My Rating: 
Release Date: Japan_04/25/2009
Creator: Ritz Kobayashi
Studio: Gonzo
Genre: tournament, slice of life
Themes: mahjong, high-school life, friendship, yuri
Number of Episodes: 25 (24 minutes x 25 episodes = 600 minutes)
Saki Miyanaga, a high school first-year student, hates mahjong because her family would always force her to play it and punish her regardless of the outcome of the game. Due to this, she learned how to keep her score at zero, neither winning nor losing. However, her friend Kyōtarō from middle school convinces her to join the school’s mahjong club upon entering into high school. After the club discovers her ability, they recruit her and convince her to win instead of breaking even. She easily does so with her skill, leading the team to enter a mahjong tournament so that its members may reach the national competitions.
WORST CHARACTER:
NODOKA HARAMURA episode 01
Personality: has too big boobs, looks like she is about to have an orgasm every
two minutes, serious about Mahjong and Saki, quiet, was cold to everyone
but opens up when she meets Saki, very intelligent, classy
Significance: best friends and is in love with Saki
GENERAL ENVIRONMENTS:
high school, place where Mahjong tournament is, audience auditorium in
the place where Mahjong tournament is held, tournament rooms, Mahjong
clubroom, suburban Japan, the high school’s park
The reason why I started watching Saki was because I like anime series that try to bring back old games like Hikaru no Go. But there are a few problems with Saki as the series progresses. The first problem is that the series is way too dramatic and fantasy like. I’m sure Mahjong is fun, but do people suddenly grow angel wings and start fighting in space when people are playing? I mean, even Yu-Gi-Oh! tells the viewer the environment is somehow related to the series instead of just going off on a random tangent like Saki does. Like one minute the environment in Saki will be the mahjong tournament room and then suddenly the environment will change into a fantasy world with mountains and the players are wearing viking clothes and fighting against each other with big beams of lighting; it doesn’t make sense. The second problem with Saki is the question of what do mahjong and Yuri have to do with each other? Though the creator of Saki is a woman, I think she may have a serious Yuri fetish because I really don’t see why the majority of Saki is full of girls who love each other too much while they play mahjong. The creator also makes Nodoka’s boobs way too big which is unusual for an anime series that is created by a woman; Nodoka’s character design might say more about the creator’s fetish (or dream) more than anything else in Saki. The main problem with the Yuri fetish in Saki though is that when Saki starts showing a Yuri scene, the creator forgets the entire plot of Saki. And the last problem that I have with Saki is that the majority of the main characters look like they are having an orgasm every two seconds in each episode because of how many times the main characters blush in the series. Though, despite all these problems in the anime, the manga is not bad for some reason.