Content warning: Brief discussion of sexual harassment, homophobia, fascism and neoliberal political figures.
Intro: Chattering Sparrows and Wild Pictures
All creation is, in essence, the process of combining two or more things into one. In both art and life, you will rarely find an exception to this rule; it is as though the very nature of the cosmos is a Hegelian synthesis in a constant cycle of deconstruction and renewal.
Some combinations, like custard and crumble or salt and caramel, serve as an inherent force for good. Others, such as custard and fish fingers, or Marmite and any surface that is not on the inside of a bin, are malevolent and serve to make the world worse by their very existence.
And there are others still, such as the amalgamation of a 400-some years old Chinese tactical tile game with Japanese picture books (which as a concept are arguably even older if you consider a 12th-century ink scroll featuring frolicking animals to be manga), have spawned an unholy number of titles serving an increasingly niche genre of fans.
From absurdist comedy to deeply psychological ruminations on the human condition and from zany moeblob dramas to cold yakuza thrillers, mahjong manga epitomises the full experience, history, and culture of the game it is based around. Pros who test their will against the chaotic whirlwind of luck and skill that is mahjong; gamblers hanging out furtively in the corners of seedy parlours; and former Prime Ministers of Japan - these and more are the actors on this four-player stage.
All the above are indisputable facts.
It is also a fact that I spent a large portion of quarantine reading most if not all of the Kindai Mahjong backlog that I could find translated into English and now, as ordained by my inner video essayist, I have to make a post talking all about them. This is that post.
I’ll try to keep everything as spoiler-free as I can, as this is really just meant to profile all the weird and (sometimes) wonderful works of mahjong manga that I’ve encountered. However, this is still a review piece, so elements of my own personal opinions and analyses are unavoidable.
I’ll also be including a ‘Noob Friendliness Rating’ with each title for those new to mahjong (as mahjong manga vary wildly in how heavily they employ the more arcane and tactical aspects of the game) and with any luck, that should help you prioritise which series to read, should anything described here pique your interest.
Anyway, I bid you welcome to my personal Mahjong Manga Hell.
The ‘Akagi Extended Cinematic Universe’
Mangaka Nobuyuki Fukumoto has become something of a household name in Japan since his series Kaiji, a high-octane psycho-thriller-slash-darkly surrealist portrayal of the Japanese gambling industry in the late 90s, spawned a successful live-action movie franchise as well as several anime and manga spinoffs. But Kaiji is not his debut series, nor even his debut franchise.
You might know him only as ‘that guy what draw the pointy noses’, if at all, but insofar as mahjong manga is concerned, Fukumoto is pretty much the uncontested king. And as his creations are far and beyond the most frequent cover stars of Monthly Kindai Mahjong, it’s possible he could well be the one person still keeping the publication on the shelves.
Akagi, which ran in Kindai from 1991 to 2018, is Fukumoto’s longest-running series franchise and has proliferated multiple sequels, prequels and spinoffs on a scale to rival Kaiji, developing its very own cinematic universe in the process that progresses far beyond the scope of the original series. And while there are several live-action drama adaptations of these series, the lack of any complete anime adaptation, compounded by its comparatively inaccessible subject matter, makes the series far less well-known among the Western animanga fandom.
And as Akagi was the series that dragged me into this inescapable pit in the first place, and by extension is the very reason I am writing this post now, I feel it only fitting for it to be the title I open with.
Akagi: Yami ni Oritatta Tensai
Akagi: The Genius Who Descended Into The Darkness
Completed
Manga: 306 chapters (36 volumes)
Anime: 26 episodes
Noob Friendliness Rating: 1/5
As you have no doubt already guessed, this - the one that started it all - is the tale of Shigeru Akagi, a punk-ass bitch and edgy teen outlaw who, after utterly owning an experienced mahjong rep player for the yakuza in his very first time playing the game (which I cannot understate the insanity of, given just how arcane the ruleset of mahjong is to beginners - also, did I mention he’s 13 in this arc?!), goes on to do battle against some of the richest and most depraved denizens of the 1960s Japanese criminal underworld.
That’s the basic premise, anyway - but I can’t help but feel like just that much is selling Akagi massively short. Akagi is indeed everything he is purported to be by the narrative: a wraithlike figure who drifts in and out of the other characters’ lives when they least expect it; a ruthless demon with an insatiable thirst for the thrill of gambling; a risk to both himself and others; a rebel with disdain for any and all authority; an impenetrable abyss of a person; an unending mystery. But that isn’t all he is.
Despite being the titular character, we very rarely get Akagi’s perspective on things. Early on in the series, this serves as a great source of tension within each confrontation, as even though the audience intrinsically knows that Akagi is ultimately going to be able to pull off a win from his opponent, we don’t learn how he’s going to do it until well after the fact. In the meantime, we watch as his opponents sift through the many layers of psychological manipulation that surround the tiles like shrouds, relentlessly searching for the path to the correct move, second-guessing and diverting and sometimes losing their minds in the process.
At the same time, however, Akagi is no vessel for a power fantasy, as this same perspective trick also encourages the audience to distance themselves from him. Although each of his ploys are given logical and possible explanations that make sense within the context of the game, many of his actions are depicted as unnecessarily absurd, to the point at which one can assume that their only real purpose is to fuck with you. There’s a kind of strange hilarity to everything Akagi does - which is really only heightened by Fukumoto’s patented angular artstyle and hyped-up narration - and there’s joy to be had in watching him own all these various greasy criminals and capitalists in style. But there’s also something profoundly sad about it.
Akagi is a person who needs to constantly be in danger for his life to have any meaning, and this is something we learn about him very early on. He is alone, with no truly constant companions, and those who do stick by him for any amount of time are doing so only to use him for their own personal gain. He has no distinct drive beyond self-destruction, and cannot gain absolution by any other means. He has a brilliant talent, but it is seemingly wasted on him, as all he truly desires from it is death. And he is even alienated from his audience, who are given only fleeting glimpses into his psyche in a story that is explicitly about him. And this existentialism at the heart of Akagi’s character is, for me, the most fascinating part of the series and, weirdly and unexpectedly -perhaps even ironically, considering the detached way Akagi is presented to us - relatable.
I’ll stop there before this ends up becoming a full-blown character analysis. But in essence, this conflict in his presentation (along with some of the stuff that happens in later sequels) is why Shigeru Akagi became one of my all-time favourite characters, and Akagi one of my all-time favourite character studies. That’s not to say that he is the only worthwhile character in the series, though - far from it.
Iwao Washizu, whom Akagi spends around two-thirds of the entire series fighting in perhaps one of the longest-running single manga arcs put to paper (which was serialised monthly over 20 years), is a horrifically corrupt elderly businessman motivated only by the twisted vampiric urges of capitalist greed, while also simultaneously being one of the most riotously hilarious characters ever. In true Fukumoto fashion, Washizu is rendered in such a way as to defy all physical logic, as though his crumbling mental state has spread outward to distort each and every panel in which he appears. He serves an exquisitely poignant foil to Akagi in a battle in which the death-wishing bastard is finally able to wager his own life, and the tension in their rivalry develops so seamlessly and frenetically over the course of the arc that you’ll find yourself blazing through the volumes by the minute. I shit you not. I am a phenomenally slow reader, and I was able to get through the entirety of Washizu Mahjong’s 200-some chapters in just over a couple of weeks. It’s honestly that gripping.
