Familiar villains return (center: Teru Miyanaga of Shiraitodai)
Saki: Zenkoku-hen (aka National Tournament) debuted on January 5th but Pony Canyon has a vested interest in making sure people know since they have the home video release rights for it on the committee. Hence we have a new thirty second promotional video that brings us some good, fast paced music and a sense of excitement about the show. The series adapts the manga by Ritz Kobayashi in Young Gangan and we’ve got a new key visual that you can see to the right and expand for a bigger look. This follows the previous series and the Episode of Side-A material and the specials that were produced for it. Studio Gokumi is slated to return for this season after working on Episode of Side-A.
Series concept: 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?