this movie is mostly about saki and mahjong....saki is really good at it!!!!!!! i really want 2 try 2 play mahjong but 2 hard!!!!!!!!!!!!!! );
plot
Saki Miyanaga, a high school first-year student, hates mahjong because her family would always force her to play it and punish her regardless of the outcome of the game. Due to this, she learned how to keep her score at zero, neither winning nor ...
this movie is mostly about saki and mahjong....saki is really good at it!!!!!!! i really want 2 try 2 play mahjong but 2 hard!!!!!!!!!!!!!! );
plot
Saki Miyanaga, a high school first-year student, hates mahjong because her family would always force her to play it and punish her regardless of the outcome of the game. Due to this, she learned how to keep her score at zero, neither winning nor losing. However, her friend Kyōtarō from middle school convinces her to join the school's mahjong club upon entering into high school. After the club discovers her ability, they recruit her and convince her to win instead of breaking even. She easily does so with her skill, leading the team to enter a mahjong tournament so that its members may reach the national competitions.
characters
Saki Miyanaga
Saki Miyanaga is a first-year
student and is the titular character of the story. She initially joins the mahjong club so she can reach the Nationals to see her sister, a top-ranked professional mahjong player.[1] She is notorious for her ability to score zero points every round.[2] Her skill primarily comes from her ability to read her opponents and their tiles to see the flow of the game.[3] A mahjong move she favors most is rinshan kaihō and her play is enhanced when barefoot. At the mahjong tournament, she is made the captain of the team.[4] She hopes to progress to the finals to reunite with her older sister. At first she is distant towards Nodoka but over time becomes extremely close to her.
Nodoka Haramura (
Nodoka Haramura is a first-year student who attends the same school as Saki and is a member of the mahjong club. She was the previous year's National Middle School Individual Champion.[5] Nodoka always carries her penguin doll, affectionately named Etopen, to give her a sense of calmness when playing mahjong. Her skill, in comparison to Saki's, comes from practicing via online mahjong.[3] She has an ability where she views mahjong tables digitally; this ability ignores other player's presences in the game, giving her an edge against players with an ability to manipulate presence. At the mahjong tournament, she is the vice-captain of the team.[4] Her nickname is "Nodocchi" (which is same as her screen name in online mahjong) after her play style, quickly and efficiently racking up points as fast as possible.[6] At first she berates Saki for not even trying but afterwards when she does try her hardest, she warms up to her and they become close. She is left-handed.
Yūki Kataoka
Yūki is Nodoka Haramura's friend from middle school who is also a member of the mahjong club. She is highly skilled during east hands, though cannot stay focused and makes more mistakes as the game progresses,[7] so she is made the first to play at the mahjong tournament. She is often seen eating tacos, which increases her skill when playing mahjong.[8] Additionally, food with names similar to tacos, like takoyaki can increase her skill partially as well.[9]
Hisa Takei
Hisa is the head of the mahjong club and the President of the school's Student Congress. Although she does not possess any special ability, her mahjong skills makes up for it. Her main tactic is to hold out until she is waiting for tiles with bad odds, where she feels she has the best chance of winning; Nodoka disapproves of this. She is also skillful at intimidating her opponents into her trap. She is formerly known as Hisa Ueno and once played with Mihoko.
Mako is Hisa's friend, and is also a member of the mahjong club. She grew up near a family owned mahjong parlor, and when she takes her glasses off when playing, she can remember past games she's witnessed to help her win, but has problems with beginner players like Kaori who are hard to read.
episodes
01 "Encounter"
"Deai
Saki Miyanaga is a skilled mahjong player, but she hates the game due to frictional history with her family. Upon entering high school, Saki's friend, Kyōtarō Suga, takes her to their school's mahjong club in need of a fourth player. There, she meets Nodoka Haramura and Yūki Kataoka. Saki only plays a few hands and leaves shortly after the club president, Hisa Takei, wakes up. Hisa notices Saki's scoring at zero three times consecutively, a difficult feat. The next day, Hisa manages to get Saki to come back to play a couple more games with Nodoka, Yūki, and Mako Someya, a second-year member of the club. Saki shows her skill in mahjong by attaining the zero score again in the first game.
