Line #121 TabletopGame/Mahjong


1	[[quoteright:350:[[Film/LustCaution https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/majiang_1087.jpg]]]]
2
3	'''Mahjong''' (麻將, also written as 麻雀) is arguably the quintessential East-Asian gambling game, although it does not require money stakes. It originated in China during the last half of the 19th century, although the exact details of its creation are ShroudedInMyth. It also has numerous variants; common variants with major differences from the Chinese/Hong Kong variants are detailed in their own sections below. It is not to be confused (although it far too often is) with VideoGame/{{Shanghai}} (aka Mahjong solitaire), which is a completely different one-player tile-matching game played with Mahjong tiles.
4
5	Mahjong is generally played on a square table, with one player seated on each side, as in contract bridge. The game is played using rectangular tiles, with four identical tiles of each type in the set, and at least 34 different tiles, for a total of at least 136 tiles.
6
7	(Note: Where possible, terminology will use the names most commonly seen in English-language editions of the game.
8
9	The set of tiles contains three regular Suits, with individual tiles having a value from one to nine. These suits were inherited from an older card game called Madiao (馬弔) and were originally representations of different units of currency:
10
11	* '''Dots''' (筒子), also called "balls", "circles", "stones", or "loaves", use little circles to represent the number. They originally represented individual copper coins, the Chinese name of the suit (筒) might be a corruption of word for "copper" (銅).
12	* '''Sticks''' (索子), also called "bamboo" or "bams", use little bamboo rods to represent the number. Traditionally, the 1 Stick has a picture of a sparrow perched on it. They originally represented strings of a hundred coins tied together, as the Chinese name of this suit (索), meaning "string" or "thread", suggests.
13	** There are several bird variants for the 1, including cranes, peacocks, and even an owl.
14	* '''Characters''' (萬子/万子), sometimes called "cracks" or "craks", are classical Chinese numerals. Each tile has the specific value written on top (usually in blue), and the ''wán'' character for "myriad" or "ten thousand" on the bottom in red. They originally represented a hundred strings of a hundred coins each (100 x 100 = 10,000), signifying prosperity. Modern sets are commonly marked with Arabic numerals in addition to the Chinese ones. There are in fact three possible ''wán'' characters; the first two are 萬 and 万, and the third is 卍, no longer seen on Western sets [[NoSwastikas for reasons which should be obvious]].
15
16
17	As well as those, there are also the Honour tiles:
18	* Four '''Winds''' (風牌), East (東), South (南), West (西), and North (北).
19	* Three '''Dragons''' (三元牌), Red (中), Green (發), and White (白, represented by a dark bluish frame or a completely blank tile face). Occasionally, the dragon tiles are stylized dragons (with White being a dragon in silver ink, or a frame made up of two blue-outlined dragons).
20	* Eight optional '''Flower''' tiles (花牌), which consists of two sets:
21	** Four (actual) Flower tiles: Plum (梅), Orchid (蘭), Chrysanthemum (菊), and Bamboo (竹). These four plants are part of a [[FlowerMotifs wider motif]] in Chinese art called the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Gentlemen "Four Gentlemen"]].
22	** Four Season tiles: Spring (春), Summer (夏), Autumn (秋), and Winter (冬).
23
24	A game is divided into hands and rounds. Each round is assigned a direction, beginning with East and progressing through South, West, and North in that order. Each player is also assigned a direction, referred to as their seat. The East seat opens every hand; at the end of each hand, the seats rotate anticlockwise (so that East becomes North, South becomes East, etc.) unless the hand was won by East or ended in a draw. A round ends when the East seat returns to the player who started as East. The game ends after four rounds have been played.
25
26	Each player stacks 1/4 of the tiles in a wall in front of them, two tiles high and all facing down. Then, the dealer rolls the dice to determine which wall is broken and where, and the deal starts at the breaking point, for a result similar to cutting a deck of cards. Each player is dealt a hand that usually has 13 tiles. After the deal, play starts with the dealer. Each player, on their own turn, draws the next tile from the wall. If a player does not have a complete hand, they discard one tile, and play continues with the player on their right. The object of the game is to be the first to make a complete hand consisting of a pair and four sets usually consisting of three tiles each. Possible sets are:
27	* '''Chow''' (corruption of 吃, ''chi''), or ''chii'' (チー), also known as '''Sheung''' (上): Three tiles from one of the regular suits in numerical sequence (eg 4,5,6). Numbers do not go "round the corner", i.e. 8,9,1 and 9,1,2 are not valid.
28	* '''Pong''' (碰), or ''pung'', ''pon'' (ポン): Three identical tiles.
29	* '''Kong''' (槓), or ''gang'', ''kan'' (カン): Four identical tiles. Since this is the only possible set with more than three tiles, a kong must be declared and set aside, and the player must draw an additional tile to replace the fourth tile. A kong is worth no more than a pong in most variants; its purpose is mostly to use up the extra tile to avoid having to discard a tile or make it available to another player.
