Saki Achiga-hen



Saki Achiga-hen is a spinoff of Saki, which takes place concurrently with the main series.

The Achiga Girls' Academy in Nara once defeated regional mahjong powerhouse Bansei High School. It advanced into the national team semifinals but lost to the eventual champion, and the mahjong club was later disbanded. Six years later, elementary school student Shizuno Takakamo befriends transfer student Nodoka Haramura. The two eventually enter Achiga Girls', but Nodoka transfers out of the school in the second year. When Shizuno sees Nodoka on television the following year as the national middle school individual mahjong champion, she decides to revive Achiga's mahjong club.

The manga now has an anime adaptation that has begun airing in April 2012.

"Shizuno: (facing the scenery outside the opened windows) Alright! Just you wait, Nodoka! Kuro: Nagano is in the opposite direction, you know. Shizuno: Ah yeah, I just feel like it!"
 * Agent Scully: Nodoka again. She can't believe that Kuro can keep getting dora.
 * Ax Crazy: Tsuiki Moko gives off this vibe, especially when she starts giving a shark-toothed smile while playing.
 * Animal Motif: Kuro is (eastern) dragons, who is said to be loved by dora-gon tiles.
 * Antagonist Title: Saki is the girl that Shizuno must defeat before in order for her to meet Nodoka again. And the difference in their power level is steep.
 * Badass Cape: As a bit of a Continuity Nod for the main manga, Yuuki is shown entering the playing area against Eisui, Miyamori, and Himematsu wearing a long red cape. Cue looks of disbelief from the rest of her team.
 * Badass Normal: Ako for the Achiga team, though Side A showcases many other players who manage to thrive through skill alone.
 * Badass Normal + Awesomeness By Analysis: Yumi from Tsuruga, as stated in Saki Character page. She trivially wins in a practice game against the Matsumi sisters despite her admitted lack of supernatural power, because she has been analyzing their game data for a long time and had already had a counter-strategy prepared.
 * Battle Aura: The Battle Aura strikes again. This time it's Shizuno feeling an incredibly strong pressure emanating from Miyanaga Saki (you know, The Woobie-ish girl who is the main character of the main manga). It doesn't help that Saki is portrayed as outright demonic when it happens.
 * Shizuno herself has a completely ridiculous Battle Aura when she's in high spirits, turning her into a Girl On Fire.
 * Broken Ace: Akado Harue. Her team was eliminated because she lost a lot of points. She couldn't even touch a mahjong tile for some times, after that.
 * Broken Pedestal: Arata toward Harue. After Harue stopped playing mahjong, she cease playing mahjong herself. Shame, because even as kindergartener, she was able to play with the adults. Both Arata and Harue get better.
 * Came Back Strong: Toki. Recovering from her (alluded to be life-threathening) illness gave her a limited ability to see into the future.
 * Continuity Nod: All over the place. Makes sense, as the series takes place in parallel with the main series, though Achiga-hen goes further, as it shows what happens to everyone after the end of the first anime (which stops short of the Nationals). There are nods to the current arc of the Saki manga as well, such as showing the start of the Kiyosumi match against Eisui, Miyamori, and Himematsu.
 * Curb Stomp Battle: Shizuno vs. Koromo. Koromo wins. And the moon isn't even full.
 * Teru against everyone. As Arakawa Kei tells the Achiga team in the manga, she's more like a force of nature than a person, and it shows.
 * Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Toki's mystic eyes of mahjong prescience. Doing it put an incredible strain on her already frail body.
 * David Versus Goliath: Achiga vs. Bansei. More extreme than Kiyosumi vs. Kazekoshi, because Bansei have only once lost a seat to the Nationals in 40-years, and Kazekoshi's defeat was because Touka assembled a team of mahjong monsters from across the country... whereas Achiga is just a bunch of nobodies (except Harue, and she's the trainer, not player).
 * Discard and Draw: Interestingly enough Toki's ability wasn't always the future sight she has currently; instead repeated mention is given to a skill called "the Three Generals". It is implied that she lost this after she was hospitalized, and instead gained the mahjong clairvoyance she now uses.
 * Drives Like Crazy: Kanbara. While the main series shows that she can drive, Achiga-hen shows just how she drives that Volkswagen van of hers. She likely took lessons from the Yukari-sensei school of driving.
 * Enemy Scan: special power.
 * Everyone Meets Everyone: Chapter 2. It helps that each one have heard, to varying degree, of the others.
 * Evolving Credits: In the same manner as the main series: whenever a crisis appears, the ED shift to a non-puni style. The first crisis in the series being Saki's appearance.
 * Foe Yay: Senriyama's Hiroko has become "interested" in Arata (after noting her playing style and the odd distribution of draws, that is). When she's teased about it by a teammate, she doesn't deny it, and instead smiles knowingly.