I can also wholly recommend the Akagi anime, which is a faithful albeit incomplete adaptation that nevertheless works great as a prelude to the manga. The stylism of Fukumoto’s art is reworked into the iconic bold linework and shading of the character designs would go on to define the look for all future Fukumoto anime adaptations, and while it suffers a bit visually due to the scenery being fairly stagnant within arcs (which is less of a glaring issue in monochrome), it has a killer OST by Hideki Taniuchi of Death Note and Kaiji fame that never fails to ramp up the tense atmosphere, along with some stellar vocal performances. It’s just too bad that there will never be any more of it.
Ten: Tenhoudoori no Kaidanji
Ten: The Nice Guy on the Path of Tenhou
Completed
163 chapters (18 volumes)
Noob Friendliness Rating: 1/5
Now this one’s a bit weird. Although set chronologically around 20 years after the events of Akagi, in our timeline Ten began serialisation in 1989 and continued up until 2002, which means that for around a decade the two were being published back-to-back. I can only imagine that this would have caused some bizarre narrative whiplash for any avid Kindai reader at the time, but you in the modern age do not have to concern yourself with such tomfoolery. Ultimately, Ten is an indirect sequel and can be read before Akagi without risk of significant spoilers, but in terms of emotional and narrative impact, I’d argue that Ten is best read directly after Akagi. Your mileage may vary on this issue, but in the end you’ll thank me.
Anyway, Ten is the story of, well, Takashi Ten, a rambunctious wild-haired man in his thirties who has earned a deal of notoriety among mahjong players for his tendency towards elaborate forms of cheating. Specifically, he uses a technique known as tsubame-gaeshi, which involves covertly swapping out your starting hand with a set of pre-prepared tiles to artificially create a tenhou (one of the highest-value hands in mahjong that can only be obtained when the round’s dealer ends up with a complete set of tiles in their starting hand) - hence the title. Ten soon meets Hiroyuki Igawa, a straight-laced university student who is functionally Ten’s opposite in every way and is initially disapproving of everything he does. However, after witnessing firsthand Ten’s reasons for cheating as well as the violent consequences brought on him by his actions, Hiroyuki slowly warms to him.
The early chapters of Ten feature a stylistic and tonal disconnect from a lot of Fukumoto’s later works (the first volume doesn’t even have any of his iconic zawas); the artstyle is evocative of an 80s gag manga and the story reflects this, generally focusing on goofy slice-of-life shenanigans that just so happen to revolve around mahjong. This gradually morphs into something a little more akin to Akagi or Kaiji in terms of artstyle and tone, but still retains some of this core DNA right up until close to the end of the series.
While the characters and their dynamics develop significantly beyond what is typical of a slice-of-life sitcom, and while the last arc especially has a far heavier tone than anything before it, the majority of the games in Ten are still relatively low-stakes, more comparable to your regular sports anime in the sense that the characters don’t risk their lives or livelihoods but rather their pride and their ability to prove themselves. The absence of any threat of imminent mortality might seem a bit jarring in a Fukumoto series, but the character drama is generally strong enough to carry the whole thing, even if the pace does lag a bit in places. There’s one particular arc that, while its chapter count is still nowhere near that of Washizu Mahjong, is essentially just one game of mahjong stretched out as far as the existing narrative could allow it to, and fails to be quite as relentlessly addictive as its Akagi counterpart.
However, there’s still more than enough to keep you interested across its run. Shigeru Akagi, for example, is now in his forties but still as compelling a character as ever; his memes have changed but he’s still the same comic, and Hiroyuki especially has some phenomenally relatable moments. The games still have a lot of psychological depth to them; even though Ten does focus a fair bit more on the various cheating techniques used in mahjong, these are seamlessly integrated with psychological tactics in a way many other mahjong manga of the period fail to do. And if that’s still not enough, then, well. The last arc - an exploration of Akagi’s character that somehow manages to surpass everything else Fukumoto had written up to this point - makes it all worth it, trust me.
Hero: Gyakkyou no Touhai
Hero: The Man Who Overcomes All Odds
Ongoing
Noob Friendliness Rating: 1/5
This is one of two Akagi threequels which, alongside Yamima no Mamiya, is currently in the process of being serialised. Hero follows the exploits of - you guessed it - Hiroyuki Igawa, and picks up the story from more or less the point where Ten’s epilogue ends. As this is a direct sequel to Ten, definitely make sure you’ve read that first, as spoilers abound. Actually, fun fact - I only used ‘Gyakkyou no Touhai’ as the subtitle here because the official one contains a giant spoiler for the last arc of Ten. So, yeah. Don’t you even look this shit up until you’ve finished Ten!
Anyway, 3 years after <redacted> happens, Hiroyuki meets up with Ten with the intent of challenging him to a mahjong battle and finally besting him. However, things go awry, and they do so in dramatic fashion; Ten suddenly disappears, Hiroyuki’s other mentor figure Sawada is taken hostage, and Hiroyuki finds himself suddenly swept up in an elaborate conspiracy as he races against time to both find Ten and save Sawada.
I’ll admit, I didn’t really go into this one with high hopes. Part of that was because it felt a bit redundant - Hiroyuki’s arc had reached a satisfying conclusion in Ten, and moreover, there was another threequel being published simultaneously featuring a new never-before-seen character! Another reason was that - due to what I now realise was an unfair bias - I had assumed that because Hero wasn’t drawn by Fukumoto, it would lose a lot of its characteristic flair. In spite of all that, though, I found a lot to love about it - so yeah, I guess Hero is Good Actually.
One thing I will say that I feel proved my fears weren’t entirely unfounded - Hero’s Hiroyuki is a bit bland compared to his depiction in Ten. That might be due to the fact that his character development is a bit outplayed, or because he no longer has anyone he can really bounce of off all that strongly in Ten’s absence, or even because he’s now burdened by protagonist-grade plot armour, but it’s probably too early to make a blanket judgment seeing as his character could still improve in the future. And even if it doesn’t, the other characters pack more than enough intrigue to make up for it. Hero actually reminds me a lot of Tobaku Haouden Zero, another Fukumoto series, in this way; both have relatively uninspiring protagonists but feature such off-the-walls scenarios and zany supporting cast members that they’re enjoyable to read regardless - which is particularly impressive in the case of Hero as, being an Akagi threequel, it only has mahjong to work with. (Also, because their titles rhyme it’s tempting to consider that this choice could have been intentional.)