02 "Battle"
"Shōbu"
Saki plays the next game with her start score imagined as adjusted to 1000. This mentally enables her to keep her zero score and winning at the same time. When the scores were readjusted to normal, Saki ended up winning the game, therefore disallowing her from keeping the zero score. Nodoka is dejected after losing since because of Saki's negative sentiment towards the game. Despite that sentiment, she won; but Saki tells her that playing with her was fun. Saki thinks about Nodoka's words, and she even tells her father a desire to one day play again with her mother and sister like they used to. The next day, Saki joins the club, saying that she wants to play more and win against Nodoka.
03 "Confrontation"
"Tairitsu
A week has passed since Saki joined the mahjong club, and Nodoka remains distant to her. Nodoka makes various efforts to score zero consistently via online or solitary with exposed tiles, but she could not attain the same consistent zero score like Saki. Hisa and Mako registers the club for the national qualifiers for high school students. Saki wins a game against Nodoka, Kyōtarō, and Yūki. Yūki complains about her inability to win against both Saki and Nodoka. In the next game, Saki reverts to her zero score playing style to let Yūki win, which angers Nodoka. Saki did it so that everyone can have fun, but Nodoka can only have fun when Saki is playing at her best. Saki makes a promise with Nodoka to compete for the nationals, and the two finally become friends.
04 "Beat-down"
"Honrō"
Hisa announces to the club about their participation in the national qualifying tournament, and she hands out the rules. Yūki notes Ryūmonbuchi, who won the tournament the previous year despite being all first-year students. Hisa asks Saki and Nodoka to help out at Mako's family's cafe, with reason of real world skills are also applicable to mahjong skills. Upon arrival, the cafe is shown to be a maid cafe, and so they have to wear embarrassing maid uniforms. Patrons can also play mahjong there, and Saki and Nodoka easily win against two customers. After one leaves, a woman joins them, whose presence intimidates Saki. The woman dominated in five mahjong games; and at the end, Fujita reveals herself as a professional mahjong player. Saki and Nodoka later find out that Hisa is acquainted to Fujita and arranged the whole day for them to experience real defeat and stimulate motivation to improve. Then Hisa informs the two about a training camp to improve their skills.
05 "Training Camp"
"Gasshuku" (
The mahjong club goes to a mountain retreat for mahjong training camp. The first day is used for leisure. The next day, Hisa assigns the first years (excluding Kyōtarō) special tasks. Saki plays mahjong online but struggles to win. The online player Nodoka trains with the others to work more with actual tiles. Yūki struggles with score tracking and does math drills. Eventually, everyone plays each other. After a few rounds, Yūki vents about losing so much against Nodoka, Saki and Hisa. For support, the club president recounts her first-year. Then, she was the only member of the club but remained patient. She expresses gratification for the new members. Yūki continues to play, and manages a win. The next day, Yūki, Nodoka and Saki go to see the nearby waterfall.
06 "The Tournament Begins"
"Kaimaku"
After arriving at the tournament area, Saki gets separated from her friends; and Nodoka is hounded by reporters being the current national junior high school champion. After Saki rejoins the group, Hisa explains the order of the players: Yūki, Mako, herself, Nodoka, and Saki. Competition begins with Kiyosumi initially underestimated, Yūki wins many hands and dominates. Afterwards, Mako and Hisa also make quick work of their opponents, ending with a commanding lead. For Nodoka's round, she reels in the attention of more people to watch her match.
07 "Tradition"
"Dentō"
Nodoka walks into her match holding her penguin stuffed animal which causes a stir among the observers and her own opponents. Nodoka plays extremely well, and of the competitors from Ryūmonbuchi, Tōka, notices her similarities to a famous skilled online mahjong player known as Nodocchi. She tries telling this to her teammates, but they still do not think it can be true. Saki makes short work of her round by taking the remaining points from one of the players, and the team progresses on to the semi-finals round. In the semi-finals, Saki's team makes it through to the finals, along with Ryūmonbuchi, Kazekoshi, and Tsuruga Academy. One of the members from Kazekoshi, Kana Ikeda, gets harsh treatment from their coach for not playing up to her expectations, despite the fact they made it to the finals. The captain of the the team, Mihoko Fukuji protects Kana, and after the coach leaves, the captain encourages her teammates in showing everyone that their school is the best.
