So yeah, the first season of Saki ended on Monday. And since I’m pretty free, I decided to do a short impressions post and just post a ton of pictures.

Anime Name: Saki
Episodes: 25
Genres: Sports (can Mahjong really be considered a Sport?), Yuri (I labeled Yuri by myself)
Aired: Apr 6, 2009 to Sep 28, 2009
Producer: GONZO

So yeah, I never really liked any Anime labeled under Sports with the rare, rare exception of Bamboo Blade which featured the lovely Tama-chan and Sayako. So yeah, even I myself was shocked when my brain decided to tune in to Saki. I guess the initial appeal of this show were the girls. Saki, Nodoka, Hisa. Mmm.

I still remember the very first scene of the first episode. Saki was beside a lake, reading a book, when suddenly she caught a glimpse of Nodoka. Her actions after this? Wondering why she doesn’t have Nodoka’s gravity defying boobs. Yeah, she did the whole boob grabbing in front of her chest where if in Nodoka’s case, her boobs would be

Alright, first scene and boobs aside, the plot of Saki essentially revolves around Mahjong and….. wait for it….. Nodoka’s boobs. Ok, I’ll stop with the boobs, but I’m not kidding, Nodoka’s boobs really make an entrance in multiple segments including Kyotarou’s dream sequences. The anime of Saki essentially follows the story of how Saki joined Kiyosumi’s Mahjong Club, became friends with Nodoka, and competed in Mahjong Events with her team while meeting new rivals and such. Of course there’s the part about her joining in hopes to meet her sister, but we’ll leave that for Season 2.

The 1st 5 episodes, which I like to call the ‘Before Prefectural Qualifiers-arc’ involves Saki joining the Mahjong Club, Saki getting to know Nodoka and the rest of the club better, Hisa signing the club for the Prefectural Qualifiers and the training camp before the Qualifiers.

Episodes 6-19, which spanned a whopping 15 weeks (14 episodes + 1 week of break), featured the entire Prefectural Qualifiers. This arc had it’s ups and downs for me. Starting with the downs, I personally felt the arc was WAYYYY too long, especially near the end. Yuki and Mako had like 1-episode rounds while Hisa, Nodoka and Saki each had more episodes allocated for their rounds.

Episode 20 till 25, ended the series slowly by showing the characters having a short break, having a training camp on the last episode before going off to the Nationals. Season 2 anyone?

The characters of the show are pretty interesting I guess. Starting with the main cast,

- Saki is essentially your main character and the title of the show. She’s essentially this ‘god-level’ Mahjong player that can Rinshan Kaihou every other time or get +/- 0 in every game she plays.(voiced by Ueda Kana)

- Nodoka is essentially your 2nd main character who is, (to me) , Saki’s main interest for joining the Mahjong club. Oh yes, she and Saki have their yuri moments almost every episode.(voiced by Koshimizu Ami)

- Kyotarou is basically the only guy in the show that prevents this show from becoming 100% Yuri. Oh yes, that’s his main purpose. Gotta love how he daydreams though. A clear example of his daydream would be when he imagines himself being ’serviced’ by Nodoka and recently Mihoko. (voiced by Jun Fukuyama)

- Hisa is the Buucho and a very cool 1 at that. Her random playstyle in Mahjong proved a success. Her coolness just exudes so much. And she’s voiced by one of my favourite seiyuus. :D (voiced by Itou Shizuka)

- Mako is very very forgettable actually. Her cool Mahjong skill of memorizing playstyles is very much overshadowed by Hisa’s random playstyle, Saki’s Rinshan Kaihous and Nodoka’s CPU-like gameplay. To add on, she’s not exactly bishoujo material compared to hot favourites Nodoka, Mihoko  and Momo. (voiced by Shiraishi Ryoko)

- Lastly there’s Yuki. The chibi. Oh yes, every show needs a chibi-character somewhere along the line and Yuki plays that part pretty well. Her achilles heel? Stealing away her tacos. Drains her out. (voiced by Kugimiya Rie)

And the other NOTABLE characers, ( I say notable because there are alot of characters to list and honestly, some of them are too forgettable)

Touka – Ah yes, the high-pitched ojou-sama character. She’s supposedly a very good mahjong player but when she was up against Nodoka, she stood no chance. Personally, her high pitched screeching( oh yes, screeching, not laughing) was really really irritating. (voiced by Chihara Minori)

Koromo – The Koromo cometh. Haha. She’s essentially the Final Boss character for the Prefectural Qualifers and she put up an impressive fight, ‘drowning’ everyone during her round. If only Saki didn’t Super Saiyan it up to cheaply win the victory. (voiced by Fukuhara Kaori)

