neko's thinkbox

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Well, after one week of getting used to my new environment here at Brighton (delicious uni proxy:80, 6 MByte/s DDLs and a Love Plus-similar situation which I swiftly explained on my twitter), I think it is finally time to start clearing the summer backlog!

Wa. Ha. Ha~

Soooo. Saki has ended.^[1] One question I kept asking myself quite often was, “Why did I watch it in the first place?” (Let’s ignore all of my casual “catching up to” posts for a second.)

After all, this anime featured many of the elements I usually demonize, most of them belonging to fanservice: boobs, the lack thereof, zettai ryouiki, cliché situations, yadayada. I’ve ranted time and again about this lowly ploy of creators and producers alike to lure the ever so stultified lolicon and moefag demographics, and about how much these features are used to obscure a deficient plot, story, character depth/development, and so on. Examples are plentiful (KnJ, QB, etc) – and even if these do indeed contain some meaningful parts, they will always be overshadowed by the huge jiggling globes, and the censoring steam covering this loli’s DFC in the bath.

To a certain extent, this applies to Saki. So, following my theory, if you strip the thick coating of sexual innuendos and suggestive visuals, you would end up with one, two, or no small marbles of quality/interesting content at all.

And usually, this is my reaction to such series.

And usually, this is my reaction to such series.

However, “the fact that I’ve been watching it all along has to mean that I like it!”, right? But then, what was I interested in, if it wasn’t Yuuki/Saki/Hajime/Koromo’s flat chests or the expectation of a Saki x Nodoka/Hisa x Mihoko/<insert random yuri coupling here> tribadism scene in the onsen? Well, obviously, the Mahjong (Ma) element.^[2]
Exciting tactical gameplay, nerve-wrecking suspense, loud and flashy calls, near-impossible hands – anything goes! …At least that’s how it is presented in Saki. Reality, of course, is much different, and relies a lot more on luck than what is portrayed as “skill”.

But as a total neophyte, you easily get blinded, enticed into tasting the same delight of yelling a heartful “TSUMO!” and landing yet another yakuman, while doing embarrassing moves (see Saki and Hisa). It worked brilliantly in the past with Hikaru no Go (albeit in a less liberal manner), and it works brilliantly with Saki today. So with the help of internet, I quickly got acquainted with rules and yakus, and started understanding and even playing Riichi Mahjong, on- and offline. And with this new knowledge, my view on this anime has also changed.

You see, at first I just looked at the heap of stones, went “lolwat” at all the different calls and rules (and the definitions of the yakus that fansubbers graciously provided); in short, I didn’t knew jack at all. Koromo’s Haiteis (or Houteis, I forgot) sounded like the work of a demon, impossible hands that would rob everyone of their points and kill their motivation, and stuff like that. I thought it happened because she is just that skilled, and every time, the bloated action made me believe so. The more you know, of course: now I know that a Haitei Raoyue^[3] only gives you 1 Han, and that apart from making extensive use of stats and probability, hitting that stone is just pure luck. It all depends whether you want to bet on it or not. (Or if you’re in tenpai anyway.) A lot of hands that were shown in this anime were pretty much low-ranked hands that don’t give many points too.

It’s not like understanding Mahjong robs this anime of its interesting point, though. Granted, the hands might not seem that magic and impressive anymore, but they are still of relevance for the gameplay, as even a gomite (trash/valueless hand) can bring you forward and/or stop your opponent from getting their hand together. That, and the whole “reading the discards” stuff is something that I have yet to understand, though. From merely observing to actually analyzing the game, I experienced a great shift of interest.
This is also why the rewatch value of Saki is very high for me now. I want to watch the whole series again, this time to understand the hands/waits/tactics/etc. and see how much (or little) I’ve been blinded by my initial ignorance.

The basics are fairly easy, as shown here.

The basics are fairly easy, as shown here.

(Cont. in part 2, link below the footnotes.)

1. The first season at least. [↩]
2. You won’t find it in the periodic table, though. …Wa-ha-ha~ [↩]
3. Winning off the last tile of the wall [↩]