08 "The Night Before"
"Zen'ya"
The Kazekoshi team takes the train back to town since they do not have enough money to stay in a hotel near the tournament. Hisa tells Mako how she was the reason why Hisa held on to the hope that more girls would join the mahjong club the next year so that they could go to the prefectural tournament together. Nodoka recounts to Saki how she used to play mahjong only on the Internet due to lack of players, but after entering junior-high school met Yūki and others, leading them to enter into the junior-high tournament, though only Nodoka advanced. The girls from Kazekoshi talk about how their captain, Mihoko Fukuji, does most of the work for the club, and since it is her last year, they want to play as hard as they can so they can go to the national tournament. Tōka dispatches a butler to bring Koromo Amae to the tournament, who had been sleeping all day.
09 "Eyes Open"
"Kaigan"
The final's first round starts when Ryūmonbuchi representative Jun Inoue accidentally eats Yūki's only taco. The latter cries and causes a commotion, but Mihoko shares her lunch box with her. As the game progresses, Jun starts to win many hands and pressures Yūki who is gradually losing her confidence. Mihoko opens her right eye and uses her power to read the game's flow in order to help Yūki gain her points back from Jun. Jun gets irritated over the two teaming up against her while Yūki thinks Mihoko is her ally. However, Mihoko surprises everyone with her continuous winning, and both Jun and Yūki finally realizes that she is the true enemy. The first round ends with Mihoko completely dominating the game points for the Kazekoshi team.
10 "Beginner"
"Shoshinsha
Hisa recommends Saki and Nodoka take a nap before their matches, and while Nodoka initially declines, she decides to go so that Yūki does not have to cry in front of her and Saki following her match. Mako's turn comes up, and Hisa explains that she takes off her glasses in order to remember past matches she had witnessed. However, since one of her opponents is a beginner, this power soon becomes useless. To everyone's surprise, the beginner wins with some lucky moves and Mako ends up in last place. Koromo arrives and gets teased by Fujita. Some students attempt to steal Nodoka's penguin, but are spotted and drop it, and Koromo decides to return it. Mihoko notices the presence of Hisa, who mysteriously disappeared in the middle of a previous tournament, and she starts to fear for her companion.
11 "Prank"
"Itazura"
The third round starts and Hisa puts to work her strategy of sticking to the bad waits in order to get the big scores, knocking off Kazekoshi's lead. Hajime Kunihiro helps gain a slight comeback while avoiding her slight-of-hand habit. Meanwhile, Nodoka wakes to find that her penguin is missing and leaves Saki to go look for it. The two students who originally stole it encounter Koromo carrying the penguin back. As they argue over who should return it, the wing rips off, and Koromo is left worrying what to do. Mihoko decides to rush to the main hall during the break to inform her companion about Hisa's tactics, and encounters Hisa face to face.
12 "Awakening"
"Mezame"
Mihoko arrives to pass along the information to her companion, and Hisa barely recognizes her. Koromo takes the torn penguin to her butler, who fixes it, and she returns it to Nodoka. While Nodoka expresses her gratitude, she leaves quickly and is unable to hear Koromo's name. Hajime is explained to have been forcibly invited by Tōka to attend Ryūmonbuchi so as to enter the mahjong club. On top of this, Tōka hires Hajime as her personal maid, and makes her play Koromo with the condition that if she wins, she will be set free. The second half of the third round ends with the scores very close to each other, and Saki wakes up just in time to wish Nodoka good luck in her match.
13 "Light Fever"
"Binetsu"
The fourth round begins off slow with Nodoka winning a small hand, and as play continues, the players continuously keep on getting draws. Eventually, Nodoka is able to get more into the game, and ups her skills like when she is playing online. By the time of the last hand of the first half of the round, only Nodoka has won any hands and has pulled ahead of the other three. Tōka has become increasingly irritated at this, but gets fired up against Nodoka whom she has played before online. Meanwhile, Koromo recounts how because she is so strong, her opponents look at her like it is the end of the world, and she is left alone afterwards because of it.
