[Felyndiira]

Originally Posted by Von Himmel

I don't know about that... even Yuuki seems like that she got an instant powerup. For me, it just feels that she isn't getting any instant powerup because we know her since the first chapter and all of her matches are shown completely. Because of that we got the gist of her gradual development... but then suddenly she became so strong in preliminary and semi-final because of what? A not-shown training arc with Koromo and the other? In my opinion, Shizu would be the same as her if we know everything about her matches and how her traits in matches were shown. Who's to say that she's not improving on each of her match when we don't even know how she's playing?

First of all, there's the nature of Taco's power-up. Yuuki, like every other Saki character, never developed a new ability out of thin air - her ability was to dominate in the East round, and continues to be to dominate in the east round. On the other hand, the Yuuki in the Nagano qualifications was an atrocious player outside of her ability - she is easily discouraged, often plays into other people's hands unwittingly, and has no semblance of skill whatsoever. The biggest power-up that we saw Yuuki gain in the Nationals was fixing her deficiency in basic mahjong skills to the point where she could hold her own as a player; in other words, an improvement in her skill. Like every other character, Tacos never gained new abilities once in the manga; she only improved her own existing ability, and even then only by being a better player rather than bending reality more.

And there's a significant difference between Yuuki's training camp and the training that Achiga went through. Between the qualifications and Nationals, Hisa organized a full training camp with the four final schools in Nagano specifically to improve the skill level of Kiyosumi. We can assume that they had at least a few weeks to train and work on Yuuki's very visible weaknesses. Achiga, on the other hand, was last seen playing in the quarterfinals; they explicitly only had two days to improve between their match with Senriyama and the one with Shirotodai. We saw, very specifically, that they were beaten down by Yumi, Momo, Mihoko, and Kana in order just before those two days. So, on one side, Yuuki improved herself to a competent level (without developing new abilities!) over the course of weeks of specialized training. On the other side, we may have Shizu actually gain a new ability that was never mentioned before and specifically hinted against - all in the course of two days and just because she played with Kei's asylum a few times.

If you ask me, Yuuki's development was very realistic. Shizu's improvement - if it does ever happen - smells in every way like a eleventh hour superpower to me.

Originally Posted by Von Himmel

She might not have any godlike ability that'll overpower her opponents (or else she wouldn't have a hard time in her previous matches), but I believe that she has some sort of ability that would make her a fearsome opponent. For me, that last match of her was pretty scary considering that she could pull off something like that after getting screwed up by furiten.

tl;dr, in my opinon as long as her abiity isn't something ridiculous like Awai's supernova or Saki death kan then I wouldn't really call it a total ass-pull. I get this feeling that it's not her ability that's troublesome but her traits at not giving up and actually pulled of at the end is what makes her troublesome though. Heck, I don't think that she has any specific ability at all.

But still, just a useful ability isn't enough to make her scary. Right now, she's not up against no-name players; she's up against an entire roster of players that were supposed to be (and very much shown to be) among the cream of the crop in the entire tournament. Unless if her ability powers up the stronger her opponents are or something, any ability that could make her win with impunity against these players should by nature be a few orders of magnitude stronger when used against, say, Kentani - which means that she should have no excuse ending that third-to-last round in the quarterfinals with only a +1700.

Originally Posted by Von Himmel

...and yeah, it's more like deus ex if I think about it.. but shit like that are what makes mahjong scary for me. I got this one person who often turn around the match by getting high score at the end and take the 1st-2nd place because of it. People like that scares me more than someone with occult ability in mahjong.

I agree. I actually like the fourth match in the semi-finals because it showed two players (+Arata for one round) using nothing but skills (and luck) to crush Matano, who's ability would be pretty devastating otherwise. Given that a lot of Saki fans tend to focus on abilities, it really drives home the point that skilled players can defeat ability players if they are skilled enough.

Originally Posted by Von Himmel

On that note.. the newest chapter states that Shizu has figured out something. Maybe she'll find a leeway using strategy by Akado? or maybe something like her previous match will happen again and she'll find a way for her to win by herself?

In any case, let's just see how Shizu will play in the next chapter before complaining whether she'll get a bullshit powerup or not.

I agree that it might be a false alarm. It's just that the manga seems to be going in a pretty negative direction, which makes me a bit worried; I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that it really is just Shizu being a determinator that pulls her through in the end and not a deus ex ability =p.

Still, my biggest annoyance with this chapter is not the potential to deus ex Shizu. I'm mostly ticked that the mangaka decided that Ryuuka's playing style would basically be co-dependent on Toki as well. I mean, yes, I get that they love each other outside of the game and I'm totally fine with it, but at least give her a distinct playing style of her own rather than have all of her wins be attributed to Toki as well.

Originally Posted by Von Himmel

For me it's that this manga has an abundant amount of players who have crazy abilities. It's like every person in the team must have some sort of over-the-top ability. Then again, what interest me more of this spin-off is how the Achigas are trying to cope up with their opponents using their standard ability.

Well, to be fair, three of the Achigas are ability users themselves. Of those, Kuro's skill is actually hampered by her ability, and Arata does seem to depend quite a bit on her ability as well. Ako has been the only concrete skill-based player so far, and her primary opponent just happens to be Sera - who is, really, another skill-based player.

The manga subverts its own crazy abilities often enough as well. Hiroe is one of the top players in the inter-high, after all, and the only ability that she seems to have is the standard luck that everyone else in the series ends up with (plus maybe a defense that's probably a bit too good to be true).

Originally Posted by Von Himmel

Oh and it's not like the current third year would be weak last year. They just got a passive abiity that would make them easier to reach tenpai compared to their previous year... it's a good power up but it doesn't mean that they're terrible during their previous year when fighting against a third year. They might have a hard time than it used to, but I believe that their natural ability would work it out and might still be able to come up at the top. After all, being in tenpai wouldn't mean nothing if you're not getting any score.

The thing I don't like about the theory is that it is not only not mentioned, but also not even suggested (through play or otherwise) by the main manga. Sera's monologue suggested that it was enough to push her far behind players that were supposed to be weaker than she is - and yet, some of the most prominent players in the inter-high individuals were first or second years in the previous year (5/6 of the top six in the individuals, for one - Teru, Kei, Satoha, Hiroe, and Mukuru). We also regularly see second year players like Mako or Kinue perform well against third-year opponents, and third year opponents who could not complete their hands in any sort of comparable speed.

In fact, Senriyama players aside, there was no evidence of this 'third year hand completion rate' whatsoever in the Saki universe. Even the Achiga universe did not have evidence of this until the Semifinals (it definitely didn't help Koshigaya or Kentani in the slightest).