The art is, however, understandably a point of contention. Although Jirou Maeda, artist of Hero, is a former assistant of Fukumoto’s, he very much takes his own approach to the art and character designs here. And while there’s nothing particularly stylised about it, it’s nonetheless very easy on the eyes, and gives a more polished and cinematic quality to the story that isn’t usually possible in the minimalist artstyle of your usual Fukumoto manga. Even so, he for some reason insists on emulating Fukumoto’s style during flashbacks to Ten, which to me, even as someone who generally appreciates style-switching to show flashbacks or changes in perspective, did feel a little jarring. I don’t know. I suppose I just feel that if you’re going to bring your own style to a sequel series, you ought to go all the way.
There is one thing that I feel Hero does better than any other Fukumoto manga, however; it goes out of its way to add references to the specific place and time of the setting, and often integrates them into the story as either plot points or running gags. The prime example of this is when a character’s ringtone - namely Britney Spears’s ‘Oops I Did It Again’ - plays out at inopportune moments (and honestly, I’d challenge you to name something that screams ‘early 00s cheese’ more than that). Akagi did nothing similar to this with its own setting, despite also being historical from the standpoint at which it was written, but Hero fully embraces its setting as part of its charm; pieces of worldbuilding can be jokes, or things that drive the plot forward, or all of the above simultaneously, and if that isn’t good writing then I don’t know what is.
Yamima no Mamiya
Mamiya of Mahjong Darkness
Ongoing
Noob Friendliness Rating: 1/5
It might sound a bit presumptuous of me to say this about a manga that, at the time of writing, only has around 2 volumes’ worth of content (of which only 5 chapters have been translated into English), but I believe this to be Fukumoto’s best work. Why, do you ask? Well.
You may have heard about the fact that, in May of 2019, Japan entered a new Imperial era known as the Reiwa jidai. All this really meant is that a new emperor had been coronated, but despite this change not making any huge material difference in the lives of Japanese citizens, culturally speaking, it’s a pretty big deal (which, living in the UK, is a mindset I can confirm is common to constitutional monarchies as a whole). Anyway, Nobuyuki Fukumoto decided to honour this by starting a new Akagi threequel set in 2019 - 20 years on from the final arc of Ten - and starring a mysterious never-before-seen character known only as ‘Mamiya’. (The nature of this timing also meant that while Yamima no Mamiya chronologically takes place after Hero, it has no relation to it beyond what ties both series to the events of Ten. So you can freely read all 5 chapters that currently exist while completely ignoring Hero, if you so wish.)
I digress. If you’re at all familiar with Fukumoto’s work, you’ll know that the majority of it is explicitly set in the context of the 90s or early 00s, although certain aspects seem even more dated than that given his general refusal to depict female characters in anything other than the most minor supporting roles. Yamima no Mamiya appears to gleefully defenestrate all of this, bringing classic Fukumoto absurdity well into the modern era and also casting its titular protagonist as - yes, indeed - a woman.
Of course, I did go into this cautiously optimistic as it seemed likely that someone with Fukumoto’s track record would find it difficult to do his first female protagonist justice, but so far he’s managed to avoid making too many substantial hiccups. Mamiya draws many parallels with Akagi - right down to the titles of their respective manga - and in some ways embodies everything he stands for even better as a woman, seeing as she is also largely pitted against entitled old men. And while her interactions with some of these men do take on a sexual undertone, it’s always framed in such a way as to give Mamiya herself power over the situation. Now, I wouldn’t say that Yamima no Mamiya is necessarily ‘woke’; the trope of women weaponising their sexualities to get their way can have its own problematic baggage if handled in a certain way, and ultimately we’ll just have to see how the rest of it plays out. However, for Fukumoto, it’s definitely something new, and for that much I can appreciate it.
The way mahjong is used in this one is also pretty interesting. Since Washizu Mahjong, which shook up the game’s (and by extension, the series’s) formula by introducing a set of tiles that are three-quarters completely transparent, Fukumoto has become something of a master of altering the game’s rules across all of his many stories featuring mahjong in order to keep things fresh and interesting. Yamima no Mamiya uses a slightly more complex but nonetheless extremely fun gimmick that, hence the title, is based in the theme of darkness; everything works the same except that players now have the option to discard tiles face-down by wagering a certain amount of points, which in turn can be countered if another player doubles the wager, and so on. Plus, each of these moves come with their own distinct calls, such as yami-gaeshi (‘darkness reversal’) or kan-yami (‘total darkness’), which sound like something right out of an edgy battle-shounen and only heighten the ever-present hilarity and absurdity.
In the world of the manga, it’s implied that this has become the dominant ruleset for mahjong within the Reiwa era and - despite not reflecting the reality of the actual modern mahjong scene (as I honestly doubt Fukumoto is all that familiar with online mahjong anyway) - whether intentionally or not, seems strangely fitting. Darkness is more than rampant in these days of pestilence and late capitalism, after all.
Washizu: Enma no Touhai
Washizu: Lord of Mahjong Hell
Completed
53 chapters (8 volumes) *Partial English Translation*
Noob Friendliness Rating: 3/5
Given how iconic Iwao Washizu is as a character within the Akagi cinematic universe, being far and above the most compelling villain to come out of it (and arguably one of the best even within Fukumoto’s wider body of work), it seems inevitable that he would eventually receive two separate prequel series telling the story of how he became the eponymous ‘Monster of the Shouwa era’. Enma no Touhai, the first part, is currently the only one with any chapters in English, and even then a translation exists for only about a quarter of the series - though that may change, given how erratic the scanlation landscape can be.
If you happen to have read all other entries in the Akagi cinematic universe and are still starving for related content, or even if you’ve only read Akagi and are just really curious to see a younger Washizu in action, then by all means dig in, although personally I find this series somewhat difficult to recommend in earnest. Washizu ultimately does something similar to Chuukan Kanriroku Tonegawa, which - also being penned entirely without Fukumoto’s direct creative input - took one of the most iconic opponents from the Kaiji series and made a prequel told from his perspective, developing the world and characters beyond the scope of what was possible in the original source material. However, while Tonegawa actually changed its entire framework along with its perspective to become this hilariously ironic office-based sitcom about the everyday woes of being a middle manager, Washizu keeps a similar framework to that of its parent series.
This isn’t an inherently bad thing when considered in isolation, and even in the context of Akagi it makes some sense - after all, there were plenty of parallels drawn between Akagi and Washizu in the original series, so it makes sense that their stories would perhaps mirror each other. However, by doing this, I feel it loses something of Akagi’s original essence. Akagi, and virtually all other works by Fukumoto, show a deep scepticism towards neoliberal capitalism and often explore the various damaging effects it has on the minds and material conditions of working-class people, both young and old, in dramatic fashion. This certainly isn’t unique to him among creatives, and while I’d never call any of his manga revolutionary texts (indeed, being anticapitalist without offering any alternatives to the current system is a pretty cheap position to have these days), but it’s still a theme in his work that resonates. Washizu, however, takes one of the biggest baddest capitalists in manga and pretty much just makes him a hero.
