), but it follows the character styles and plot devices used in classic sports animes. So I was immediately looking forward to the series. One other reason was more specific, it was another anime about Mahjong, which in itself is a vastly fascinating game and I've always found that animes do a good job using it as a subject.

Why its good
I do consider 'Mahjong Animes' (thats right I'm making a new genre right here, right now) to be fairly special so I feel the best to look at Saki is to compare it with the others. Now the first thing about this is that it is FAR more commercial then the others which has its ups and its downs, the downs I'll talk about later, but the ups that come from it is the spreading of Mahjong as a game itself and the fact that hopefully it will compel people to look back at the others, which are well worth the watch. Also it will hopefully lead to more spins on the Mahjong Anime, this is just speculation the show itself shows this as the other Major Mahjong Animes were very serious and this shows that Mahjong can just be a game. Akagi definitely won't appeal to a lot of people because of its dark nature but its hard to say the same of Saki. All around it is very well crafted, the storyline is not complex like Shion no Ou the characters aren't as strong as in Akagi but I watch it every week and am never disappointed. It keeps things simple and does very well by it

Criticisms
I think my most crucial criticism of the series (so far obviously), is the fact that it dumbs down mahjong quite a lot I think, unlike Akagi and Shion no Ou it was made with us westerners (apparently that is an actual word, I'm skeptical myself) in mind. The depth that Akagi and Shion no Ou went into Mahjong made me stop and have to look back at things which I simply didn't understand, this was made to be easy to watch. This is probably more evident in the fact that the characters are basically there to look cute, I don't find that in itself a problem, but I don't like the idea that animes might loose some of their culture or worse still dumb it down simply because they believe either we won't understand or we are too lazy to find out. I find some of the characters depths to be far to shallow it seems like some characters have no background whatsoever (and they aren't exactly side characters) obviously theres room for expanding but it seems even the characters with backgrounds are given no mystery (except the captain) all the back stories are just handed over to us. This is obviously a little to much over analysis but what almost always draws me to an anime is the rich characters that star in them and how easily I become attached to them.

Summary
Though there are these criticisms, and it appears in size that there are more bad things then good things to say I hasten to add that I love this anime to bits and even got off my ass to get membership purely to watch this as soon as possible. Take the criticisms with a pinch of salt or, as most of you who read this probably will, disregard my comments all together and just sit back and enjoy yourselves =D because its hard to stretch out THIS ANIME IS AMAZING as much as very specific problems.

I first thought this would be like one of those ordinary school animes where there is a gay club about one specific activity. I was saying in my head why does CR keep putting crap like this onto the site! We should have the old anime back! But out of everyone, I'm guessing you have the case of natural curiosity. So I clicked on the 1st episode. At first I was like brace yourself here comes the loud Japanese high pitched voices. After watching this anime I was amazed/shocked and made me want to learn how to play "Japanese style" mahjong.

The storyline
It was so unique! I never thought that anyone would use mahjong in a anime. I thought it would be just a bunch of wannabe granny's flipping tiles and screaming there heads off.So back to the point. Ok so it starts of with this freshman saki who just got in a school. One day her friend forces her to play mahjong with him in the mahjong club. Once she gets there and play they realized she has almost the best skills as anything they have ever seen! (too bad im not going to tell you what happens next) :P

Music
ok so i thought the op of the anime wasnt so good. It sounded a little to strike witches just a little deeper and a little more annoying. While the ending was amazing! it was also in the Oricon charts of japan,which is a pretty good reward to many jap artist.

Characters
Every character is different and special in there own way. Ever time one of them plays they each like have something to offer. When I was watching this anime the 2 of the main characters acted like the other 2 main characters in strike witches, You get the feeling there lesbians every time someone pairs them together because they either blush or hesitate. Overall the characters all put in something to look forward too and make every episode exciting. -hiko

this is a good anime i got the message of friendship and trails. in this snaro majong is the cause of family troubles for Saki but she quickly makes friends when she joined the majong club at her high school. you see the relationship between Saki, Nodoka, Yukki, and the rest of the team and how these underdogs make miracles happen. as the story grows you learn about other characters and a little bit about them. it has humor, friendship, school life, education, and bonds. i think that they did a great job with this anime and showing how far you can get with your friends aiming for the same goal because you are never alone your friends have your back. plus it shows the teamwork and friendships can grow fast or slow depending on what character you are looking at. Saki faces many troubles along with her friends struggling to make it to the final majong high school tournament.

I came to this anime looking for something like Chihayafuru. It's been very interesting to learn about mahjong and the show was interesting enough in its way... but it felt like fan service the whole time. Someone is sad? A shot of their trembling thighs! Someone is happy? A shot of their trembling thighs! And poor Nadoka really didn't need to have such a large bust - in fact, the first two times I started watching this show, I saw her and turned it right off again. To be honest, it felt like the whole show was designed to give fan fiction authors easy stories.