 * Foreshadowing: Achiga's participation in the finals was hinted at in chapter 76 of the the main manga by Fujita, though the school itself was not directly named.
 * Fully-Absorbed Finale: Virtually inevitable. Achiga's only chance to fight Nodoka is in the national final, and it's something that's supposedly handled in the main series.
 * Going Commando: Shizuno. Jokes about the setting aside, Shizuno doesn't seem to be wearing anything underneath that jersey jacket of hers.
 * Hero Antagonist: Saki is the main protagonist of Saki. Here, she's a roadblock the cast needs to beat.
 * Ill Girl: Yuu, Kuro's big sister. She's cold all the time, to the point that she has to wear a cardigan, mittens, and a muffler during summer.
 * Onjouji Toki of Senriyama, who might collapse in any given moment.
 * Informed Ability: Surprisingly, the Achiga team's skill level. For much of the series, it's mentioned that the girls are very skilled players, to the point that they defeat all of the second-placer schools in ten different prefectures barring Nagano's Ryuumonbuchi, but it seems that whenever they're pitted against characters from the main series -- first Koromo, then Yumi, Momo, Kana, and Mihoko while in Tokyo -- the viewer never gets to see them win.
 * It's a Small World After All: Stealth Momo just so happen to bump into Team Achiga as Shizuno and co are going out for ramen. No encounter can get more contrived than that...
 * Lady Looks Like a Dude: Eguchi Cela (Sera?) of Senriyama.
 * Les Yay: Kuro seems to be very fond of boobs, especially Nodoka's. Watch out Saki, you have a contender.
 * Momo is more lovey-dovey than ever with Yumi, where they appear in chapter 7 (episode 8 of the anime). Yumi in particular doesn't seem to be bothered at all that Momo is pretty much humping her in clear view of the Achiga team.
 * Mahjong Clairvoyance: Toki's peculiar ability -- if she concentrates enough, she can see the hands (and moves) of her opponents up to at least one turn in the future, but if she pushes it she can foresee up to two turns. As a drawback however she loses the ability to do so for an equal number of turns. The use of this is extremely taxing on her, given that she's not so healthy to begin with, and prior to the Nationals was only done sparingly.
 * Missed Moment of Awesome: Bansei has been set up as the juggernaut that Achiga must break through to reach Nationals... and then when the game is actually on, it takes about... two pages. Granted, those two pages show Kuro and Yuu, who have near-supernatural or perhaps really-supernatural power.
 * Moe: Most characters are moe in one way or another (Shizuno is determination-moe, Arata is bitterness-moe), but Yuu takes the proverbial cake with Ill Girl-moe.
 * New Transfer Student: Haramura Nodoka was one to Achiga. She later transfers out into Kiyosumi.
 * Oh Crap: The Achiga girls' reaction.
 * Spin-Off: Of the manga Saki.
 * Rogue Protagonist: Well, no, not really. Saki is probably just as cutely adorable as she usually is (and as the main manga shows, she was actually lost and looking for the girls' toilet when she passed by the Achiga team). But the way she's viewed by the girls from Achiga because of her Battle Aura is like this. Naturally fanart has had a lot of fun with this.
 * Romantic Two-Girl Friendship: Returns in full force with Senriyama's players Toki and Ryuuka
 * Stepford Smiler: Oh, Teru... She displays Japanese politeness to the press, but behind the door, she's a pretty damn condescending person. Probably explains why the press don't double check it when she denies any connection with Saki.
 * Training from Hell: Also a good excuse to have the Achiga girls interacting with girls from main series. Shizuno especially had the honor of playing Koromo, with predictable result.
 * Training Montage
 * Unknown Rival: Shizuno, the main character, considers herself a rival to Nodoka. She assembles a mahjong club just to get to the nationals and challenge her again. Meanwhile in the main manga, Nodoka doesn't even seem to remember her. (Parallel to Touka much?)


 * After Shizuno senses Saki's Battle Aura, she knows that Saki is the rival she must defeat. On the other hand, Saki doesn't seem to feel anything from Shizuno. Um...
 * Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Shinmen Nagi from Sanomo carries two Japanese blades to a mahjong match. Granted, her name is samurai-ish, but that's no justification...
 * The Worf Effect: Interestingly, Koromo suffers from it in regard to Saki. This makes Saki looks utterly terrifying when Shizuno happens to pass her by in Tokyo.
 * In the first two episodes, Bansei high are made to look like Achiga's main rival in the first two episodes, before getting swept aside in episode 3.
 * Kuro, who is supposed to be one of Achiga's stronger players, as well as the supernatural ability to attract dora to her hand, often ends up getting dominated in her matches and losing the most points on her team.