The BEST episodes of Saki
Every episode of Saki ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Saki!
Miyanaga Saki is a high school freshman who doesn’t like mahjong. Ever since she was a child, she would lose her New Year’s gift money during her family mahjong game. If she won, her parents would be upset, and if she lost, well, she lost. As a result, she’s learned to play in such a way that her score always remains plus/minus zero: not good enough to win, but not bad enough to lose. When we meet her, she’s being dragged to her school’s mahjong club by an old friend. How will a girl who hates mahjong, yet has become adept at the game as a result of her upbringing, survive in this environment?
#1 - Best
Season 2 - Episode 9 - Aired 6/11/2012
As Toki makes the first winning move, everyone starts to feel the strange power of Teru, who soon starts a winning streak that even surpasses Toki's predictions. Toki recalls the time when she was picked to be Senriyama's ace, where she revealed to Ryuuka and Sera the prediction ability she got following a collapse. Toki soon regains her confidence and helps Kirame disrupt Teru's streak. As the third South Hand begins, Teru looks set to restart her streak whilst Kuro laments that she hasn't been able to do anything.
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#2 - Nationals
Season 2 - Episode 4 - Aired 4/30/2012
As the Achiga girls receive results of the drawing lottery, they find that they are on the opposite side of Kiyosumi while on the same side as the top-ranked Shiraitodai High School. As the girls do some research on their opponents, Harue meets up with her former coach, Kumakura. On the day of the first round, Achiga is pitted against Sanomo, Urabandai and Imizusougou. After some initial difficulty, Kuro manages to show off her dora-drawing skills in her round, and Achiga soon sails to victory and advances to the second round. Later, Senriyama read up on Achiga's victory, preparing to face them in the next round, along with Koshigaya and Kentani. As Kuro enters the competition room, she encounters a waiting Toki.
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#3 - Faith
Season 2 - Episode 7 - Aired 5/21/2012
During the fourth match featuring Arata, some tough competition puts Achiga back into third place behind Kentani. As it comes down to the last hand of the final match, Shizuno faces tough odds. However, her determination to not give up gives her the opportunity to get back into second place, allowing Achiga to proceed to the semi-finals alongside Senriyama. As the girls celebrate their victory, Harue warns that in the semi-finals, they'll not only be facing Senriyama, but Shiraitodai as well. As the girls go out to eat, they spot Harue with Kumakura, who is talking with her about potentially joining the pro circuit again. As the girls start worrying that Harue may abandon them, they run into Tsuruga Academy's Momoko Touyoko and Satomi Kanbara.
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#4 - Recovery
Season 2 - Episode 6 - Aired 5/14/2012
As the second match begins, Yū starts off well but soon struggles when Senriyama's Izumi Nijō figures out her play style of picking warm tiles with red characters. However, Yū makes a comeback as Izumi fails to observe that the tiles Yū draws include any which feature the color red. Then the third match is played out with Ako against Senriyama's Sera Iguchi. She manages to bring Achiga up to second place.
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#5 - Promise
Season 2 - Episode 12 - Aired 7/2/2012
As Toki pushes her body to the limit to look three turns into the future, she predicts Kuro is finally about to make her move. As Kuro is pressured into potentially discarding a dora, she recalls her friends and her late mother and decides to discard a dora, throwing off Teru's calculations and enabling her to earn some points off Teru, bringing the first match to an end. Just then, Toki collapses from her fatigue and has to be rushed to hospital. As Achiga prepares to move on to the next match, they finally run into Nodoka, both promising to do their best to reach the finals. With their resolve in place, Yū enters the fray for the second match.