I probably won't watch it again, but I don't regret having watched it. If you are looking for a fluffy anime to waste time on, you could do a lot worse.

Now in 2012 this series is not new anymore. Let's say something about it...

The plot tells the story of a freshman student, a girl called Saki, of the high school Kiyosumi. She's more or less forced to play mahjong. At the beginning she doesn't like it. In the end she love it and tries to win, with her high school mahjong team's teammates, the girls prefectural tournament. All of them will have to play with very strong opponents to fulfill this task.

And that's the point of the series, mahjong viewed with a sport anime style. It uses three factors to make this story catchy, "moe", special techniques, and light yuri. It has ecchi in a some scenes, keep that in mind. For me the ecchi is a bad point, but someone maybe likes it.

I love the fact this show mahjong as a game, nothing related to gambling or the japanese mafia, the yakuza. Just a board game for all to play.

The plot is the same as other sports anime, if you're old enough, maybe you know Captain Tsubasa, an anime about soccer, that has the same style. If not think on Inazuma Eleven or other sports anime of the sort, with special attacks.

Most of times the reasons for players to play doesn't go beyond " I have to win for my team/for my school/to not dissapoint my coach/for certain teammate whom I like but (in most cases) I don't say it." The series uses flashbacks to explain various things, mostly why they play, and those flashbacks are used well, so it's ok. They're enjoyable.

As is a lighthearted anime is fun to watch, it can make you to see the whole series in a night, if you have the spirit. Even if you know nothing about Riichi Mahjong (japanese mahjong).

If you know how to play you will understand it better (and maybe you'll lke it more), if not, you'll want to learn to play japanese mahjong.

All characters are lovable, funny and kind-hearted, even if when they play mahjong or doing something related to it, looks like they want to break the hands, legs, and heads of those who are playing with them.

The openings and endings are cute and you'll remember them. The first and third endings are songs about mahjong and are filled with lot of terms of japanese mahjong, For me, those are the best songs.

The BGM is Ok, enough to make you sit and watch the show. I think, its not the best out there, but it go together with the anime very well.

The animation is not so good and the plot is nothing special, but I hope you like it. It's that kind of anime you can watch in a boring afternoon with nothing to do, funny, interesting, and pleasant to watch.

In this series all mahjong terms are translated to english wich I see as a bad point, as even non japanese players uses the japanese names of the "yaku", the various combinations of tiles that gives points, when playing japanese mahjong. The translator uses the term yaku as the yaku and it's values wich are "han", and should be counted as 1 yaku with a value of X han. English terms are even more confusing than japanese ones. There are various ways to translate the same yaku with a japanese unique name into english, that's why is confusing.Those errors were made because the translator probably used the info of the European Mahjong Asocciation. In Saki Achiga-hen, a spinoff series, those errors are corrected. I bet it was hard for the translator, so no complaints here.

Even with those flaws is a series worth watching.

As a final note I will say that Hikaru no Go (an anime about Igo, known as Go) and Shion no Ou (dark plot around the game of Shôgi, japanese chess), are good comparisions as all are board games. But the best mahjong anime is Akagi, wich is unconcluded, as the manga is too, unconcluded nowadays. The author keeps doing it.

Ah, yeah, someone said that was weird the players of this series coud say Tsumo, win from the wall where you take tiles, without looking at the tile. That's one of the few realistic points of the anime, the mahjong tiles are always engarved so you need only to touch it to know wich tile is. You don't need to look at them, as long as you know the patterns of the tiles.

If you ever play mahjong you'll find hard to do what those girls do. Is, as someone said, "if you complain because real mahjong is not like this series, is like complaining because real ninjutsu is not like Naruto's ninjutsu".

I hope you llike it, as I do. And I hope more people join here to watch Saki Achiga-hen, and the new announced Saki Zenkoku-hen (2014 Spring).

Stumbled across this one while looking for yuri series to watch. Nothing much to say about this show. It fulfilled its role as a light fluffy fun show for those evenings where you get home and just don't want to do anything for 30min. The ecchi wasn't excessive, and the likeable characters made the show enjoyable overall.

I'm not a very experienced mahjong player, and had no clue what richi or dora were having not played Japanese mahjong before. Was kind of tickled that the kanji for mahjong actually means sparrow in Chinese. But I think the mahjong isn't the point of the show anyway, given that most of the strong players win because of some kind of stupid luck they have to pick up tiles in some strange way. Mostly the mahjong serves as a way to keep the tension going throughout the series, and you could substitute any other competitive (or otherwise) sport for it.