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Felyndiira · 2012-11-17, 00:08

Spoiler:

I really like this chapter. It further shows how Senriyama is actually a strong team when they're not just playing a defensive game to protect Toki's earnings; so far, only Izumi has proven to actually be relatively poor-performing. Both Sera and FunaQ demonstrated exactly why Senriyama is a seeded team.

FunaQ was my favorite this chapter. For some reason, I like players that actually use skill in their game rather than relying on hax magic mahjong 100% of the time, and FunaQ did something that made me squee inside: she took her skill and data mahjong, analyzed the crap out of a hax ability user, and proceeded to ron a total of 23000 points out of her in a bunch of epic "screw your ability, I'm better" moves. I would definitely like to see more examples of hard work and skill > hax mahjong in the future. Hiroe for #1 XD.

Mairu was also really awesome. She was another player that mostly used her own skills to win, and although it's a bit disappointing that most of her wins have been from Tsumo rather than clever play, catching Matano's hook was a move of badassery. Arata's story was also awesome; we got to see that her ability is kinda like Yuu's - potent, difficult to form a strategy around, and very difficult to defend against. Ultimately, we have proof that Achiga's team isn't really weak at all - they just need to get Kuro up-to-speed.

Also, something that I completely missed the first read-through: Arata's "shining Tsumo" was on the eight of circles (her wait is on the seven or eight), which is not in either the Greek Church or the washout. Either this means that there are other formations that she can draw from, or that she's actually breaking away from the constraints of her ability. Also, her suji wait heavily implies that Arata has also seen through Matano's weakness; it's a single wait and doesn't make sense for any bowling formation, so the only way that it makes sense at all is for her to purposely make her wait a non-circle suji and just plain wait for Matano to back out, misread her ability, and discard right into her wait. This makes Arata a lot more awesome than I had first thought the first time I read through this chapter.

Poor Matano. getting outplayed by everyone on the table. Isn't it sad?

----

As for speculation on Shizu's playing style, we only see one concrete example of her play style at the end of the Senriyama-dominated match. Dealing into a haneman aside (given the performance of the Saki national-level strategists, perhaps that indicates that Shizu is not skilled at reading discards?), Shizu was able to modify her (large point value!) hands a total of three times in a match, starting from a very poor hand. This could possibly indicate that Shizu:

Plays extremely quickly, and forms large hands with very little wait. This is evidenced by her forming, from a poor starting hand, a Haneman, a Yakuman, and a seven pairs hand (in order) in rapid succession.
Can change and adapt to the situation at will, often thinking outside the box. This is basically her "determination."
Is relatively lucky, playing on the conclusions from the first bullet point.

A lot of this indicates that Shizu could be a very strong player when given more focus and when Achiga is down in points, since building huge hands in a few rounds is pretty powerful even in Saki. If we can count practice matches as evidence (I'm excluding the anime matches where Achiga loses to every strong player in Nagano), we also noted that Shizu is repeatedly crushed by Koromo. Since we know Koromo's abilities, we can infer:

Shizu may not be skilled in changing the flow and/or controlling the board (or if she is, certainly not at a level to counter Koromo/Saki). This may indicate that she will struggle quite a bit against Saki or against the expert board-controlling strategists like Hiroe or Hisa (not that it matters since both play lieutenant).
Shizu may not be able to deal with monster-class advanced abilities. It is assumed that Awai possesses such an ability based on commentary (although the manga might surprise me by making Awai turn out to be a super-strategist).
Shizu may not be able to counter magic mahjong very well. Of course, this is Koromo we're talking about, so this is a really weak assumption that probably does not bear fruit.

From this, I've made a few educated guesses:

Shizu is the type of player that is extremely lucky and gets rapid large hands.
Shizu may be less adept at finer strategic play, which makes her a perfect Saki antagonist: build a bunch of large hands quickly, make everyone else on the table go 'wtf', and get crushed by our hero with her full dominance hax.
In essence, she's a sort of anti-Ako in everything except speed. Less skilled, better luck, superior at building large hands and reforming them when needed.

This is all speculation, of course. We haven't seen enough of Shizu's playing style to really get anything solid on her style.

EDIT: I just realized something. If my assumptions are correct, then Shizu is the stereotypical shonen hero (determination, lots of luck, lots of talent, very little finesse)

EDIT2:

Won't it just be an absolute troll move if the Achiga-hen is actually the story of Achiga trying their best but losing in the semi-finals =p? This is, of course, just a pure guess on my part, but it would be pretty hilarious if it was true.