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#6 - Training
Season 2 - Episode 8 - Aired 6/4/2012
Satomi brings the Achiga girls to her grandmother's house where they meet Tsuruga's Yumi Kajiki. Wanting to improve their skills and become stronger, the Achiga girls ask to train with them. Since they are not participating in the individual tournament, they are also allowed to battle against Kazekoshi Girls School's Mihoko Fukuji, and they soon come up against some national level play. The next day, the girls meet up Kei Arakawa and several other talented players to continue their training, whilst Kiyosumi play out their second round match. Later that evening, Shizuno spots Kumakura and confronts her about her discussions with Harue. To her relief, she learns that Harue turned down the offer of going pro, saying that she wants to stay with Achiga til the end. As Shizuno breaks the news to the others, they become determined to win the semifinals, where they face Shiraitodai, Senriyama and Shindouji Girls' High. The first round soon kicks off, with Kuro preparing to face off against Toki, Shindouji's Kirame Hanada and Shiraitodai's strongest player, Teru Miyanaga.
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#7 - Champion
Season 2 - Episode 5 - Aired 5/7/2012
As the vanguard match begins, Toki's ability to see one turn ahead puts pressure on Kuro, whose dora-style renders her defense play weak and predictable. Adding riichi with her ability, this enables Toki to dominate the match, and Kuro is left ineffective. With Kuro in tears, Yū steps into the second match motivated to get back the points Kuro lost, while Senriyama hopes to use the information they gathered on her against her.
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#8 - Beginning
Season 2 - Episode 2 - Aired 4/16/2012
Kuro takes Shizuno and Ako to meet her older sister, Yū, who becomes the fourth mahjong club member. The next day, Kuro asks her classmate, Arata Sagimori, a fan of Harue during her prime, and she joins as the fifth member. During the winter, Harue's company manga team had become defunct, and visits Achiga for some nostalgia. To her surprise, she finds Shizuno and the others playing. Wanting to experience the inter-high nationals once more, Harue decides to become the club's advisor and coach. With the mahjong club officially formed, the girls begin training for the prefectural preliminaries. Later in the evening, Ako encounters some of her former classmates who went on to attend prefectural rival Bansei High.
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#9 - Determination
Season 2 - Episode 11 - Aired 6/25/2012
Toki uses her ability to look two turns into the future, enabling her to stop Teru's streak but leaving her extremely weak in the process. Meanwhile, Kirame recalls how her team chose her to be the sacrificial pawn owing to her purported ability to never go bust. As the game approaches its climax, Toki is left incredibly weak and is supposedly unable to use her ability. Meanwhile, as Saki, Nodoka and Yuki arrive at the arena, Saki appears to be preoccupied with something. As Toki remains under pressure as Teru decides to prolong the match, she recalls how her teammates supported her during a training camp. Determined to help her team, Toki decides to take a risk and attempt to look three turns into the future.
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#10 - Prank
Season 1 - Episode 11 - Aired 6/15/2009
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 Kazekoshi's 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 leaves Saki to go look for it.
#11 - Chance Meeting
Season 2 - Episode 1 - Aired 4/9/2012
During elementary school, Shizuno Takakamo and Ako Atarashi make friends with the recently transferred Nodoka Haramura. Upon hearing about her interest in mahjong, they take Nodoka to Achiga Girl's Academy, where Harue Akado runs a mahjong club for children. After a few games with Kuro Matsumi, Shizuno later tells Nodoka about Harue's history, including reasons leading to Achiga's club disbanding. By the year's end, Harue accepts an offer to join a company's mahjong team, which leads to the closure of the children's club. Nodoka also reveals that she is transferring out by next spring. The years have passed, and an excited third year Shizuno sees Nodoka on television winning the individual middle school tournament. Driven to reach the inter-high national tournament, Shizuno goes to Achiga's club room where she encounters Kuro, who had been maintaining the room since disbandment. Together, they revive the mahjong club with intent to meet Nodoka again. Instead of Bansei, Ako also enrolls into Achiga for the same reason.
#12 - Sisters
Season 1 - Episode 20 - Aired 8/17/2009
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 group, and went to a family restaurant, that reminded her of her parents. Meanwhile, Kazekoshi and Tsuruga make their plans for training for the individuals. Saki's sister, Teru, progresses to the nationals, though when asked about Saki, denies her existence.
