Saki (2009)

1 - Meeting

Saki Miyanaga is a skilled mahjong player, but she hates the game since she would be punished by her family whether she won or lost when she played with them. Upon entering high school, Sakis friend, Kyōtarō Suga, takes her to their schools mahjong club so Saki can be a fourth player. There, she mee

2 - Contest

Playing under special scoring rules, Saki plays the next game while trying to keep her plus/minus zero score and winning at the same time, but cannot do both with the special rules. However, when the special rules are removed, Saki ended up winning the game, therefore disallowing her from keeping th

3 - Confrontation

It has been a week since Saki joined the mahjong club, though Nodoka is still distant to her. Nodoka plays a game by herself with all the tiles exposed and takes notes, but she is still unable to attain a plus/minus zero score like Saki who can do this flawlessly. Hisa and Mako go and sign up their

4 - Beat-down

Hisa announces to the club that they are now signed up for the national qualifying tournament, and she hands out the rules. Yūki sees that one school, Ryūmonbuchi, are extremely skilled and even won the tournament the previous year despite being all first-year students. Hisa asks Saki and Nodoka to

5 - Training Camp

The mahjong club goes to a mountain retreat training camp to improve their skills. The first day is spent mainly having fun, and playing some normal games of mahjong. The next day, Hisa gives the first years (excluding Kyōtarō) special tasks. Saki plays mahjong online, but is dejected how easily she

6 - The Tournament Begins

After arriving at the tournament area, Saki gets separated from her friends, and during this time Nodoka gets hounded by reporters due to her having won last years national junior high school tournament. After Saki makes it back to the others, Hisa explains the order of the players, starting with Yū

7 - Tradition

Nodoka walks into her match holding her penguin stuffed animal which causes a stir among the observers and her own opponents. Nodoka plays extremely well, and of the competitors from Ryūmonbuchi, Tōka, notices her similarities to a famous skilled online mahjong player known as Nodocchi. She tries te

8 - Last Night

The Kiyosumi team takes the train back to town since they do not have enough money to stay in a hotel near the tournament. Hisa tells Mako how she was the reason why Hisa held on to the hope that more girls would join the mahjong club the next year so that they could go to the prefectural tournament

9 - Enlightenment

The finals first round starts when Ryūmonbuchi representative Jun Inoue accidentally eats Yūkis only taco. The latter cries and causes a commotion, but Mihoko shares her lunch box with her. As the game progresses, Jun starts to win many hands and pressures Yūki who is gradually losing her confidence

10 - Beginner

Hisa recommends Saki and Nodoka take a nap before their matches, and while Nodoka initially declines, she decides to go so that Yūki does not have to cry in front of her and Saki following her match. Makos turn comes up, and Hisa explains that she takes off her glasses in order to remember past matc

11 - Prank

The third round starts and Hisa puts to work her strategy of sticking to the bad waits in order to get the big scores, knocking off Kazekoshis lead. Hajime Kunihiro helps gain a slight comeback while avoiding her slight-of-hand habit. Meanwhile, Nodoka wakes to find that her penguin is missing and l

12 - Awaken

Mihoko arrives to pass along the information to her companion, and Hisa barely recognizes her. Koromo takes the torn penguin to her butler, who fixes it, and she returns it to Nodoka. While Nodoka expresses her gratitude, she leaves quickly and is unable to hear Koromos name.

13 - Fever

The fourth round begins off slow with Nodoka winning a small hand, and as play continues, the players continuously keep on getting draws. Eventually, Nodoka is able to get more into the game, and ups her skills like when she is playing online. By the time of the last hand of the first half of the ro

14 - Existence

Tōka makes a slight comeback, ruining Nodokas perfect run, but then falls into a play laid by Tsurugas Momoko Tōyoko, whose presence is so small her calls for riichi cannot be heard by her opponents. She had trouble being noticed and had abandoned all communication until she was found by her schools

15 - Demon

Momokos abilities fall short against Nodoka, whose training matches her real life playing to her online play style, therefore not taking notice of Momokos lack of presence. The round ends with Kiyosumi retaining the lead. The final round starts with Saki, Kana, Yumi and Koromo, though initially Saki

16 - Conspiracy

As the round continues, Saki finally recognizes Koromos aura. She starts putting pressure on her opponents by reducing their tenpai probabilities and playing two haitei raoyue moves in a row. However, this is broken up when Yumi allows Saki to win with a her discard. Yumi then follows this up by get

17 - Nightmare

During the break, Mihoko goes to comfort Kana, and Nodoka catches up with Saki to reaffirm their promise and rebuild her confidence. Fujita warns Koromo to play mahjong properly.

18 - Connection

Remembering the pact she had made with Mihoko, Kana gets a burst of confidence and regains a lot of points. Yumi also gets a good play, and Koromo, having paid all her attention to Saki, gets a little agitated. Saki takes off her shoes and socks, remembering the times she played mahjong at home and

19 - Friend

Koromo recalls that when her parents died, no matter how many times Touka brought her friends, she still always felt lonely, believing her only worth is in mahjong. Koromos powers cause a brief blackout, but Saki remains calm throughout. Koromo gets another haitei raoyue once the game resumes, leavi

20 - Sisters

As a reward for winning the tournament, and to train for the individuals, Hisa takes everyone to a pool, where Saki admits she cannot swim. They run into the Ryūmonbuchi group, who actually own the pool, and Koromo makes friends with Nodoka. Tōka reminds Koromo that when she went to Tokyo with her g

21 - Looking Back

The first day of the individuals tournament begins. Tōka faces off against Tsurugas Kaori and is beaten by her beginners luck. Another Tsuruga girl informs her team mates of an opponent who was strong during south winds. Despite pressure from being the team champions, Kiyosumi manage to get through,

22 - Promise

It is the second day of the individuals, and Yūki is shocked to find the day will consist of east-south round games. Yūki gets off to a good start in her first match, but when the south wind approaches, Kazue Nanpo from Hirataki High School shows off her field advantage and wins the game. During the

23 - Determination

Momoko continues to put the pressure on Tomoki and Hisa keeps racking up strong plays, while Saki is still unable to use her usual strategy. Saki remembers her training using online gaming, and uses what she learned to pick out Momokos tiles, finally allowing her to play a rinshan kaihō to win the m

24 - Summer Festival

Kyōtarō tells Saki about an upcoming summer festival and she invites the rest of the club to go too. Hisa sends out invitations to the other schools to join them for Kiyosumis training camp for the nationals. Yūki ends up flunking her math midterm and has to take a makeup test, failure of which mean

25 - Nationals

All the schools gather for the training camp where Yumi gives Hisa some data on the other opponents in the nationals. Later on, nearly everyone takes an interest in ping pong while Mako and some others fail to get revenge on Kaoris beginners luck. The next morning, some of the girls go in the onsen