(L) Saki manga

[Flower]

Originally Posted by mhazaru

I could see a lot of problems cropping up this round, like Kiyosumi just barely getting 2nd or something. They've gotten the top spot every round so far, right? I think they need a little bit of a beating this round in order to make the final more dramatic.

I have been thinking this would be precisely what will happen. And in the process Saki will be very shaken up by something, not just barely scraping by, but I have a feeling something will happen to hit her emotional / psychological weak spot, and perhaps in the process shed a little more light on her broken family dynamics and what happened.

Who knows? Maybe she had more culpability in helping to bring it about than she is able to face? Whatever the particulars it will be a huge hurdle for her, I think.

All speculation at the moment, of course. ^^

[juventus95]

Originally Posted by teja208

That's no SH*T. It's one hell of an epic match worthy of someone of Hisa's caliber. Everybody on the table is really using their heads in the fight this time.

Btw, your image link is broken, but I can imagine...

Spoiler for Newest chapter:

... Yuan's likely making an evil smug face when Hisa finally caught on what's she's up to.

Hisa T_T She gets caught up in a wrong thing again. But I like that it shows not everyone is nice and dandy like Toki or Subara.

If Hisa can't turn things around, Nodoka or Saki has to work harder. Now even if Saki doesn't feel like she can't win against Kyoko next time they meet, she's forced to win.

[Requiem-x]

Full raws are up, and my oh my.

Spoiler for Spoiler:

As expcted, Hisa already caught up with Yuan's ruse, and according to her, Yuan seems to have "misread" her (Could be wrong, translations are iffy as of now) Hiroe also caught up, and despite her rude thoughts, she acknowledges Hisa is in much better shape this time around.

And then comes the good stuff: turns out Choe is already going for a full front attack and was preparing a big hand, but Hisa blocked her (messing with the tile order to win small and preventing her from winning big) in such a way that even Risa pro was impressed. Of course, it was also flashy as hell.

We're well within worst case scenario still, but good ol' buchou won't go down without a fight.

[Serperior]

Damn! It seems that RM also knew of Yuan's plan before Hisa sensed it and dealt into Yuan's hand instead!

Spoiler:

It was actually to stop Choe's rapidly increasing hand

Still, Yuan keeps on trying to target Hisa but her skills is just too low that she ended up being targetted instead/ Cause of that, she's below 25000 and is really in danger of busting out. (Choe's hand is becoming more and more expensive and that her hand was forming a sanbaiman, a 24000 hand.)

[teja208]

Originally Posted by Serperior

Damn! It seems that RM also knew of Yuan's plan before Hisa sensed it and dealt into Yuan's hand instead!

Spoiler:

It was actually to stop Choe's rapidly increasing hand

Still, Yuan keeps on trying to target Hisa but her skills is just too low that she ended up being targetted instead/ Cause of that, she's below 25000 and is really in danger of busting out. (Choe's hand is becoming more and more expensive and that her hand was forming a sanbaiman, a 24000 hand.)

Spoiler for Question:

RM is in currently second place right? I don't understand why she tries to stop Choe now? If anything she could let Choe burst Yuan and both Rinkai and Himematsu advances.

[Peanutbutter]

This 3rd round is shaping to be a good match, and potentially a classic one on its own.

Looks like all those breaks in between gave Ritz some good ideas to run this match.

[Subayai]

Good chapter. The situation has become even more critical for Kiyosumi.

However, am I missing something or there are some important mistakes here?

Spoiler for :

Choe is sitting in front of Hiroe but then in one panel we can see her at Hiroe's left. Hiroe calls chi on her but that shouldn't be possible if they were in front of each other. Hiroe should be calling chi on Yuan but her comment "Speeding up a little?" is clearly directed at Choe. Moreover, Hiroe's chi is 5, 6 and 7 of bamboo. Choe has none of those tiles and the tile she actually discards is the 6 of circles.

It is difficult to understand what Ritz was trying to do here. Is Hiroe calling chi on Yuan while at the same time talking to Choe? Or is Hiroe calling (what? a pon of... something?) on Choe?

A bit later, Hisa says she has 3 dora but her hand only shows two (two 7 of bamboo). Then we see her discarding the red 5 of circles but the 5 of circles she had was not red. The red one was actually in Hiroe's hand. In this case at least we can simply assume that Hisa and not Hiroe had the red five all the time.

[raincrow]

Originally Posted by teja208

Spoiler for Question:

RM is in currently second place right? I don't understand why she tries to stop Choe now? If anything she could let Choe burst Yuan and both Rinkai and Himematsu advances.

Spoiler for Hiroe:

Only thing I can think of is that maybe Hiroe would rather face Kiyosumi in the final than Rinkai again, if she feels they're the bigger threat.

[juventus95]

Originally Posted by teja208

Spoiler for Question:

RM is in currently second place right? I don't understand why she tries to stop Choe now? If anything she could let Choe burst Yuan and both Rinkai and Himematsu advances.

