(L) Saki manga

[Proto]

The bottom team are actually all foreigners except for the glasses girl.

Names in romaji:

The people from shirai todai high school (Winners of the west tokyo regionals):

Oohoshi awai (1st year) (complete with galaxy and stars background like powers to go with her name )
Shibuya Takami (2nd year)
Matano Seiko (2nd year)
Hirose Sumire (3rd year)
Miyanaga Teru (3rd year)

Rinkai all girls from East Tokyo (even the name implies that it is a school for foreigners living in Japan)

3rd year:
Tsujigaito Satoha (meganekko, the sole japanese)
HaoHei Yuu (1st year)
Megan Davin (3rd year) (girl with tan)
Cheemyon Fa (2nd year) (girl with the umbrella, she's French but got a Kanji name that doesn't sound Japanese. Yay.)
Nelly Virsaladze (1sty year, token loli)

Eisui all girls (winners of the Kagoshima regionals):

Usuzumi Hatsumi 3rd year (the local loli, who actually made her opponents in the regional finals go in the negatives before the Taishou round with a yakuman, most probably a small four winds?)
Karijuku Tomoe 3rd year (the only girl with a normal uniform)
Iwato Kasumi (3rd year, girl with the long braids)
Takimi Haru (1st year, with the ponytail)
Jindai Komaki (2nd year, meet the other monster )

Some things we learned in this chapter:

Spoiler for minor manga spoilers about possible positions for each team:

It seems that in Jindai's case Kasumi plays after Hatsumi (she was complaining about her turn never arriving since Hatsumi ended it early), so I guess it will not be possible to her to play with Nodoka unlike what the anime preview showed. In fact, other than the characters I don't think we should take the anime preview seriously.

It seems Satoha from Rinkai is the Senpou? i'm not too sure about this part

[scr]

Originally Posted by Proto

Cheemyon Fa (2nd year) (girl with the umbrella, she's French but got a Kanji name that doesn't sound Japanese. Yay.)

I think that's somewhat common these days... Umineko is full of people with this style of name. And of course, there's always Marisa Kirisame (霧雨　魔理沙).

Btw, Nelly would be so fitting inside Touhou.

[Proto]

BTW Megan Davin is American for all the westerners who need a character to project themselves to. . HaoHei Yu is from Hong Kong.

[einhorn303]

I was just thinking a bit ago that the one thing Saki needs is foreign/half-breed characters. My prayers have answered, it seems.

[Quarkboy]

So perhaps the foriegner team will each have mahjong powers derived from the types of mahjong played in their home countries?

Like, the american one will do the Charleston, and hong kong one will have flower tile powers and the french one... wait, I don't know of anything particularly special about european mahjong rules...

[Proto]

From the not so reliable anime preview she.... sings...

[Suuankou]

I'm a sucker for any moe girl that's an umbrella ojou-sama.

[technomo12]

Saki is

blushing bishoujos underpowered shounens face value and deep value yuri big breast comedy
smoking majhong tiles imaginary auras etc and evil eyes "TACOS" and i have no sister value

lol

[Peanutbutter]

Now that I've seen the raw for Chapter 56...

Spoiler:

Who's more....ample? Jindai or Nodoka?

And yeah, the mostly foreigners team looked like a leveled-up Ryuumonbuchi and miko school is similar to Kazekoshi.

[Proto]

Yup, they even kalled Jindai Hime-sama and were talking about not burdening her like last year and keep winning themselves.

[Peanutbutter]

I keep forgetting there's a manga thread.

[Poster]

There's something I can't stop noticing about Hatsumi.

Spoiler for Saki 56:

The twin tails might be the only thing identical, but that's resemblance enough in manga. Was this intentional on Kobayashi's part?

[Peanutbutter]

Chinese translated Ch 56 is out there now.

[Proto]

OMG!! Only two weeks have passed since the last chapter of this biweekly manga was released and we already got a new chapter!! The author is on a roll.

[Guppy]

Momo fans will be particularly happy with the third-last page.

[Proto]

Spoiler for chapter 57:

LOL! The wahaha mobile!! WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAx10

The koromo section was pretty much an extension of her ending that happened in the anime, that she is no lnoger alone. What intrigues me more is the conversation Fujita Pro and kazekoshi coach are having. They do are discussing about Momoko's ability to dissapear (and how it didn't seem to be complete since Saki was able to call a kan in the individuals and Nodoka was able to see it all. Huh? Individuals does that means the manga is acknowledging it as canon). they also mention Kazue as the grandaughter of a pro. They also talk about Yumi and the captain of chikumaigashi (huh? who were those) and their performance against saki. And count in Mihoko and Kana for something. I wonder if they are planning to do some kind of all star team or something? Sometimes my ability to only half read japanese frustrates me more.

In any case, the manga chapter ends with the beginning of the 4 school training camp

[Guppy]

You're right; it does look like...

Spoiler for ch.57:

...the individual tournament is being retconned in.

I wonder if this is being done with an eye towards future anime seasons? It's obviously not practical to put the individual tournament in the manga at this stage (since, at the manga's pace, it would stall further plot development for about another year), so giving it a canon nod is the next best thing. The manga can keep moving and future anime seasons can keep following the manga storyline directly, without worrying about parallel-universe plot conflicts.

At any rate, they're clearly recruiting for some kind of group. They've already got several more-or-less confirmed members (which probably includes Nodoka and Saki). Mikoho's definitely in; the Kazekoshi coach says she was a certainty after winning the individuals the previous week. They go on to debate the merits of some of the others. What was said regarding Momoko was that Saki was able to see just her kan tile for an instant, while Nodoka seemed to be able to see everything... and that might mean Momoko's ability would be ineffective against people like the "Blumenthal sisters" and "Neiman." Is some kind of international tournament coming up?

At any rate, it looks like Fujita plans to show up at the training camp with the Kazekoshi coach and play with everyone from the finals of the team competition, then wrap up the decisions after that. Should add a little extra spice, I guess...

[Proto]

Well, the direction this is going certainly intrigues. For once it doesn't seem too linear anymore.

[Peanutbutter]

And the individuals has been thrashed.

Not that I mind, cause this means a 2nd season is one step closer.

[tjalorak]

Would it be possible to get a link for ch. 57? I checked mangahelpers but they only have up to 56...