Oh yeah, I was so pumped for this episode to air and it totally delivered. Edge of your seat comeback victory with my love, my anger, and all of my sorrow! Plus Saki uses her Nanoha friend beam on Koromo and the last scenes are full of yuri blushing and hand holding. This show is glorious.
Scary!
Cute, but definitely not going to happen.
Sorry, not happening for you either.
Kinky
Friend flag initiated. Saki has let loose with a full blast Nanoha lesbian friend beam. I always find it amusing when bitter enemies become best friends in anime and manga. It’s rather unrealstic and childish at times, but I at least find it somewhat more feasible in sports/competition stories rather than in battle shows where they were trying to kill one another.
The first kan draw.
This is the first time I can recall a really detailed shot of the glasses girl’s face. She’s pretty cute.
Second kan draw, getting serious up in here!
The music and sound effects for the winning scene in this episode were so over-the-top awesome. It really helped hold you to the edge of your seat as well as sell the over-dramatic nature of their version of a table-top game you play with tiles. I admit it’s no NFL Films video, but it was certainly exciting.
Third kan draw and reactionface.jpg
I actually found this smiling Saki in space sequence to be really creepy.
Dominated
T_T
It was predictable that Saki was going to win, else the manga would end, but nonetheless I found it really exciting to watch. I covered many of the reasons why I love this show in my previous post on Saki, but this episode was definitely the best in the series so far. I love tournaments, and this was quite an epic finish whose atmosphere allowed you to get absorbed into it and forget about the silliness of four haitei raoyue or multiple chan-kans and rinshan kaihous.
Awww, they are all friends in the end, too bad Kana got slaughtered and has little chance of beating them in another context. I do feel kind of bad for her, trying to play against two godhax level players at the top of their game. Just wasn’t gonna happen for the catgirl.
OTP, right? It’s no coincidence that the primary “pairing” in Saki consumes a large part of mine and others Saki image collections. Of course mine is also littered with a healthy dosing of just Nodoka, being a boob man myself.
They all look pretty happy for just getting their hearts ripped out by a last second comeback~
The captain has quite a harem over at Kazekoshi.
Blushing hand holding and a quasi-confession! It’s getting hot up in here.
One last “wahaha” for the road.
Oh man what a glorious victory, but it’s not the end. A lot of people have been wondering what Gonzo is going to do about the last few episodes, since they finished the big tournament after 19 episodes. The manga is currently at chapter 52, which takes place in the middle of episode 19. However, they could have consulted the author as to what roughly was going to happen afterward.
Next week is a Kiyosumi swimsuit episode? Delicious. And they have 5 more episodes after the swimsuit one to do the individual prefectural tournament (which is what they magazine previews have indicated they will be doing). Whether that means 4 episodes of tournament and 1 episode of nationals prep, or all 5 episodes of tournament who knows. The individual tournament is a golden opportunity to mix and match awesomesauce match ups like Kyapten vs. Hisa and watching people quake in fear against Saki and Koromo. They might even let someone aside from Saki win the tournament, then she can come to the nationals and provide friend power support for the team tournament. Consider if Saki is about to go face her sister in the finals and she gets a pump-up from Koromo. Awesome stuff right there.
Thankfully they will not attempt to cram some sort of Gonzo made-up nationals and can leave that up for a hopeful second season in a couple of years when the manga has progressed. I see no reason why they won’t make a second season, the show is insanely popular right now. Just look at how the early rounds of this year’s Saimoe are turning into Sakimoe.
9 Comments
Saki was simply and plainly awesome.
I also found that smile of hers when she won a little unsettling. It looked more like a face a murderous albeit innocent-looking character from a horror movie would make than from a character who’s winning in a mahjong-yuri anime.
I think one of the reasons the other teams took defeat gracefully was because Saki’s final win was so overwhelming that it was obvious she was the best player there. It’s not like she just snuck in with a cheap win, or something.
I liked Touka’s reaction when she suddenly realized the consequences of Saki’s making her first kan using Koromo’s discard.
You can’t really feel bad about losing to a titan.
But yeah, Saki’s big grin at the end was very unsettling. Demonic, almost.
What a show, what a show. Brilliant Saki, brilliant.
I was absolutely excited about this episode too! I mean watch Saki stir up turbulence in the air just by drawing a tile 50 cm away! Excellent stuff. Even better was the “OH SH*T!” faces everyone makes.
Oh how I wish I can do those overexaggerated moves Saki does. I don’t care if I would never win in mahjong again if I can have shining eyes or flaming hands when I slam down my tile.
I also found the music where the competitors are just building up their hands to be inappropriate, I mean everyone is just silently concentrating on a peaceful mahjong game and you have this battle music going on the background.
Absolutely agree with your post. An awesome delivering of an episode.
The effects really make this anime. It’s a point of curiosity for me how much I can be entertained by game-related anime even if I don’t know how the game works.
Considering how much they dragged the prefectural tournament, I’m looking forward to seeing how they will deliver the nationals in the episode count given. Possibly cliff-hang us for S2?
I think the rest of this series is going to be the individual competition for the regionals. The series ends with everyone selected to go to the nationals.
At least at the team level, this regional competition may be the worst that Kiyosumi will face. They just played and defeated the champion for the previous year, and the champion for the year before that. This region has been the national champion again and again, so winning it is likely the toughest challenge they’ll face.
I know squat about mahjong, but damn if I am not enjoying this show. Too many adorable characters and over the top sequences for me to even try and not like it.
On the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field…
Steven Den Beste> when they talk about champions they mean only prefectural level, not national. According to mangaka Ryuumonbuchi was destroyed by Kagoshima (Jindai’s school) in last year nationals.
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