14 "Existence"
"Sonzai"
Tōka makes a slight comeback, ruining Nodoka's perfect run, but then falls into a play laid by Tsuruga's Momoko Tōyoko, whose presence is so small her calls for riichi cannot be heard by her opponents. She had trouble being noticed and had abandoned all communication until she was found by her school's mahjong club leader, Yumi Kajiki. This caused Momoko to take notice in Yumi, and she changed her mind about communicating with others, though Momoko still feels that at the very least she only needs Yumi by her side. Tōka again plays into Momoko's hand, shocking herself and those watching the match.
15 "Demon"
"Mamono"
Momoko's abilities fall short against Nodoka, whose training matches her real life playing to her online play style, therefore not taking notice of Momoko's lack of presence. The round ends with Kiyosumi retaining the lead. The final round starts with Saki, Kana, Yumi and Koromo, though initially Saki cannot connect the fearsome aura she felt with the petite looking Koromo. As the game kicks off, people start to notice Saki's powerful presence, making two rinshan kaihō moves in a row. However, she is thrown off by Yumi's play, who manages to play a chankan. Yumi admits that the play was mostly luck, but it will not hurt to inject some fear into Saki.
16 "Conspiracy"
"Kettaku"
As the round continues, Saki finally recognizes Koromo's aura. She starts putting pressure on her opponents by reducing their tenpai probabilities and playing two haitei raoyue moves in a row. However, this is broken up when Yumi allows Saki to win with a her discard. Yumi then follows this up by getting some points from Kana. However, Koromo starts to make a comeback using different plays. Kana starts to feel the pressure, having been on the receiving end for most of the round. The round ends with Koromo in the lead and everyone fearing her abilities.
17 "Nightmare"
"Akumu"
During the break, Mihoko goes to comfort Kana, and Nodoka catches up with Saki to reaffirm their promise and rebuild her confidence. Fujita warns Koromo to play mahjong properly. The second half starts and Koromo gets another haitei raoyue. Following this, she purposely plays a lower scoring hand to bring Kana's score to zero points, hoping to crush their spirits, since neither Saki nor Yumi can take points from Kana without prematurely ending the game with Koromo's win. With Saki's help, however, Kana manages to get out of the danger zone, and Koromo becomes furious. She has difficulty believing that Saki would perform such a daring move deliberately.
18 "Link"
"Tsunagari
Remembering the pact she had made with Mihoko, Kana gets a burst of confidence and regains a lot of points. Yumi also gets a good play, and Koromo, having paid all her attention to Saki, gets a little agitated. Saki takes off her shoes and socks, remembering the times she played mahjong at home and at the training camp. She starts making several low-point plays, bewildering her opponents and watchers. However, she then makes a big play, which Koromo was unable to pick up. When Koromo inquires to Saki about whether she can win, Saki says she hopes to be back in a happy family, a word that shakes Koromo up.
19 "Friends"
"Tomodachi"
Koromo recalls that when her parents died, no matter how many times Touka brought her friends, she still always felt lonely, believing her only worth is in mahjong. Koromo's powers cause a brief blackout, but Saki remains calm throughout the ordeal. Koromo gets another haitei raoyue once the game resumes, leaving one more hand left. Koromo is a bit shocked when Saki says she is having fun playing against her. After Koromo slightly hesitates, she discards the title she just drew. Saki eventually wins the tournament with a kazoe-yakuman against Koromo, thus earning Kiyosumi their place in the nationals. Koromo is happy to know that someone enjoyed playing mahjong against her and all the other teams that lost get ready for the individual tournaments.