2012-11-17, 00:08	Link #2328
Felyndiira Member Join Date: Nov 2012	Spoiler: I really like this chapter. It further shows how Senriyama is actually a strong team when they're not just playing a defensive game to protect Toki's earnings; so far, only Izumi has proven to actually be relatively poor-performing. Both Sera and FunaQ demonstrated exactly why Senriyama is a seeded team. FunaQ was my favorite this chapter. For some reason, I like players that actually use skill in their game rather than relying on hax magic mahjong 100% of the time, and FunaQ did something that made me squee inside: she took her skill and data mahjong, analyzed the crap out of a hax ability user, and proceeded to ron a total of 23000 points out of her in a bunch of epic "screw your ability, I'm better" moves. I would definitely like to see more examples of hard work and skill > hax mahjong in the future. Hiroe for #1 XD. Mairu was also really awesome. She was another player that mostly used her own skills to win, and although it's a bit disappointing that most of her wins have been from Tsumo rather than clever play, catching Matano's hook was a move of badassery. Arata's story was also awesome; we got to see that her ability is kinda like Yuu's - potent, difficult to form a strategy around, and very difficult to defend against. Ultimately, we have proof that Achiga's team isn't really weak at all - they just need to get Kuro up-to-speed. Also, something that I completely missed the first read-through: Arata's "shining Tsumo" was on the eight of circles (her wait is on the seven or eight), which is not in either the Greek Church or the washout. Either this means that there are other formations that she can draw from, or that she's actually breaking away from the constraints of her ability. Also, her suji wait heavily implies that Arata has also seen through Matano's weakness; it's a single wait and doesn't make sense for any bowling formation, so the only way that it makes sense at all is for her to purposely make her wait a non-circle suji and just plain wait for Matano to back out, misread her ability, and discard right into her wait. This makes Arata a lot more awesome than I had first thought the first time I read through this chapter. Poor Matano. getting outplayed by everyone on the table. Isn't it sad? ---- As for speculation on Shizu's playing style, we only see one concrete example of her play style at the end of the Senriyama-dominated match. Dealing into a haneman aside (given the performance of the Saki national-level strategists, perhaps that indicates that Shizu is not skilled at reading discards?), Shizu was able to modify her (large point value!) hands a total of three times in a match, starting from a very poor hand. This could possibly indicate that Shizu: Plays extremely quickly, and forms large hands with very little wait. This is evidenced by her forming, from a poor starting hand, a Haneman, a Yakuman, and a seven pairs hand (in order) in rapid succession. Can change and adapt to the situation at will, often thinking outside the box. This is basically her "determination." Is relatively lucky, playing on the conclusions from the first bullet point. A lot of this indicates that Shizu could be a very strong player when given more focus and when Achiga is down in points, since building huge hands in a few rounds is pretty powerful even in Saki. If we can count practice matches as evidence (I'm excluding the anime matches where Achiga loses to every strong player in Nagano), we also noted that Shizu is repeatedly crushed by Koromo. Since we know Koromo's abilities, we can infer: Shizu may not be skilled in changing the flow and/or controlling the board (or if she is, certainly not at a level to counter Koromo/Saki). This may indicate that she will struggle quite a bit against Saki or against the expert board-controlling strategists like Hiroe or Hisa (not that it matters since both play lieutenant). Shizu may not be able to deal with monster-class advanced abilities. It is assumed that Awai possesses such an ability based on commentary (although the manga might surprise me by making Awai turn out to be a super-strategist). Shizu may not be able to counter magic mahjong very well. Of course, this is Koromo we're talking about, so this is a really weak assumption that probably does not bear fruit. From this, I've made a few educated guesses: Shizu is the type of player that is extremely lucky and gets rapid large hands. Shizu may be less adept at finer strategic play, which makes her a perfect Saki antagonist: build a bunch of large hands quickly, make everyone else on the table go 'wtf', and get crushed by our hero with her full dominance hax. In essence, she's a sort of anti-Ako in everything except speed. Less skilled, better luck, superior at building large hands and reforming them when needed. This is all speculation, of course. We haven't seen enough of Shizu's playing style to really get anything solid on her style. EDIT: I just realized something. If my assumptions are correct, then Shizu is the stereotypical shonen hero (determination, lots of luck, lots of talent, very little finesse) EDIT2: Won't it just be an absolute troll move if the Achiga-hen is actually the story of Achiga trying their best but losing in the semi-finals =p? This is, of course, just a pure guess on my part, but it would be pretty hilarious if it was true. Last edited by Felyndiira; 2012-11-17 at 01:49.