Kana – Other than the puppy-ears and constant clinging around Mihoko, she’s pretty much a forgotten character as well.  (voiced by Morinaga Rika)

Mihoko – Ah, I would be in Zotaku hell if I didn’t include Mihoko as a notable character. In reality, she’s very much notable. She met Hisa before and has a super admiration/yuri thing going for Hisa. I was dissappointed that she didn’t get a slot in the last 3 rounds of the finals though, cause her Geass-eye analysis would have been very useful against the Mahjong Monsters such as Saki and the like. (voiced by Yui Horie)

Momo – Ah yes. The stealth girl. She can essentially vanish from people’s sight without people knowing and it helps her in Mahjong. Of course, she doesn’t really dissappear but the term used in the show is that her existance level is so low that people don’t even realize she’s there, despite being next to her. She’s a pretty cool character. Oh yes, she has a yuri thing going for her senpai. (voiced by Saito Momoko)

Kajiki – The senpai which Momo has a yuri thing for. Honestly, she’s not really memorable, except for the fact that she got alot of airtime due to her being in the same round as Saki and Koromo. Whats more, she was the first person to perform a counterattack against Saki. (voiced by Kobayashi Yuu)

So yeah, these are the characters and their respective seiyuus. It’s a pretty big and star filled cast. :D Any anime with Shizuka Itou can’t go wrong.

All right, I’ve briefly talked about the plot, talked about the characters. What’s next? Right. The music used in Saki.

The first OP is Glossy:MMM by Miyuki Hashimoto

The second OP is Bloooomin by Little Non who sang the ED for Kodomo no Jikan

Personally I prefer the music from the first OP because the 2nd OP just sounds a little too high for me. However, I like the video in the 2nd OP more than the 1st. Yes. My decision is influenced by the fact that Touka was shown as some super-powered character in the 1st OP only to be so badly pushed around by Nodoka.

And these are the EDs,

ED1: Netsuretsu Kangei Wonderland by all 5 female leads from Kiyosumi

ED3: Shikakui Uchū de Matteru yo , once again by all 5 of the Kiyosumi girls

I was not able to find ED2, sang by Ueda Kana and Koshimizu Ami, anywhere though. But yeah, on the songs. The EDs caught my attention from the start, mainly because of the format the video was presented in. The chibi-girls format. Yes. They did that for …… Koihime Musou as well and I must say seeing chibi girls play Mahjong and play at the beach is pretty fun to watch.

Yeah so okay. I’ve covered the music, the story and the characters. It’s time for the pictures then. I’ve more or less grouped the screencaps according to categories which I’ve made up. First category, ‘GEASS’/Special Movies Category

Ah yes. The famous Mihoko blu-eye, which gives her the ‘power’ to visualize and analyze tiles real well.

She summons blu-bell flames?

Mahjong Shield!

Nodoka’s Super CPU Hax Mode

Saki delivering her 1st Rinshan Kaihou in the competition.

Saki can perform Kido?!

Koromo activates Geass

Koromo: Demon Artes #1. Haitei Raoyue

Koromo: Channeling Natsu

Kaio-Ken X4

Unbelievable Reiatsu

Unbelievable Reiatsu #2

Next Category? Etopen!!

Etopen!!!

Etopen. K.O.

Next Category, Mahou Shoujo!

Her spear’s red ribbon portion. Koromo’s head ribbon?!

Tenshi-sama!!

Uhhhhhh. uhhhhh….. I’ve nothing to say.

Next Category, LOL Moments.

Wow. Kyotarou’s a loli-con?! Even he himself is shocked!

1 Koromo with every Happy Meal!

Koromo-zilla!

Warning: Koromo may bite!

Touka. Flying lessons?!

Mahjong in the sea?!

Exxxx…….

CALIBUR!!!!!!!!

You can’t be that bad at computers can you?!

Apparently you can. -.-

Well, I’ve run out of categories, so I’ll just leave the last few screencaps un-categorized.

Watermelon anyone?

Momo gets shocked that her Stealth is broken by CPU Nodoka aka. T-X

Saki’s been an excellent series to watch. It’s interesting because Mahjong was always boring for me but this show made it interesting. As such, it gets 4/5 from me. I personally can’t wait for the PSP version of the game to be released. I heard SEGA’s working on it or something. Before I end this review, remember how I mentioned something briefly about Season 2 earlier on? Well, if there’s going to be a Season 2, this character will have a big impact.

Hint. Both pictures, they’re the same person.

Hint. Person is close to Saki. :D

Ok. I’ve reached the end of this review. I’ve not done reviews in a long time so yeah I’m rusty. I do apologize for any grammar mistakes, reference mistakes and what not, but hopefully you enjoyed this review. Hmm, what should I do for my next review.

Image Source for 1st Image: Minitokyo