About
Saki tells the story of a girl's mental and emotional growth as she and her fellow teammates battle fearsome rivals, all gunning for the national high school mahjong tournament, and is a cross between sports action and high school drama.
Cast
Kana Ueda
as
Ami Koshimizu
as
Rie Kugimiya
as
Ryoko Shiraishi
as
Shizuka Itoh
as
Episodes
Saki
Meeting
Saki Miyanaga is a skilled mahjong player, but she hates the game since she would be punished by her family whether she won or lost when she played with them. Upon entering high school, Saki's friend, Kyōtarō Suga, takes her to their school's mahjong club so Saki can be a fourth player. There, she meets Nodoka Haramura, a very skilled mahjong player and previous junior high champion, and Yūki Kataoka, an energetic first-year who is skilled in mahjong though has trouble staying focused. Saki only plays a few hands and leaves shortly after the club president and student council president, Hisa Takei, wakes up. Hisa notices Saki managed to keep her score at zero, a difficult feat. Hisa manages to get Saki to come back the next day 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 in the first game.
Contest
Playing under special scoring rules, Saki plays the next game while trying to keep her plus/minus zero score and winning at the same time, but cannot do both with the special rules. However, when the special rules are removed, Saki ended up winning the game, therefore disallowing her from keeping the zero score. Nodoka is dejected after losing since before Saki told her that she hated mahjong and despite that won, but Saki tells her that playing with her was fun. Saki thinks about what Nodoka said, and even tells her father that she wants to one day play again with her mother and sister like they used to before they left to be professional mahjong players. The next day, Saki joins the club, saying that she wants to play more and win against Nodoka.
Confrontation
It has been a week since Saki joined the mahjong club, though Nodoka is still distant to her. Nodoka plays a game by herself with all the tiles exposed and takes notes, but she is still unable to attain a plus/minus zero score like Saki who can do this flawlessly. Hisa and Mako go and sign up their club for the national qualifiers for high school students. Saki wins a game against Nodoka, Kyōtarō, and Yūki, who is depressed that she cannot possibly win when playing against both Saki and Nodoka. In the next game, Saki lets Yūki win, which makes Nodoka angry since while Saki did it so that everyone can have fun, Nodoka can only have fun when Saki is playing at her best. Saki makes a promise with Nodoka to shoot for the nationals, and the two finally become friends.
Beat-down
Hisa announces to the club that they are now signed up for the national qualifying tournament, and she hands out the rules. Yūki sees that one school, Ryūmonbuchi, are extremely skilled and even 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, telling them that learning about the real world is also important to improve their mahjong skills. When they arrive at the cafe, they see that it is actually a maid cafe, and 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 who Saki is intimidated by joins them. The woman completely mops the floor with them, and at the end it is revealed that she is Fujita, a professional mahjong player. Saki and Nodoka later find out that Hisa set the whole thing up so that they could also feel what real defeat is like. Hisa explains that the club is going on a training camp to improve their skills.
Training Camp
The mahjong club goes to a mountain retreat training camp to improve their skills. The first day is spent mainly having fun, and playing some normal games of mahjong. The next day, Hisa gives the first years (excluding Kyōtarō) special tasks. Saki plays mahjong online, but is dejected how easily she loses to others. Nodoka has to gain experience playing others in real life when she is more skilled playing online like she is used to when playing at home. Yūki does math drills in order to improve her ability to keep track of the score when playing mahjong. Afterwards, Yūki becomes depressed how she loses so much against Nodoka, Saki and Hisa, and the club president recounts how when she was a first-year, she was the only member of the club, but she kept with it and now she is grateful there are many new members. Yūki continues to play, and manages a win. The next day, Yūki, Nodoka and Saki go to see the nearby waterfall.
The Tournament Begins
After arriving at the tournament area, Saki gets separated from her friends, and during this time Nodoka gets hounded by reporters due to her having won last year's national junior high school tournament. After Saki makes it back to the others, Hisa explains the order of the players, starting with Yūki, followed by Mako, herself, Nodoka, and finally Saki. While initially underestimated by her opponents, Yūki wins many hands, nearly shutting out the others. Afterwards, Mako and Hisa also make quick work of their opponents, ending with a commanding lead. When it is Nodoka's turn, more people show up to watch her match.
Tradition
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.
Last Night
The Kiyosumi 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.
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