Genres: Comedy, Drama

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Saki focuses on the high school life of its namesake, Saki Miyanaga.  She meets up with her friend, Kyotaro Suga, who abuses her friendship to get him a “ladies only” special from the cafeteria.  He also happens to be a member of the school mahjong club/team.  After some light pestering, he convinces her to meet up with them.  Saki has never been a fan of mahjong as her family usually quarreled about her playing to poorly or to well (we later find that her family is divided and that her mother left with “the other” members, leaving her and her father together).

Upon reaching the club Saki comes face to face with a girl she took note of during the opening of the series, Nodoka Haramura.  Nodoka is a naturally talented player who was a champion at her junior high.  Another member of the club is Yuki Kataoka, the youngest and most scatterbrained of the lot.  Her hyperactivity and attention span of a gnat make her an occasional annoyance to the others.  They play three games, and Saki leaves.  The club’s president, Hisa Takei, takes not that Saki’s score for every game was exactly 0.  Not a good score by any means score, doing this three times in a row is nigh unheard of.

This score perplexes the club president, and she convinces Saki to return for two more games.  On the first, Saki again attains a 0 score.  On the second, the club president convinces her that she needs to play to win, so she tells her to play as if she only started with 1000 points, rather than the original 20000.  If Saki can maintain her mindset of scoring 0, under the revised system she would actually win (as the club president said to play AS IF the had 1000, not that she actually had 1000).

Saki and Nodoka develop a rift as Nodoka loves mahjong, but was beaten by Saki, who really hated it.  The final scenes of the second episode touch on Saki’s mother and sister probably not coming back, and that Saki will join the mahjong club to play more with Nodoka (as she actually has fun playing with her).  It’s to be noted that the games played in this series are VERY animated, with mock visual effects added to moves… a bit over the top, but fun.

Overall Hook Rating: B

Tags: anime, comedy, drama