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#13 - Friend
Season 1 - Episode 19 - Aired 8/10/2009
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. Koromo's powers cause a brief blackout, but Saki remains calm throughout. Koromo gets another haitei raoyue once the game resumes, leaving one more hand. Koromo is a bit shocked when Saki says she is having fun playing against her.
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#14 - Promise
Season 1 - Episode 22 - Aired 8/31/2009
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 midway point, Nodoka is shocked to find Saki has gone back to her habit of scoring plus minus zero, and goes to confront her about it. Saki had been holding back since it was Hisa's only chance at the individuals, but Nodoka reminds her that their promise included not holding back. Saki ends up in a match against Hisa, as well as Momoko and Tomoki. Hisa immediately concocts a strategy to seal off Saki's rinshan kaihō strategy, which eventually convinces the others to gang up on her. Later on though, Momoko, determined to avenge Yumi's earlier lost against Saki during the team tournament, decides to implement her stealth tactic in order to win.
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#15 - Free for All
Season 2 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/24/2012
As the second match gets underway, Harue starts having practise matches with Kuro in order to revive her dora drawing ability, where Kuro learns of how Toki and Kirame helped her play against Teru. Izumi is put under pressure both by Yoshiko's cheap hands and Sumire's 'sharpshooter' style of play. Yū, on the other hand, had been taught by Harue about an unconscious tell of Sumire's which gives away who she is targeting, giving her the opportunity to strike back at her. After the second round ends and the third round begins, with Sera making some large plays, Izumi from Hiroko Funakubo hears about some of the powerful first year students in the competition before heading to the hospital to fetch Ryuuka. The match soon turns into a heated battle between Ako, Sera and Shiraitodai's Takami Shibuya, who prepares to use her 'Harvest Time' ability.
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#16 - Nationals
Season 1 - Episode 25 - Aired 9/28/2009
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 (that ended with Tōka dominating over everybody who participated, prompting Saki and Nodoka to stay by the sidelines) while Mako and some others fail to get revenge on Kaori's beginner's luck. The next morning, some of the girls go in the onsen to discuss the powerhouses of the nationals, including Saki's sister, Teru. Hisa's suspicion of Saki as Teru's younger sibling was confirmed by Saki's reaction when she confronted her of this fact. Saki is a bit shocked to hear from Mohoko that Teru had denied having a sister, so Nodoka decides to take her to a shrine to cheer her up. Afterwards, they exchange souvenirs and decide to call each other by their given names. After they get back, the training starts in a room where the players from Kiyosumi, Ryūmonbuchi, Kazekoshi, and Tsuruga are already seated and ready to play, with Hisa also having invited Fujita to join them. Kiyosumi prepare themselves for the nationals.
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#17 - Contact
Season 2 - Episode 3 - Aired 4/23/2012
At the prefectural tournament, the Achiga team defeats Bansei in the first round and eventually qualifies for the nationals. To train for the nationals, Harue schedules the club to play against prefectural runner-ups. Immediately, Ako utters "Nagano", Kiyosumi's prefecture, as the first one to visit, and therefore, they play Ryūmonbuchi High. There, Koromo Amae overwhelmingly defeats Shizuno but doesn't discourage her or the team. Then, the excited team proceeds to defeat other schools at other prefectures. After a ten day training camp, the girls set off for the nationals. While stopping at a rest stop, Shizuno and the others meet Toki Onjōji and Ryuuka Shimizudani from Senriyama Girl's High, who are also seeded in the nationals. As the club finally reaches the nationals, they briefly walk pass Saki Miyanaga.