By this I don’t mean that he’s made into a paragon of virtue, as that would be absurdly jarring within the context of Akagi - in fact, Washizu is pretty much as needlessly cruel and violent as in his older years. Instead, it’s largely an issue of framing. While Akagi mocked Washizu right down to his driving principles and had most of his comedic moments rely on highlighting how utterly pathetic and sad he is, Washizu is obsessed with making him look as cool as humanly possible (or hell, even just having him do things that are literally humanly impossible at points). And while you could argue that this is supposed to be the tale of Washizu’s downfall, I feel it ultimately fails to acknowledge how all of his past actions would have led to his present situation - and yes, I know it’s not canon, but as a person who writes fanfiction that to me isn’t a viable excuse for not being compelling. Tonegawa, again, also isn’t considered official canon and yet, while it does humanise some of the villains from its source material, doesn’t make them anything more than what they are; cogs in a machine, trying to make the best of their circumstances. This is in stark contrast to how Washizu treats Washizu as though he’s a literal god - and completely self-seriously, I might add.
Outside of that, though, I guess the manga is a fairly decent read. Again, some of the gambling situations Washizu finds himself in are utterly bonkers enough to be entertaining on their own terms, although many of them lack the psychological depth of your typical Fukumoto fare. Some of the minor supporting characters in Akagi that served as Washizu’s henchmen are also given their own backstories and arcs that, while a nice touch, is once again done far more effectively in Tonegawa. The artstyle is, as in Hero, more traditional but still fairly expressive in how it renders both its characters and world, which are fittingly edgy for Washizu as the demon lord that he is. That being said, this also epitomises the issue I talked about earlier; Washizu’s slick look, rather than the distorted and utterly grotesque way he is depicted in Akagi, only serves to make him seem that much more of a total badass.
Atsui ze Pen-chan
Pen-chan’s Heated Passion
Completed
21 chapters (2 volumes) *Partial English Translation*
Noob Friendliness Rating: 4/5
One of Fukumoto’s earliest mahjong-focused stories, pre-dating even Ten, and the first to be given a multi-volume serialisation, this tells the story of Yuuichi Watanabe, better known as Pen-chan - a young man who despite his burning passion for mahjong is absolutely terrible at it. His nickname is a pun using an alternate reading of one of the kanji that form his surname (辺), and is in reference to a specific hand state in mahjong wherein the player requires one of two terminal number tiles to win. Usually, this sort of hand state is very unfavourable to the player, so the fact that this is his nickname should tell you something about how he plays.
Clever puns are just about where this manga’s intelligence ends, though. As you might recall, earlier I mentioned that a lot of Fukumoto’s early work has a gag-manga style and is a lot more lighthearted than what he later became known for. The first volume of Pen-chan is the purest example of this that I could find, with each chapter being a largely episodic story revolving around one particular character or situation, and it gets increasingly bonkers as it goes along, veritably shedding braincells as it devolves into utter nonsense.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. The first chapter presents a fairly typical sitcom scenario; a guy is bad at something, the consequences of this cause some friction between him and his long-suffering girlfriend, and he tries to win her back by getting good. Pretty simple and although cliche and goofy, still fairly grounded (aside from one utterly fantastical scene where a train gets stopped for 5 whole minutes so Pen-chan can pick up the mahjong tiles he dropped on the tracks). The next few chapters we see Pen-chan gambling, at his part-time job in a Chinese restaurant, and then suddenly his boss is covering himself in poo for no discernable reason and he’s having a dream where he gets turned into a 1-pin tile before having to create the ideal ‘mahjong hand of life’ so that he can wake up. I’m not kidding, that’s literally what happens.
Supposedly it starts to have an actual story by volume 2, but in order to get to that you have to get through volume 1, which is as I’ve described. It’s not that it’s bad because it’s absurd - in fact I generally adore absurdist comedy - but because it fails to really turn that absurdity into anything all that funny. It does have a few moments that work decently well just purely for how ridiculous they are, but for every joke like that there are at least five more that either rely on some form of prejudice or whose punchline makes no fucking sense.
Which leads me to my next point - it’s dated as hell, far more than anything else Fukumoto has written. Pen-chan features (to my knowledge) his only canonically gay character, who moments after his introduction forces Pen-chan and his ally, Yamazaki, to accept a wager where they will have to have sex with him if they lose. Because of the manga’s lighthearted tone, he doesn’t feel like a terrifying threat, but he and his sexuality are still very much treated as objects of ridicule. And then Pen-chan wins him over by accusing him of being a mahjong racist (don’t ask).
There’s more. Pen-chan and his girlfriend, Megumi, break up off-screen between chapters 1 and 2 before Megumi agrees to go back to him after essentially just being told to ‘give him another chance’ by Yamazaki, a guy she barely knows (and this is even after she finds a much more reliable boyfriend who never misses a date with her because the hanchan went on longer than expected). There’s a bit where Pen-chan literally puts his hand in a girl’s pants to retrieve a tile that dropped there, and an entire chapter that revolves around Yamazaki trying to overcome his fear of asking out a much younger - possibly even underage - woman. I might add that Yamazaki also goes on to just straight up leave Pen-chan homeless and destitute because he believes a man ought to ‘fend for himself’. Honestly, what a prick.
I know I did say I’d try not be too spoilery, but I’m of the opinion that Pen-chan is one of those manga that can’t really be ruined for you unless you read it. Okay, that’s a bit hyperbolic - it has a few redeeming moments, and if you’re a Fukumoto fan who’s interested in seeing what sort of shit our boy made when he first started out, try it and see what you can get out of it (though be aware that around half a volume as yet remains untranslated). Otherwise, I can’t really recommend this one - the art and especially the writing are extremely rough and it really has little appeal outside of just being a comedy that features mahjong. So unless that specifically is your thing, you’re not very likely to enjoy it.
Mudazumo Naki Kaikaku
The Legend of Koizumi: Reform Without Bad Draws
Completed
Manga: 144 chapters (16 volumes) *Partial English Translation*
Anime: 3 episodes (~10 minutes each)
Noob Friendliness Rating: 5/5
Do you like political satire? Do you know how to play mahjong? Do you have absolutely no fucking clue how to play mahjong, but like the idea of bombastic shounen battles mediated via mahjong between our glorious world leaders? Well, have I got a manga for you.
Mudazumo Naki Kaikaku is the untold legend of Junichirou Koizumi, former Prime Minister of Japan (whose title refers to its protagonist’s reputation for being a ‘reformist’ politician), following his exploits in the years after his leave from office. It also happens to be set in a world where all political conflicts are solved directly via mahjong, so you know what you’re getting into. And with its abundance of hypermasculine caricatures and battle sequences all rendered in a heavily shaded, superrealist style, Mudazumo achieves a comedic effect that is simultaneously somewhere between the irreverent sarkiness of Spitting Image and the most utterly braincell-bereft battle-shounen you can think of.