Spoiler:

My guess is that Rinkai is a tough opponent, and in final, Himematsu will also face Teru of Shiraitodai. They probably don't want Rinkai to advance to make their fight harder.

[fukarming]

Originally Posted by teja208

Spoiler for Question:

RM is in currently second place right? I don't understand why she tries to stop Choe now? If anything she could let Choe burst Yuan and both Rinkai and Himematsu advances.

I

Spoiler for strategy:

n real Mahjong you can't really pinpoint the exact tiles the person want (Saki and Koromo are not real) and there are only so many absolute safe tiles. If Hiroe get ronned by Choe with that large hand Himematsu's lead over Kiyosumi will vanish. It is logical to try for a quick hand and ron rather than hope that Uzuzan/Kiyosumi will dealt into Choe's hand.

Originally Posted by Subayai

Good chapter. The situation has become even more critical for Kiyosumi.

However, am I missing something or there are some important mistakes here?

Spoiler for :

Choe is sitting in front of Hiroe but then in one panel we can see her at Hiroe's left. Hiroe calls chi on her but that shouldn't be possible if they were in front of each other. Hiroe should be calling chi on Yuan but her comment "Speeding up a little?" is clearly directed at Choe. Moreover, Hiroe's chi is 5, 6 and 7 of bamboo. Choe has none of those tiles and the tile she actually discards is the 6 of circles.

It is difficult to understand what Ritz was trying to do here. Is Hiroe calling chi on Yuan while at the same time talking to Choe? Or is Hiroe calling (what? a pon of... something?) on Choe?

Spoiler for Choe and Hiroe:

It is a mistake. Choe is across Hiroe in the previous panel then all of a sudden Choe is above Hiroe. The key point is Hiroe chi to speed up. Her inner monologue is directed to Choe.

Spoiler for Uzuzan's unsuccessful strategy:

Since Uzuzan is at the danger of getting below 0, she hopes Hisa will dealt into her voluntarily to gift her the points (similar to what Saki did to Kana). Obviously Hisa don't buy it and want to ron herself

[Peanutbutter]

Originally Posted by Subayai

Good chapter. The situation has become even more critical for Kiyosumi.

However, am I missing something or there are some important mistakes here?

Spoiler for :

Choe is sitting in front of Hiroe but then in one panel we can see her at Hiroe's left. Hiroe calls chi on her but that shouldn't be possible if they were in front of each other. Hiroe should be calling chi on Yuan but her comment "Speeding up a little?" is clearly directed at Choe. Moreover, Hiroe's chi is 5, 6 and 7 of bamboo. Choe has none of those tiles and the tile she actually discards is the 6 of circles.

It is difficult to understand what Ritz was trying to do here. Is Hiroe calling chi on Yuan while at the same time talking to Choe? Or is Hiroe calling (what? a pon of... something?) on Choe?

A bit later, Hisa says she has 3 dora but her hand only shows two (two 7 of bamboo). Then we see her discarding the red 5 of circles but the 5 of circles she had was not red. The red one was actually in Hiroe's hand. In this case at least we can simply assume that Hisa and not Hiroe had the red five all the time.

Spoiler:

There's two mistakes pointed out in the Chinese translation:

1. It's supposed to be Yuan and not Choe who let Hiroe Chi, when she wants to speed up. Drawing mistake.

2. The 5-pin Hisa had is supposed to be a red 5-pin. Again, drawing mistake.

Not surprising.

[Requiem-x]

Leaks for Shinohayu are finally out, and some people are going to be upset

Spoiler for Spoiler:

We're seeing the last match of the tournament from Kanna's perspective. Heh, I want to see what she thinks of Shino's birdy hand

[tjalorak]

Originally Posted by Serperior

Damn! It seems that RM also knew of Yuan's plan before Hisa sensed it and dealt into Yuan's hand instead!

RM didn't play into anyone's hands (and no one has played into Yuan).

Spoiler:

RM ronned Yuan on South 1. In another round, Hisa disrupted Choe and prevented her from getting a dealer sanbaiman, tsumoing with the tile that Choe needed to win (her earlier pon disruption forced the tile one spot earlier to her hand rather than Choe's hand).

[Serperior]

Originally Posted by tjalorak

RM didn't play into anyone's hands (and no one has played into Yuan).

Spoiler:

RM ronned Yuan on South 1. In another round, Hisa disrupted Choe and prevented her from getting a dealer sanbaiman, tsumoing with the tile that Choe needed to win (her earlier pon disruption forced the tile one spot earlier to her hand rather than Choe's hand).

Lol sorry. I must have phrased that wrongly.