20 "Sisters"
"Shimai"
As a reward for winning the tournament, and to train for the individuals, Hisa takes everyone to a pool, where Saki admits she cannot swim. They run into the Ryūmonbuchi group, who actually own the pool, and Koromo makes friends with Nodoka. Tōka reminds Koromo that when she went to Tokyo with her group, and went to a family restaurant, that reminded her of her parents. Meanwhile, Kazekoshi and Tsuruga make their plans for training for the individuals. Saki's sister, Teru, progresses to the nationals, though when asked about Saki, denies her existence.
21 "Looking Back"
"Tsuisō"
The first day of the individuals tournament begins. Tōka faces off against Tsuruga's Kaori and is beaten by her beginner's luck. Another Tsuruga girl informs her team mates of an opponent who was strong during south winds. Despite pressure from being the team champions, Kiyosumi manage to get through, though Kyōtarō, who had been participating in the boys tournament, is knocked out. In the second half, Mihoko ends up facing against Hisa, who still does not remember her. With Hisa ahead, Mihoko decides to use her right eye to win the game. Hisa finally remembers who she is and Mihoko gets her long awaited conversation. The first day ends with all of Kiyosumi's players progressing. Yūki, who had a winning streak all day, psyches herself up for the next day.
22 "Promise"
"Yakusoku"
It is the second day of the individuals, and Yūki is shocked to find the day will consist of east-south round games. Yūki gets off to a good start in her first match, but when the south wind approaches, Kazue Nanpo from Hirataki High School shows off her field advantage and wins the game. During the midway point, Nodoka is shocked to find Saki has gone back to her habit of scoring plus minus zero, and goes to confront her about it. Saki had been holding back since it was Hisa's only chance at the individuals, but Nodoka reminds her that their promise included not holding back. Saki ends up in a match against Hisa, as well as Momoko and Tomoki. Hisa immediately concocts a strategy to seal off Saki's rinshan kaihō strategy, which eventually convinces the others to gang up on her. Later on though, Momoko decides to implement her stealth tactic in order to win.
23 "Determination"
"Honki" (
Momoko continues to put the pressure on Tomoki and Hisa keeps racking up strong plays, while Saki is still unable to use her usual strategy. Saki remembers her training using online gaming, and uses what she learned to pick out Momoko's tiles, finally allowing her to play a rinshan kaihō to win the match. In the final round, Hisa goes against Mihoko, Tōka and Yumi, Nodoka goes against Kana, Jun and Hajime, Yūki goes against Mako, Tomoki and Momoko, and Saki goes against Kazue, Kanbara and Yoshitome. As everyone battles their hardest, Yoshitome does well to block off Saki in the east wind round, but soon the south wind round comes and Kazue starts to make her move. However, Saki retains her smile and pulls out more rinshan kaihō moves to win her match, placing third and qualifying for the nationals. Nodoka wins her match and qualifies in second and although Hisa wins her match, Mihoko is overall first place.
24 "Summer Festival"
"Natsumatsuri"
Kyōtarō tells Saki about an upcoming summer festival and she invites the rest of the club to go too. Hisa sends out invitations to the other schools to join them for Kiyosumi's training camp for the nationals. Yūki ends up flunking her math midterm and has to take a makeup test, failure of which means she will not be able to attend the camp, so Saki and Nodoka decide to help her study. Hisa prohibits them from using the club room and they end up having trouble finding other places to study. Ryūmonbuchi and Tsuruga send their responses for the camp, while Mihoko delivers hers to Hisa personally. After Yūki's makeup test, the club members go to the festival, and Hisa watches from afar with Mihoko. Yūki passes her makeup test and all the schools go to the training camp.
25 "Nationals"
"Zenkoku" (
All the schools gather for the training camp where Yumi gives Hisa some data on the other opponents in the nationals. Later on, everyone takes an interest in ping pong while Mako and some others fail to get revenge on Kaori's beginner's luck. The next morning, some of the girls go in the onsen to discuss the powerhouses of the nationals, including Saki's sister, Teru. Saki is a bit shocked to hear that Teru had denied having a sister, so Nodoka decides to take her to a shrine to cheer her up. Afterwards, they exchange souvenirs and decide to call each other by their given names. After they get back, the training starts, with Hisa also having invited Fujita to join them. Kiyosumi prepare themselves for the nationals.
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