Mouse over screens for captions
 
Summary
It’s the start of the individual tournament! After a short pep speech by Hisa, the troops disperse and waste no time in destroying the competition. Yuki made sure to splurge for the extra inventory slots and enters battle with a full arsenal of taco power, which surprisingly scores her the top ranking of the day. Everyone else is pretty much going about their business versus nameless competitors, with the exception of Touka vs the dumb bimbo from Tsuruga – Touka rons a couple times off her, but then loses all that on a beginners-luck yakuman. Anime, where years of high budget disciplined training has nothing on cuteness and luck.

Meanwhile, captain wahaha is getting a report from one of her mates that there’s some weird chick that’s owning everyone. Could it be, the rumored Miyanaga Teru? I don’t understand how Teru can be so recognized as an elite player and so much of an unreported enigma – I mean, some dude in Saki’s class is watching her on his phone during class, for chrissakes. How is the infinitely well-informed Hisa not aware of this?

Somewhere in the guy’s side, Suga gets his ass handed to him by a douchebag, a monk, and a guy that looks like the club pres in Sora no Manimani. Sad.

Matchups are reshuffled later in the day, and Yuki continues her hot streak – one wonders when she will run out of tacos, or if she will bump into a banana-powered mahjong playing robot from the future. Elsewhere, Hisa and Kazekoshi’s captain get matched up and go head to head – both do pretty well against each other, so both will advance to the next round. Hisa finally remembers who the hell this chick who keeps calling her Ueno-san is after she sees the blue eye, which seems to please Kazekoshi’s captain very much. Hm… the start of a more… mature yuri relationship? Sorry Kana, you can be the pet.
 
Preview

Up next on Saki: Teru teru bouzu
 
Thoughts
Just when you thought that the team tournament was the climax of the show… nope, here we go again. I don’t really get the point of this, besides telling teams that they all suck and are carried by one or two good players. It’s clear that those two from Kazekoshi are gonna make it, those two from Tsuruga, probably everyone from Ryuumonbuchi, everyone from Kiyosumi, then a few other standouts, like those hot chicks from Teru’s team. I know they’ll make it because their hot. Ahh this show makes things so predictable.

Saki doesn’t seem to be destroying opponents as much, probably because she’s worrying about her onee-chan. She’ll probably limp by until one of Teru’s teammates gets matched up with Saki, then Saki will have tangible proof (you know, besides countless magazine articles and press coverage) that her sister even exists, so she can stop freaking out and start getting rinshian kaihou on every hand.

Zenzen in the episode 19 comments raises an interesting issue – apparently the anime has caught up to the manga, so technically, everything from hereon out could be entirely up to Gonzo’s discretion. Whether this is a good or bad thing remains to be seen – all I know is that it’s kind of hard to screw up this type of sports/game anime with hot chicks, cuz that’s all it’s about. I’ve been quite impressed to this point with the balance they’ve struck between all the moe-pumping filler and the actual mahjong, and I hope they can continue that balance. Maybe they’ll have Saki come up with some new tricks besides the endless kan kan kan kan kan kan kan kan…

With 22-26 left, that’s still 5 episodes to go, which should be plenty of time to finish the individual tournament and have Saki make out up with her sister. It might be quite some time before we get a season two about the national tournament, though!

On an unrelated note, I preordered a PS3 slim today. Anyone wanna be my friend on PSN? lol

34 Comments

  1. Was it actually confirmed that this show was ending at episode 26? Last I checked, there wasn’t a set number, yet.

    Anyway, yeah, the show outstripped the manga by the time Saki beat Koromo. I’m hoping Gonzo doesn’t manage to fack up a next-to-impossible-to-fack-up show, but we’ll see.

    Go Hisa and Kazekoshi’s captain~ (what the heck is her name?). xD

  2. Do you know how in tennis they have different Cups for single and double matches?

    The same with mahjong

    This single tournament is a different competition alltogether

    As far as I can see, there’s really no point for anyone from Kiyosumi to win this other than to give Saki an extra life should her team is destroyed in the a national team tournament.

    But that would be anti climatic

    It’s more likely they are doing this so someone from Tsuruga, Kazekoshi or Ryumonbuch can tag along to the nationals

    Bolfotha
  3. Jaalin, there is absolutely no point in this.

    They could not close the show at episode 19, so they had to come up with a way to fill the remaining 6-7 episodes. After the individual is done they can close and wait 3-4 years for more manga material to come out before the inevitable second season (inevitable given how successful the anime is at this point).

    Steelman
  4. Great episode as usual. I wonder how many more girls will develop magic eye powers? First Saki with her Millenium eye thingy and now Kazekoshi’s captain (first thing that came to mind was “Byakugan!”) X3

    I’ll be your friend on PSN lol! Not a lot online tough, mostly BlazBlue training.

    PSN: Kuro-puppy

    Kuro-puppy
  5. As stated above, Teru is in the West Tokyo prefecture and Saki is somewhere off in the wilds (I don’t think it has ever been stated which prefecture Saki’s playing in, but obviously, somewhere that is not Tokyo).