Political satire is pretty uncommon among manga, I would imagine largely due to its target demographic being mainly comprised of teenagers and young adults. In fact, the only other example I have come across in a similar vein is Axis Powers Hetalia - but even then Mudazumo is rather unique in how it chooses to lay its focus on real, living people. Then there’s the mahjong, which is mainly used as a vehicle through which to carry the humour - although some of the jokes will make more sense if you understand the rules, it’s often not necessary as in most cases it is simply each politician’s legacy and outlook merely being described in an alternate form. As someone who really enjoys this particular brand of political satire, and also as someone who enjoys themselves a good dumb shounen romp, I was ready to love Mudazumo. And… well. While it’s not so much that I don’t recommend it, I do have some complicated feelings towards it. So let’s discuss those.
The most worthwhile parts of Mudazumo are the manga’s first arc, known as Ragnarok or Twilight of the Gods, and the OVA, which constructs a largely original narrative over three 10-minute episodes with nods to various plot points from each of the major manga arcs. Despite being very haphazard and very short, the OVA is a lot of fun, particularly to watch with other people who also appreciate high-effort animated shitposts.
The Ragnarok arc, meanwhile, is a generally milquetoast narrative that revolves around world leaders settling their differences in order to combat the existential threat of literal space Nazis, who in this timeline managed to flee from Earth and resuscitate themselves following the end of the Second World War. Taking the form of a tournament arc which culminates in a final confrontation against a revived Adolf Hitler on the ‘Fourth Reich’ (better known as the moon), it’s kind of hard not to enjoy, even if some of its humour comes across as a bit dated in places (because, as utterly ludicrous as the concept of fascist zombies would have seemed in the late 00s, it’s a bit more sobering nowadays when these ideologies are experiencing an ugly resurgence across the world). Still, it’s far easier to stan than any of Mudazumo’s follow-up arcs.
For me at least, the case of Mudazumo was more than just an issue of the manga refusing to bow out after it had managed to deliver a spectacular finale that pretty much took the limits of its premise about as far as they could go, although I think there was some element of that in informing the declining quality of its later chapters. Mainly though, it just became more and more difficult to stomach as each arc began to take on more and more overt right-wing talking points without even a shred of irony.
The arc immediately after Ragnarok features an all-new protagonist - a gung-ho military nerd who teams up with a bunch of other gung-ho military nerds to own the opposition to Japan’s centre-right Liberal Democratic Party (of which Koizumi himself was a member) in a bid to gain more funding for Japan’s space program and the self-defence forces. While this arc does have some moments of workable comic absurdity - such as the Prime Minister ineffectually trying to hide the fact that he has been possessed by a Venusian cockerel whose playstyle consists of literally flipping the game table in order to sabotage the protagonists’ efforts - the massively pro-militarist vibes it introduced made for a wholly uncomfortable viewing experience. These same vibes are also carried through to the third arc, which revolves around the ongoing Senkaku Islands dispute with China, and, well, if you expected Mudazumo to handle this at all maturely, then at this point I don’t really know what to say to you.
I think that the ultimate failing of Mudazumo as a political satire lies in its constant need to have a ‘good guy vs bad guy’ narrative. While this works in the Ragnarok arc (as it’s hard to imagine any group that more clearly fits the ‘bad guy’ trope in human history than literal fucking Nazis), once the ultimate evil has been defeated it’s left floudering trying to find somebody to take its place. The other situations it describes would have required some level of nuance in order to work as satire, and so at best just devolve into right-wing neoliberal propaganda. And you could even argue that Mudazumo carries this baggage from its inception, given its choice to cast Koizumi - who despite being seen as a ‘liberal moderate’ who is famous for allowing George Bush to throw up into his lap, is still very much a centre-right political figure - as the unambiguous hero. To my mind, satire works best when it punches up, taking those with power to task and cheekily deconstructing the excuses and pretenses for their actions - but Mudazumo, particularly in its later arcs, only gives those in power yet more excuses.
Also if one person tries to tell me that it’s ‘just a meme dude’ and that I wasn’t supposed to critically analyse it I’ll fucking
Saki
Ongoing
Anime: 38 episodes
Noob Friendliness Rating: 3/5
Saki Miyanaga is a highschool freshman who, despite her innate skill with mahjong, is discouraged from it due to her family’s strict attitude towards the game. This all changes when she is pressganged into joining her school’s mahjong club by her childhood friend-slash-complete third wheel and is subsequently forced by the club president to demonstrate her true ability at the game, earning a rival-slash-love interest in the pink-haired tsundere and reigning middle-school champion Nodoka Haramura in the process. Following this experience, Saki learns to love mahjong again and endeavours to recontextualise her family relations through it, deciding to aim for the national high-school championships with her club in the hopes of reconciling with her estranged older sister.
What follows are pretty much your usual sports-shounen antics - training montages, an extended tournament arc, dramatic introductions to rival players - with added tiles and yuri bait. Saki gets a lot of flak for being ‘another’ moeblob show, and while it’s true that there isn’t much all that original or compelling about it, with a formulaic plot, largely simplistic understanding of the game it’s based on, and characters that don’t stray far out of the tropes and gimmicks they’re introduced with, I feel there’s slightly more appeal to it than that.
Female-led sports anime and manga are extremely rare outside of meme-and-fanservice fodder like Keijo!!!!!!!! (not a typo, it just has that many exclamation marks) and this is also true for those that focus on tactical board games in a competitive environment. Even the critically acclaimed and widely beloved Hikaru no Go and Sangatsu no Lion don’t generally tend towards positive female representation within the male-dominated sports their narratives are structured around. One great example of a show that breaks the mould in this way is Chihayafuru, but even then can only do so in the context of a sport - namely, competitive karuta - whose unique cultural history lends it towards having prominent female players.
This is not to say that Saki is better than any of the above shows - in fact, if you ask my opinion, Saki is pretty mediocre overall in comparison - but in being a serious female-led sports series that focuses specifically on the traditionally male-dominated mahjong scene, it does at least contribute something, and if girls doing sport is what you’re here for, it’ll have you covered. That also isn’t to say that Saki does this perfectly, either - there’s enough fanservice that it will turn some viewers away, although not enough to be any sort of outlier within anime as a whole, and is still largely kept out of the more dramatically tense scenes. Still, Saki does manage not to just have girls but various different types of girls - both in appearance and mannerisms - that while still fairly tropey and moe, are each distinct enough to liven up the stage.
Plus, I personally enjoy how the central theming of Saki marks a significant departure from your usual tense gambling action - as although many interesting mahjong stories can be told through this lens, mahjong is also a thing people do for fun because they enjoy it. Saki acknowledges this, despite being structured around competitive sports, by focusing on the bonds the titular character forms through the game that she once distanced herself from and having her arc be about learning to enjoy playing again. Its handling of this theme could be termed cheesy, and while it certainly doesn’t use the game in any deep or meaningful way - in fact, each of the girls’ gimmicks pretty much translate in the game to hyperspecialised shounen-esque mahjong superpowers, such as Saki herself virtually always winning via rinshan tsumo or dead-wall draw - but it’s still the closest depiction (in terms of tone, at least) of how I personally experience the game, and for that alone I can appreciate it.