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#18 - Determination
Season 1 - Episode 23 - Aired 9/7/2009
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 Momoko's tiles, finally allowing her to play a rinshan kaihō to win the match. In the final round, Hisa goes against Mihoko, Tōka and Yumi, Nodoka goes against Kana, Jun and Hajime, Yūki goes against Mako, Tomoki and Momoko, and Saki goes against Kazue, Kanbara and Yoshitome. As everyone battles their hardest, Yoshitome does well to block off Saki in the east wind round, but soon the south wind round comes and Kazue starts to make her move. However, Saki retains her smile and pulls out more rinshan kaihō moves to win her match, placing third and qualifying for the nationals. Nodoka wins her match and qualifies in second and although Hisa wins her match, Mihoko is overall first place.
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#19 - Looking Back
Season 1 - Episode 21 - Aired 8/24/2009
The first day of the individuals tournament begins. Tōka faces off against Tsuruga's Kaori and is beaten by her beginner's 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, though Kyōtarō, who had been participating in the boys tournament, is knocked out. In the second half, Mihoko ends up facing against Hisa, who still does not remember her. With Hisa ahead, Mihoko decides to use her right eye to win the game. Hisa finally remembers who she is and Mihoko gets her long awaited conversation. The first day ends with all of Kiyosumi's players progressing. Yūki, who had a winning streak all day, psyches herself up for the next day.
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#20 - Summer Festival
Season 1 - Episode 24 - Aired 9/21/2009
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 Kiyosumi's training camp for the nationals. Yūki ends up flunking her math midterm and has to take a makeup test, failure of which means she will not be able to attend the camp, so Saki and Nodoka decide to help her study. Hisa prohibits them from using the club room and they end up having trouble finding other places to study. Ryūmonbuchi and Tsuruga send their responses for the camp, while Mihoko delivers hers to Hisa personally. After Yūki's makeup test, the club members go to the festival, and Hisa watches from afar with Mihoko. Yūki passes her makeup test and all the schools go to the training camp.
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#21 - Dealer's Streak
Season 2 - Episode 10 - Aired 6/18/2012
Nodoka has a dream where she meets up with Shizuno and the others and ponders about its meeting. Meanwhile, the first half of the vanguard match finishes, with Teru still ahead, although the Achiga girls manage to figure something out about Teru's play style which they pass on to Kuro. Teru continues to dominate the second half, managing to get a 100,000 point lead over Senriyama, when Toki recalls when she previously attempted to look two turns ahead and ended up collapsing. Having secretly practised at home, Toki decides to put her double turn peek into practice.
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#22 - Meeting
Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 4/6/2009
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, Saki's friend, Kyōtarō Suga, takes her to their school's mahjong club so Saki can be a fourth player. There, she meets Nodoka Haramura, a very skilled mahjong player and previous junior high champion, and Yūki Kataoka, an energetic first-year who is skilled in mahjong though has trouble staying focused. Saki only plays a few hands and leaves shortly after the club president and student council president, Hisa Takei, wakes up. Hisa notices Saki managed to keep her score at zero, a difficult feat. Hisa manages to get Saki to come back the next day to play a couple more games with Nodoka, Yūki, and Mako Someya, a second-year member of the club. Saki shows her skill in mahjong by attaining the zero score in the first game.
#23 - Connection
Season 1 - Episode 18 - Aired 8/3/2009
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 at the training camp.
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#24 - Awaken
Season 1 - Episode 12 - Aired 6/22/2009
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 Koromo's name.
#25 - Tradition
Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 5/18/2009
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 telling this to her teammates, but they still do not think it can be true. Saki makes short work of her round by taking the remaining points from one of the players, and the team progresses on to the semi-finals round. In the semi-finals, Saki's team makes it through to the finals, along with Ryūmonbuchi, Kazekoshi, and Tsuruga Academy. One of the members from Kazekoshi, Kana Ikeda, gets harsh treatment from their coach for not playing up to her expectations, despite the fact they made it to the finals. The captain of the the team, Mihoko Fukuji protects Kana, and after the coach leaves, the captain encourages her teammates in showing everyone that their school is the best.