Saki - Episode 23

The last episode of Saki saw the eponymous hero of the series facing off against her own club president, with Hisa seemingly holding the upper hand before Momoko's "stealth mode" started to take effect.

Just as things were looking all over for Saki, in that match-up at least, so she found her way back into the game, rather ironically on account of training prescribed to her by Hisa, using her experiences at the club's training camp playing online mahjong to see through Momoko's tricks and snatch a win in the last hand in her usual fashion.


This then took us on to the last round of matches, which thanks to some rather fortuitous draws saw a number of the series big-name characters facing off against one another in the fight to make the top three on points scored and thus qualify for the nationals. With Nodoka well-placed and Mihoko all but guaranteed a place in the finals, it's Saki who gets much of the focus of our interest for this round as well, most particularly as she faces off against South wind expert Nanpo. Once again, Saki starts off very slowly, but proves herself to have a burgeoning reputation as something of a comeback queen, fending off Nanpo's usual dominance of those South wind hands to fashion herself a victory... and, of course, a place in the finals.

There's probably not a lot more to say here against what I've already discussed at length about Saki - I never fail to be thrilled by the mahjong action when it gets going, and while these individual qualifying tournament episodes haven't had quite the same edge of your seat qualities as the team tournament it's still been great stuff to watch, ridiculous mahjong superpowers and all. With a couple of episodes still to run I suppose we're going to have to live with filler to close out the series but hey, this series has been increasingly fun to watch over the past few months so I suppose I can cut it some slack... I just hope Gonzo can survive to work on the second series which this franchise is clearly crying out for.