Tetsuya: Jansei to Yobetara Otoko
Legendary Gambler Tetsuya
Completed
Manga: 339 chapters (41 volumes) *Partial English Translation*
Anime: 20 episodes
Noob Friendliness Rating: 1/5
Set against a backdrop of postwar Tokyo, Tetsuya tells the story of - as you might be surprised to know - a man named Tetsuya Asada who, having been inspired by a mentor of his he met during wartime, moves to Shinjuku in order to eke out a living playing underground high-stakes mahjong. However, his skill quickly goes to his head and he ends up bested by a professional swindler called Boushu who refuses to share his trade secrets with Tetsuya until the younger man can prove himself a determined gambler. Cue a series of generally self-contained arcs in which Tetsuya, along with Boushu and his later ally Danchi, meet and battle against skilled opponents of varying degrees of sanity and cruelty in the smoky parlours of Shinjuku.
From that premise alone you can probably distinguish some clear points of comparison to Akagi - and indeed both are historical dramas focused around mahjong with typically lone-wolf protagonists that even use a similar arc structure. Aside from that though, Tetsuya is a drastically different character to Akagi; at least in the beginning, he’s hotheaded and quick to anger, and despite his edgy loner-boy disposition he forms strong bonds with the major recurring cast members (albeit in a very hypermasculine and indirect fashion). This makes him more of a typical manga protagonist and less immediately interesting as a character (in fact, I’d say some members of the supporting cast eclipsed him in terms of intrigue), but the story still gets a decent amount of mileage out of him, particularly in the early episodes and the final arc.
Tetsuya also uses a lot more of its historical setting than Akagi does, with entire arcs directly inspired by the postwar methamphetamine epidemic or the Imperial regime’s banning of ‘un-Japanese’ cultural articles such as jazz music during the war (I feel that Japan’s history of fascism goes generally unexplored in a lot of historical anime - even Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises shies away from depicting its full brutality - so even though this detail isn’t explored that deeply in the arc, it’s still appreciated). Because of this, the atmosphere of cutthroat illegal dealings in Tetsuya is made that much more tangible - and, in the anime, is helped along by a haunting OST that makes surprisingly effective use of didgeridoo and reverb (it’s not Hideki Taniuchi, but it’s certainly distinctive and perhaps my favourite part of the show overall).
The manga, being 41 volumes, continues far beyond the scope of the anime, although unlike its Akagi counterpart, the Tetsuya anime to my mind chooses to leave on a satisfying note character development-wise, so there’s no immediate need afterward to dive into a lengthy manga for which no full English translation currently exists. What Tetsuya does want for, however, is a punch to rival its contemporaries. While there is some psychological depth to each game, it doesn’t lean into this angle as much as Fukumoto’s works do, nor does it boast anything as utterly wild as Washizu Mahjong (though there are a few characters who possess near-inhuman abilities). Instead there’s a lot more focus specifically on cheating techniques, which - while fine if you prefer a more straightforward iteration of the game - is less effective at creating character drama and overall leaves less impact. Given that all the main characters have to do in each arc is to just work out how their opponents are cheating and then figure out some way to counteract it, the structure ends up feeling more than a little formulaic after a while (which is another reason to take the 20-episode anime over the much longer manga). Overall, though, Tetsuya is a pretty solid experience and a worthwhile watch among the select few mahjong manga that have received anime adaptations.
Mahjong Hishouden: Naki no Ryuu
The Crying Dragon
Completed
72 chapters (9 volumes) *Partial English Translation*
Anime: 4 episodes (~40 minutes each)
Noob Friendliness Rating: 2/5
Ryuu, a drifter, charlatan and mahjong player who, always brutally suave in his domination of the game with his rapid playstyle that relies on naki or ‘calls’ (which allow you to steal tiles from other players’ discard piles but require you to reveal part of your hand in the process), has become something of an urban legend due to his tendency to play for or against the members of various prominent yakuza groups. As the story unfolds, his fate becomes directly entwined with that of some of the biggest players in Japan’s criminal underworld as he deftly and callously manipulates their lives via the tiles.
I’ll admit I had gone into this one with reasonably high expectations given the clear Akagi parallels to Ryuu’s character and the fact that it was high-profile enough to gain two OVA adaptations (the first of which was produced by Gainax, of all studios). And while it has a lot of aesthetic intrigue - with its dynamic panel flow being perhaps one of the smoothest depictions of the game I’ve seen - and its chapter titles each evoking the names of various Buddhist deities, it’s hard to get invested in outside of that.
While some may enjoy it solely for its chaotic, overlapping narrative and its commentary on the intertwining fates of men (which I think could have been really interesting if handled differently), its lack of any narrative grounding makes it hard to emotionally relate to the characters or even in some cases to follow the story. The first chapter plunges you straight into a game without ever really explaining what the individual stakes are or what each player’s general deal is until well after the fact, if at all. And, look, I get that ‘show don’t tell’ is a golden rule, but it has its limits. There’s only so far you can go without resorting to exposition. And while it gets slightly better in this regard as it goes on, it still remains very emotionally detached.
Of course, that’s not to say that detaching your audience is always necessarily a bad thing - as I mentioned earlier in this post, it’s used to great effect in Akagi - but Naki no Ryuu’s employment of this technique applies to more than just one character and so as a whole only serves to make its audience confused. With Akagi, we’re able to piece together his general demeanour through each of the perspectives we’re given and this produces added intrigue when we’re introduced to the possibility that their assessments of him might be wrong, but with Ryuu, no grounding perspective means the audience can’t really relate to the character much at all. And personally, I just don’t think that’s a decision that really serves this story. It also doesn’t help that a large amount of screentime seems to be dedicated only to showcasing the various different ways Ryuu can own randos with no effort made to tie any of these episodes into the broader overarching plot. Anyway, my recommendation would be to put this one on the back burner, if at all.
Mukoubuchi: Kou-Rate Uramahjong Betsuden
Mukoubuchi: Tales of High-Stakes Underground Mahjong
Ongoing
Noob Friendliness Rating: 1/5
Mukoubuchi, whose title refers to a term used to describe ‘true, lone-wolf gamblers’, follows yet another Akagi-like character known only as Kai, an enigmatic badass who shows up like an apparition wherever high-stakes mahjong games are to be found, only to utterly wreck the competition in the process. Set against the backdrop of the 1980s, in a time before Japan’s economic bubble burst, this manga explores the explosion in high-stakes gambling that occurred in the mahjong scene at the time.
Largely structured in a monster-of-the-week format, distinct from both Akagi and Tetsuya’s arc structure and Naki no Ryuu’s chaotic sprawling narrative, each chapter of Mukoubuchi introduces a new character or concept for Kai to interact with, and it doesn’t get too repetitive or formulaic with it either. As in Akagi and Naki no Ryuu, we never get to see Kai’s perspective or really even learn that much about him, with the closest thing the story has to a narrator instead being Yasunaga, a mahjong pro by day who indulges in illegal gambling by night. This works decently well for the narrative, though, as unlike those other two Kai is never really implied to be anything more than what he appears - a ghost, a force of nature almost who could be conceived of as the personification of risk itself; an abyss of a person who represents nothing but the destructive nature of high-stakes gambling.