Here's a recap of the round courtesy of an /a/non

Spoiler:

Choe ronned Yuan for 2600 in East 4, and the score after the first hanchan was
Rinkai 174600
Himematsu 124800
Kiyosumi 71200
Usuzan 29400

After that:
South 1:Hiroe ronned Yuan for 1300, plus her 1000 point riichi stick

South 2: Hisa tsumo'd for 1000 2000 (Choe)

[Felyndiira]

Spoiler for Chinese Raw Interpretation:

From what I could gather from the Chinese raws (I hate traditional Chinese ):

• Yuan muses that Usuzan has lost too many points, and that it would be impossible to take second place (especially with RM as an opponent).
• She wonders - since Kiyosumi will also be eliminated, if she could "think up some idea" (which is later revealed to mean dealing into her hand on purpose to prevent her from being bottomed-out).
• Hisa sees this, comments that Yuan actually just wants to use her.
• Chloe rons 2600 from Yuan.
• Yuan calls riichi next round (apparantly an obvious one). Hisa wonders if Yuan just wants her to deal in on purpose. Yuan comments that she's depending on Hisa.
• Yuan comments to Hisa that "this is not the case". She wonders if she could self-draw her winning tiles (2-5-7 bamboo), but could not.
• Yuan then deals into Hiroe. She comments that she doesn't know what to do now.
• Hisa muses that Yuan misunderstood her. (Presumably this is because Yuan thought she would help her as a last-ditch effort to not be eliminated, while Hisa is far better of a player than that.)
• Next round. RM senses that Chloe is playing with a big hand, and is planning to score first with a quick hand. Meanwhile, Hisa is three from Tenpai.
• Hisa's hand is in tenpai. As of her draw she has pinfu, two doras (actually 3 - she later deals out a red 5, so we presume it's an art mistake that the 5 pins is not dora here), and three color straight.
• Chloe, of course, draws a 9-pin for a sanbaiman tenpai waiting on the 1-pin or the red dragon.
• Hisa calls pon on the person to her left (thus skipping one draw) and draws a 1-pin to tsumo.
• Chloe comments that the tile she wanted has been snatched away.

Spoiler for Analysis of Hisa's Last Win:

The one thing I always liked about Saki's main manga is how many things are hidden for people that understand Mahjong and are not immediately declared by a third person commentator like it would be in other series.

Keep in mind that Chloe needs a 1-pin or red dragon to complete her sanbaiman. Chloe is also the player to the right of Hisa. Had Hisa not called that random pon out of nowhere (it reduced her score - opening her hand eliminates pinfu, and she discarded a dora. Has she won with tsumo on a closed hand, it would have been 3 dora+pinfu+tsumo for a mangan. It also reduced her win from a 3-6 wait to an almost-hell wait on 1-pin, as she can't score on 4-pin due to the lack of yaku), that 1-pin draw would go to her sanbaiman instead - which is, given her last comment, probably something she was hoping would happen.

In other words, Hisa quite literally reduced her hand to steal the tile that Chloe's ability placed to help her win, and used that tile for herself instead. Hisa is quite badass.

It also suggests something else - the "luck" that a lot of these "blessed by the tiles" mahjong players have do not act in flux; they seem to work by placing the tiles in the right places a few turns before rather than changing the draw to be something favorable to the user. I'm guessing that the more "blessed" the player the less turns in advance the tiles become predetermined, though this might be an insight on how someone can beat Teru - predict her win tiles from her extremely restrictive ability, and do something unexpected to use that knowledge to your advantage.

EDIT: It seems that I'm a bit late to the party .

[The Green One]

I wonder if it'll be the vice captain or the captain of Usuzan that goes on a murderous rape spree and starts racking up points like crazy. Something is going to happen to make them a competitive chance to move on with Kiyosumi. My money is on the Vice Captain having a suddenly explosive game while Nodoka probably ends up with only modest gains and mostly turtles her way through the match defensively. Then the Captain's match starts with a closer game so that all four schools are within striking range of each other.

[Azure_yo]

OMG to think the damsel in distress that Hisa protected is a witch in disguise, really Saki main manga is a roller coaster of awesomeness

[King-Slayer]

Shinohayu is out. Just the tourney from Kanna's perspective but that's fine. I didn't remember how short that freaking tie is though.


And Now 122 is out. Hisa finally going on offense was nice.

[Subayai]

Saki ch.122

Hisa looks stronger than ever in this chapter. Choe is not just some random player, she has been hyped since early on as some high-level monster player. Here she appears to be using her ability to get a sanbaiman. Even Hiroe seems resigned to it when she tells Hisa that changing the drawing order won't work against that kind of opponent. Then Hisa proceeds to win by redirecting Choe's winning tile to herself. Awesome!

Until now (in the manga), Hisa never had to face a monster player before. Her hell waits usually win over normal waits from normal players, even if sometimes they are highly-skilled players like Hiroe. But here her hell waits are so strong that can overrule Choe's power (I guess this isn't going to work every time but still). And by even attempting to stop Choe, Hisa shows here the confidence she didn't have in the quarter-finals. I wish we could see Mihoko's reaction to this!

[Requiem-x]

Originally Posted by Subayai

I wish we could see Mihoko's reaction to this!

She probably had her right eye open all the way. How lewd!

And yeah, Hisa kicked butt this chapter. It says something when even the loudmouthed Hiroe is impressed.

On a tangentially related topic

Spoiler for Spoiler:

I wonder how truly impressed Kanna will be by Shino's big move in the next Shinohayu.