30
31	When a player discards a tile, another player may claim it to form a set if they already have two (for a shueng or pong) or three (for a kong) of the needed tiles in their hand. If a tile is claimed in this manner, play immediately jumps to the claimant. The set made by a discard must be set aside and revealed to the other players; the tiles in it may not be discarded.
32
33	A tile may only be claimed for a chow if it was discarded by the player on the claimant's left (unless it is the final tile needed to win). A tile discarded by anyone may be claimed for a pong or kong. If multiple players claim a discard tile, a player claiming it for a pong or kong is given priority over one claiming it for a chow, and one claiming it as the final tile for victory has priority over all others. The first player to form a complete hand, with four sets and a pair, wins the hand.
34
35	If a flower is drawn, it is set aside and a new tile drawn. Flowers may be worth points at the end of a hand. Each one corresponds to a direction: East is 1, South is 2, West is 3, and North is 4.
36
37	Because [[FourIsDeath the Chinese words for "four" and "west" are both similar to the Chinese for "death"]] (observant players will have noticed that these two ideograms are very similar; one Chinese metaphor for death is "to return to the west", similar to the English-language metaphor in which a gadget which breaks down is said to have "gone south"), superstitions have grown around this:
38
39	#It's considered bad luck to end a Mahjong game during the West round.
40	#In some rule sets, if all four players in succession discard a West Wind, the game is drawn.
41
42	!!Scoring
43
44	The winning hand is awarded points for patterns and winning conditions, then these hand points are converted to ScoringPoints, usually on an exponential scale. If the hand was won by a discarded tile, the discarding player pays the value of the hand to the winner. If the hand was won by a tile drawn from the wall, all three players pay the winner; how the value is split up or duplicated depends on the variant. If the dealer is the winner, they keep the dealer button for an extra hand. If there are not enough tiles left in the wall and nobody has won, the hand ends in a draw; in most variants, this occurs at 14 tiles left. In the event of the draw, the dealer usually keeps the dealer button. Being the dealer often has scoring advantages, although the specific advantages depend on the variant.
45
46	The following bonuses are correct in the Hong Kong variant; other variants may have some differences, but scoring is generally pretty similar. Scores are cumulative, so you get points for each condition satisfied.
47	* If the winning hand is completed by a tile picked up from the wall: 1 point
48	* If that tile was picked up as a result of declaring a kong: 1 extra point
49	* If the winning hand is all chow plus a pair: 1 point
50	* If the winning hand is all pong or kong plus a pair: 3 points
51	* A hand containing only one of the regular suits plus Winds and Dragons is considered ''semi-pure'', and is worth 3 points
52	* A hand containing exclusively one of the regular suits is considered ''pure'', and is worth 6 points
53	* A hand consisting entirely of Winds and Dragons is worth 7 extra points
54	* A pong or kong of the Wind that matches your seat or the current round is worth 1 point.
55	* 1-2 Dragon pongs: 1 point each
56	* Two Dragon pongs and a pair of the third Dragon: 4 points
57	* Three Dragon pongs: 6 points
58	* No Flowers: 1 point
59	* Flower that matches your seat or the current round: 1 point each
60	* All Flowers of a colour: 1 extra point each
61
62	!Japanese Riichi variant
63	Riichi is probably one of the most complex variants, as well as one of the most popular for competitive non-gambling play. It adds many new rules, such as:
64
65	* '''One-yaku requirement''' (''Iihan-shibari''): Players may only declare a win with a hand which fulfils at least one scoring condition that awards hand points (''yaku'').
66	* '''Riichi:''' If a player is one tile away from winning and has no open sets, they may declare riichi when discarding a tile. They put a 1,000-point counter in the centre of the table, which goes to the next player to win the hand (including themself). From that point on, they may not call any discards except to win, and if they draw a tile that doesn't complete their hand, they must discard the newly drawn tile. Winning after declaring riichi is worth 1 point.
67	* '''Dora:''' The fifth-to-last tile in the wall (which will never be drawn) is flipped face up to determine the ''dora'' tile. If the dora indicator is a numerical tile, the next number in the same suit is the dora tile; if it's a 9, the 1 in the same suit is the dora. If the indicator is a Wind tile, the next tile in the sequence East, South, West, North is the dora; North wraps around to East. Similarly, if the indicator is a Dragon tile, the sequence is White, Green, Red. The winning hand gets one additional hand point for each copy of the dora tile it includes; these do not count towards the one-point minimum.
68	* '''Furiten:''' This describes a player who is one tile away from winning but cannot take another's discard to win.