It’s decent enough - there are a few one-off characters that are pretty interesting and it has enough variety within its scope of how it approaches the game to keep things fresh (and a good thing too, as it has been running in Kindai Mahjong now for more than two decades). That being said, there isn’t too much about it that makes it instantly stand out, save for the decidedly iconic way Kai delivers his punchline ‘Terribly sorry’ each time he wins. It’s great if you’d rather have a truly episodic narrative that forgoes any chance of an overarching story, or would rather something with a more conventional artstyle, but it never matches for character drama anything by Fukumoto or even Tetsuya, possibly in part due to the inherent constraints of its format.
Tetsunaki no Kirinji
The Prodigy of Iron Calls
Completed
147 chapters (15 volumes)
Noob Friendliness Rating: 1/5
This is, to my knowledge, the only other Kindai Mahjong serialisation on this list aside from Akagi to have received the multi-series franchise treatment, complete with a sequel and a currently ongoing threequel (the latter has no chapters out in English, but features an all-new tomboy protagonist if that should pique your interest). Anyway, Tetsunaki no Kirinji and its direct sequel Kabukichou Seiatsu-hen is the tale of Rinji Kiriya, an unemployed good-for-nothing online mahjong player (relatable) and a divorcee dad who is eventually compelled away from his computer to gamble real money in a Kabukichou parlour in order to earn enough child support funds to piece his crumbling family back together.
The first arc, which totals a reasonably accessible 42 chapters, is still largely your usual gambling antics, although its central conflict is a fair bit more grounded than that of many other mahjong stories. To reflect this, the gambling is interspersed with wholesome scenes of family bonding and the whole thing is drawn in a bold and poppy artstyle that manages not to feel forced at any point despite the major tonal shifts within and between chapters. Some of the characters were pretty fun - Kiriya can be easily likened to Kaiji in the fact that although he does not want for lack of skill, struggles continuously to escape his underdog disposition (although, fear not if you found Kaiji depressing, as Kirinji is an overall much more lighthearted offering while still featuring somewhat similar character beats). A few of the villains are also decently developed, including the major antagonist, who goes from seeming almost cartoonishly cruel in the beginning to being fairly well-rounded and sympathetic.
In fact, virtually all of the Kirinji opponents are eventually revealed to have some sort of relatable baggage, and while this in general is a cool thing for a story to do, I found a few issues in how it was handled. As far as villains are concerned, Kirinji seems to only ever be able to present them as purely heartless thugs we’re meant to hate or as sympathetic people at any one time. And while obviously, audience perceptions of a character will naturally change as they learn more about them following on from their initial presentation, in Kirinji the perspective changes happen so drastically and suddenly it leaves you with more than a bit of narrative whiplash. Generally, you’d expect a character introduced as an exaggeratedly evil person to stay as an exaggeratedly evil person, so this tendency of Kirinji’s towards its antagonists ends up becoming a hurdle of sorts to the uninitiated - an endurance test, if you will, to see if you’re willing to put up with several chapters of utter douchebaggery in order to get to the good stuff. And it’s really not helped by the fact that its fan translation is somewhat subpar, serving to only accentuate the villains’ often egregious dialogue.
That being said, though, the manga does get better as it goes along. The final game is a climactic four-way battle in which each individual player is fully invested in the outcome - which is actually something that you can’t say for a lot of the games in mahjong manga, as they often end up functionally being two-on-two fights with the other two players having no more leeway over the situation than the spectators - and ends on a satisfying, albeit cheesily sentimental, note. The first arc does leave a lot of plot threads hanging, although the fact that a full English translation exists of its immediate sequel makes this a bit less of a problem. Overall, though, it’s pretty decent and I can recommend, especially if you like your gambling stories with a bit more cartoon cheese than how they are typically served.
Death Pie
Completed
9 chapters (1 volume)
Noob Friendliness Rating: 4/5
This is an interesting one. I was initially attracted to it on the basis of it being short, fully translated, and the fact that it is billed in its official description as ‘The most hardcore, action-packed mahjong manga you will ever see’. And, well, I can’t even really refute that claim, as it does certainly feature a lot of action in the vein of James Bond-style gunfights and explosions. It’s just that even with those it fails to be anything but hot trash.
Anyway, the premise. The title of Death Pie is in reference to the ‘death pipe’, a term apparently used by organised crime syndicates to refer to the systematic killing of the relatives and friends of a person suspected of leaking trade secrets in the hopes of preventing the spread of information. Pai is also one way of reading the kanji for ‘mahjong tile’ in Japanese, so it even manages to fit that aspect in. However - as with Pen-chan - the singular most interesting thing about this manga in the end is its title.
That is what Death Pie purports to be about, and while it certainly seems an attempt was made to try and marry a tense psycho-thriller to a bombastic action romp, it utterly fails to deliver either. There’s no psychological depth to either the games or the characters - the act of doing mahjong in this manga basically amounts to the narrative literally just telling you what sort of cheats each player is using without even bothering to rack up any tension in lieu of reveals, and this continues until somebody at the table literally explodes. The action has no real impact or meaning outside of literally just being a cool explosion on the page, and although the concept of ‘death pipe’ is mentioned several times by several characters the reader is never, not once, given a clear idea of how any of these characters relate to it. So, yeah - if ever there was a manga that I would apply the phrase ‘confusing mess’ to, it would be this one.
Now, you might be thinking, ‘What are you talking about? That sounds amazing and hilarious!’ And I’m not here to try and stop you from reading it if this happens to sound exactly like your kind of thing. Plus, on some level, it is somewhat enjoyable - it’s the kind of manga that would be ideal to dramatically read aloud, preferably drunk and while in the company of friends who share your sense of humour. And that’s why, if only for the presence of a character named Ron (who is presumably named for the same ‘Ron’ one dramatically yells when an opponent discards their winning tile), this is not the worst manga on this list. We will get to that one in due time.
Jansou no Saeko-san
Saeko-san of the Mahjong Parlour
Ongoing
Noob Friendliness Rating: 5/5
The titular Saeko-san, a woman of extraordinary mahjong power levels but a terminal klutz in all other aspects of life, happens to work in an ordinary, if at times dysfunctional, mahjong parlour along with her boss and coworker Honda. This lighthearted and comedic slice-of-life yonkoma series follows these three, along with a growing cast of recurring characters, through their casually bonkers daily lives.
The appeal of Saeko-san is pretty much the same as your typical yonkoma manga - as in, a chaotic compilation of comedic soundbites featuring a bunch of wacky characters - so if you’re personally inclined towards the format’s style of humour, you’re likely to enjoy this. As with Mudazumo, some of the jokes might make a bit more sense if you know a thing or two about mahjong, but broadly no actual knowledge of the game is required. And while the artstyle of Saeko-san is extremely minimalist and not much to look at even among yonkoma manga, there’s a certain charm to the way the characters are rendered that reminds me slightly of a less completely off-the-walls version of Pop Team Epic. But with added tiles, of course.