    South Wind Power Girl almost has to be matched up with Yuuki and her east wind power.

    For the first day of the individual tournament, all rounds are ONLY east rounds so Yuuki has an advantage. It’s very unlikely she’ll be able to continue it in the second round of the individual where it’ll be a east-south wind round.

    As for Saki, she has no incentive at all to win this tournament.

    Saki series is slated for 25 episodes. There is no Saki episode this coming Sunday due to election coverage in Japan or something.

    kage
  6. These past two eps look like an anime original story so in the meantime the manga can progress (like Naruto and Bleach do all the time).
    Looks like Saki’s gonna make a new friend in that character who is queen of the south… (Lame, so sue me).
    Still makes me wonder who else will be feeling it and is this gonna conclude in the next eps or are we gonna see a repeat of the Team tournament finale (as in 5 eps to wrap this up).
    Hope to see some goood stuff.

    Mike4DOA
  7. There’s no point in making anyone from Kiyosumi hit the top3. Imho the individual tournament is there to keep some of the “side” characters in the show when they go to the nationals. Of course I could be wrong – after all the nationals will probably be just like the qualifiers, first the team tournament and then the individual one, and then we wouldn’t see anyone from Kiyosumi, and that means no Saki in the individual tournament arc.

    Wonder will they use yet again the “nodoka makes saki win or no tits for saki” card.

    Zenzen
  8. >>>Of course I could be wrong – after all the nationals will probably be just like the qualifiers, first the team tournament and then the individual one

    That’s not necessary, they could always be inverting the order of the tournaments

    Proto
  9. @Proto: don’t think it would be a good thing, if the individual/team tournaments would be every second day (so individual on days 1,3,5 etc and team on 2,4,6 etc) then they would lose the impact, if they would be simultaneously, then we would have to follow both tournaments at the same time plus it would be hard to organise them, I mean some players would have to play both games at the same time.

    Zenzen
  10. I meant that they would make the individual tournament first and then the team one (and hence leaving the Kiyosumi impact for the grand finale).l, not that they would be intercalating them or running them simultaneously :p

    Proto
  11. I don’t know. No one from Kiyosumi make the top3???? It is like no prince (Echizen) in the prince of tennis. There are no need to bring the entire supporting casts when Gonzo/Mangaka can add new supporting casts easily in Saki 2. Also Saki sister is currently not the fifth player of that Tokyo team(the blond hair girl is), so they will never fight head-to-head in team tournament.

    Ryo
  12. They can always change the line up as long as they register it in advance, so that’s not really an impediment. Not to mention that Kiyosumi will already get the big spotlight with the team tournament nationals. Let them share it a little. :p

    Proto
  13. What I see is going to happen, is that Yuki is going to get crushed by south wind girl… such a large lead in the first round by a ungodly player is easily a death flag. If Nodaka and Saki do clash, there’s no doubt in my mind that Saki would win, as Nodaka would get pissed if Saki doesn’t own her. My guess is that all other three schools will get top spots, so everyone could go nationals in some way. If not, Saki would take one of the three top spots as Kiyosumi gets owned in the nationals and needs someone to take a trophy home.

    Kontossis
  14. I still don’t think they will make no one from Kiyosumi make the top3. I say Saki will defintely be in top spot(dramatic comeback on last hand). Rarely sport animes make their main character loss(except Cross Game mangaka). They may also make Nodoka make the top3 since she is middle school national champ, fanboys like her thing above penguin, and her interaction with saki. Toga might make to top3 so fanboys can see koromo moe. We will see what happen at the end of next month. Can’t wait for next episode. Wahahaha

    Ryo
  15. If if I’m not mistaken, one of the subbed versions translated pretty much who made it to the next round, and Touka wasn’t one of them. More Hajime action then. 😐

    Anyway, I think Jaalin better start rewatching the past few episodes again, but this time slowly. You missed out the point of Teru being in another region, Tsuruga girl is having a hard time with the girl in the preview there, and Teru isn’t an unreported engigma… she was in the magazine Saki’s dad showed to her and the reason why everyone got to be in the tournament in the first place.

    Dangerism
  16. The first part was the team tournament to go to the nationals, to play as a team.

    The second part is a singles tournament to go to the nationals, to play alone.

    There are people in it that never had enough club members to play as a team so it’s a singles tournament that any one person can join. Just like whoever that mystery person is.

    1 of the 3 that’s going to make it for sure is the blue/red eyed girl with hax. I’m thinking the mystery girl is there to eliminate some the main schools players.

    It’s a though call but I’m not expecting any of Saki’s team to make it. I believe the ninja girl will eliminate Saki.

    If I had to guess the other 2 spots I would say; Ninja girl’s lover by way of letting her win against her and the chained up girl later to be subbed with Koromo at the nationals. xD

    Total predictions, would be crazy if it’s right.

    Dimeric

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