Saki - Episode 6

Having found myself oddly drawn to the actual mahjong playing segments of Saki thus far (despite continuing to have no real clue as to the rules of the game), I've actually been rather looking forward to the beginning of the prefectural tournament in this series, promising as it does plenty of actual mahjong action.

However, it does still take half of the episode before that action starts, as we get a further introduction to a couple of the favourite teams and their inevitably larger than life and slightly evil characters, while Saki herself gets lost and we see one of these aforementioned teams shocked by her amazing "aura". Come on guys, this is a show about mahjong not Naruto, can't we give up on the aura bullshit for a while?


Anyhow, come the second half of the episode our favoured school's first game begins, although typically we run out of time before we get to either Nodoka or Saki's hands. Still, the other three players on the team all seem to have given their opponents a sound thrashing thus far, so all's well so far in the build up to the introduction of the club's two big hitters... and no, I'm not talking about Nodoka's breasts (although goodness knows this series manages to mention them often enough).

Much as I expected, the mahjong playing itself is what gripped me during this episode after all of the frivolous posturing which I know needs to be there to stop the series from becoming entirely too dull. I'm really not sure what it is about watching the actual games that grabs me, but there's something eminently watchable about a bunch of people flipping and sliding random tiles around while shouting random things that I don't understand the meaning of. It's almost like a demure version of American football or something... Anyhow, bring on episode seven, and bring out the big guns... no, for the last time I don't mean Nodoka's breasts!