I don’t really have too much else to say about this one other than that it’s my personal recommendation if, between exposing yourself to intensely psychological and/or tactics-heavy mahjong manga, you just want a cute series featuring tiles to give your mind a break - although bear in mind that currently only about 10 chapters (featuring around 10-12 yonkoma strips each) have been translated.
Aki
Completed
17 chapters (2 volumes)
Noob Friendliness Rating: 4/5
So far we’ve been through the good, the bad, and the decidedly meh of mahjong manga, but even in comparison to the extremely poorly aged humour of Pen-chan and the utter confusion of Death Pie, there are worse manga still. If you want to know about the kind of thing that really gets my goat, look no further than Aki.
As a fan of autobiographical comics - having read and adored Nagata Kabi’s My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, Shigeru Mizuki’s Shouwa and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis - I was pretty excited going into this one. Aki is ostensibly the story of real-life pro mahjong player Aki Nikaidou’s turbulent youth, with particular attention paid to her time spent as a runaway in Tokyo following her estrangement from her parents and the subsequent closure of the mahjong parlour she had grown up in. It’s a premise that attempts to reflect on the very real ennui and existential confusion of being an adolescent while delivering a hopeful ‘it gets better’ message in the process, but all of this is handled near-catastrophically poorly. Allow me to explain.
First of all, despite being billed as an autobiography, the art and - judging from the interviews with the real Nikaidou in the back of volume 2 - large parts of the story were not conceived by her and likely fictionalised. Now, I get that no biographical work is ever going to be a perfectly true-to-life representation of the events it recounts, but when I compare the manga to these interviews I just can’t help but think there was a missed opportunity in all of this.
In this back matter, Nikaidou mentions several, real events that are not brought up in the manga that I personally think could have made for a far more compelling story - such as how she reunited again by chance with her older sister Rumi (who in the manga just disappears from the story entirely after the first few chapters), who also later went on to become a mahjong pro, and how the sisters together managed to find their parents again. In fact, if you’re interested in the story of Aki Nikaidou, I’d honestly just say skip the manga and read this interview instead - there aren’t any pretty pictures but you do get a much better idea of the real woman this title was supposedly inspired by.
I feel like it demonstrates a supreme lack of trust in the story of the person you’re documenting to completely invent new plotlines and characters just to add spice and drama to the narrative. And while I can’t actually prove which bits of Aki are based in truth and which are fictional - Nikaidou in her interview neither confirms nor denies any of the manga’s events aside from her stint working at parlours in Tokyo as a runaway - there are more than a few scenes that appear extremely contrived and cliche if not outright implausible which lead me to believe that the author just took this real person’s life and spun a terrible fanfiction out of it.
Multiple times in the story the fifteen-year-old Aki is thrust into averse sexual situations by much older people, and while it does seem likely that this sort of thing would happen to someone in her circumstances, the framing in these scenes is extremely weird. Instead of grounding the events from Aki’s perspective with an inner monologue where she reflects on the situation, she is instead sexualised in such a way as to align more with her perpetrator’s perspective. Even in the context of purely fiction this would be pretty egregious, but the fact that this is meant to be a representation of a real-ass person makes it even weirder, to the point where you’re left wondering whether the real Nikaidou even read the thing in order for her to sign off on it.
Outside of that the story itself is pretty uninspiring. There’s no real sense of closure to Aki’s arc that feels at all earned - which, as I’ve already mentioned, they could have managed really easily without adding in loads of bullshit - and it only ever pays the barest of lip service to the idea of female pro mahjong players, which seems like a massive oversight considering your story is explicitly about one. And it’s all only made worse by art that seems, for want of a better phrase, to be the style of someone who predominantly works as an ecchi mangaka. (As a disclaimer, this is not to say that ecchi art is automatically bad, but that I feel it really doesn’t work in a story like this one.)
Credit where credit is due - there is a cute scene of Aki reading Akagi in a convenience store, as well as an honest-to-god MILF who plays mahjong, but other than that there is basically nothing about this series that warrants recommendation. It’s the true gomi tier of mahjong manga, and that’s about all I have to say.
Getter Robo Hai
Completed
?? chapters (3 volumes) *Partial English Translation*
Noob Friendliness Rating: 5/5
If you were worried I was going to end off this piece on a sour note, don’t be - because, right after profiling the worst thing on this list, I’m going to introduce you to the very best.
Kindai Mahjong occasionally features, in addition to its original works, spin-offs of series that would normally lie outside of the realm of mahjong manga, whose native universes have now been restructured in order to centre around the mystical majesty of the tiles. Before you ask, Getter Robo Hai is not the only offering of its kind - a Higurashi mahjong spin-off series also exists, if that’s something you can see yourself getting stuck into.
Anyway, Getter Robo Hai (alternatively romanised as Getter Robo High, although this to me feels like a misnomer given the series is not about giant robots attending high school, with the hai instead referring to mahjong tiles) is, as you might tell, loosely based on Go Nagai and Ken Ishikawa’s super-robot classic Getter Robo. Much like it, Hai features combining, transforming mechs and gigantic beasts, only this time the robots are powered by and interface using mahjong. I should not have to explain why that is the single most amazing premise ever conceived by man.
It gets better, though. The protagonist, a hot-blooded red-headed gambler who happens to be the daughter of a legendary mahjong player, is drawn with all the subtlety of a rampaging demon and has a temper to match. She has far more power even than Mamiya, as proven by her ability to kill kaijuu with her bare hands, and establishes herself as a force to be reckoned with well before she gets in the robot. The art, handled by a renowned doujin mangaka, perfectly captures the frenetic and chaotic energy of its bizarre world while simultaneously looking hot as fuck, and it’s so entertaining that it even becomes possible to look past the truly shitty English translation. The catch? As of the time of writing, only a scant 2 chapters are available to read via MangaDex.
Look, I’m a simple man of at times simple pleasures, and if you give me mahjong mechs and a redhead who punches monsters in the face I’ll be happy. Which is why, if an opportunity ever presents itself, I may just stoop to translating this series my damn self. God knows this world needs more and more widely available stories about big fighty robots playing mahjong.
Outro: May The Tiles Be Ever In Your Favour
Well, I guess there’s nothing much left to say other than thanks for reading this far and I hope you enjoyed my extended spiel about mahjong manga. Hopefully it was helpful in some way, and if not, I hope it was at least entertaining watching me splurge out a series of hot takes about an obscure tile game barely anyone cares about.
In the meantime, Happy New Year! I meant to get this out before 2021, but I gravely miscalculated my ability procrastinate, so, yeah. I do have a resolution to try and update more frequently this year though, and I have a lot of ideas in the pipeline, so the next post might come a bit sooner. We’ll see how it goes, I guess.
For now though, stay safe, and happy ‘jonging.