69	** Players must keep all their own discards in a pool in front of them, and open sets are arranged with one tile rotated sideways to mark who discarded the called tile (for pon or kan) or which tile in the set was called (for chii), so as to keep track of every tile each player has discarded. If a player is one tile away from winning, but one of the tiles they have already discarded would allow them to win if they acquired another copy of it, they are furiten, although they may change the composition of their hand to escape furiten.
70	** If a player can call a discard to complete their hand but misses or passes on the opportunity, they are furiten until their next turn if they have not declared riichi, or for the rest of the hand if they have declared riichi. Note that this applies even if calling the discard would form a complete hand with no points.
71	* '''Noten bappu:''' If a hand ends in a draw by running out of tiles, players who are more than one tile away from victory (noten) split a 3,000-point penalty, and the 3,000 points are split among those who only require one tile to win. (No payment occurs if all four players are in the same situation.) Also, if the dealer is no-ten, the dealer button rotates.
72
73	Unlike most other variants, a typical riichi match consists of only two rounds, East and South, and it is not uncommon to play a one-round game with only the East round.
74
75	In the event of victory by self-pick, the payment of the point value of the hand is split among the other three players. If the winner is the dealer, each opponent pays half the base value of the hand, for a total of 1.5x the base value. Otherwise, the dealer pays 1/2 or the value of the hand, and the other 2 opponents pay 1/4 of the value. All payments are rounded up to the next 100 points. If the dealer wins by discard, their hand value is multiplied by 1.5x. Additionally, there is a ''honba'' count that starts at 0 and increases in increments of 1 every time the dealer wins a hand or a hand ends in a draw, and is reset to 0 every time a non-dealer wins a hand. The winning player gets an additional 300 points per ''honba''; if they won by self-pick, this is split up with each opponent paying 100 points.
76
77	Also, Riichi Mahjong has several additional draw conditions rarely seen in other variants:
78	* '''Suufontsu renda:''' If all four players discard the same wind tile on their first turns, the hand immediately ends in a draw.
79	* '''Suukaikan:''' If kan is called four times in a single hand, the hand ends in a draw, unless all four kan were by the same player, in which case the fifth kan causes the draw.
80	* '''Kyuushuu kyuuhai:''' If any player, on their first turn, has nine or more different terminals (1s, 9s, and Wind and Dragon tiles), they may reveal their hand and declare a draw if they wish.
81	* '''Suucha riichi:''' If all four players declare riichi, the hand ends in a draw.
82	* '''Sancha hou:''' If one player discards a tile and all three opponents call it to win, nobody wins and the hand is drawn.
83
84	!!Sanma
85	Sanma is heavily based on Riichi, but modified for three players. The primary differences from Riichi rules are:
86	* The 2-8 tiles in one suit (usually Characters) are removed. If the dora indicator is a 1 in this suit, the 9 of the suit becomes the dora instead of the 2.
87	* There is no North seat player. Optional rules make the North Wind tile always a ''dora'' in addition to the normal dora (and if the indicator is a West Wind, each North Wind tile is worth ''two'' dora points), and/or plays the North Wind tile as a flower.
88	* Claiming a discarded tile for chii is disallowed.
89
90	Payment division in the event of victory by self-pick varies house-to-house. Common methods are to split it 50/50, ignore the would-be North player's payment, or split the would-be North player's payment 50/50 among the other two.
91
92	!Taiwanese variant
93	Unlike most other variants, Taiwanese Mahjong uses 16-tile hands, and a completed hand has five sets (instead of four) plus the pair. The hand points to ScoringPoints conversion is also done linearly instead, with a base value for winning and an additional point value per hand point; these two values are set at an agreed-upon level. For a win by self-pick, the hand gets one additional point, then all three rivals pay the full value of the hand.
94
95	!American Mah Jongg
96	Mah Jongg was first imported to the United States in TheRoaringTwenties, and became a huge fad. While the fad died down somewhat in TheThirties, a variant game developed which was eventually codified by the National Mah Jongg League (NJML), formed in 1937. Among the differences:
97	* The American set uses 152 tiles, including 8 Jokers (wild card tiles, which are used to form sets of 5 tiles, known as ''quints'');
98	* Tiles are passed among players at the beginning of the game, much like modern versions of the game of Hearts. As befits the era the game first became big in the US, the passing rounds are known as "Charlestons".
99	* The biggest difference of all is that winning hands are not composed of a number of standard sets, but rather based on a series of hands listed on cards issued annually by the NJML—in a sense, all American Mah Jongg hands are special hands (see below).
100
101	Notably, the NJML was founded by primarily Jewish players, and even today in the US many Mah Jongg players are of Jewish descent.
102	----
103	!Mahjong provides examples of:
104	* AntiFrustrationFeatures: In the ''riichi'' variant:
105	** If two players call ''ron'' (winning by claiming a discard), the unfortunate player who discarded the winning tile has to pay points to both players. However, if ''all three opponents'' call ''ron'' (''sancha hou''), then the standard rule is to simply end the hand in a draw with no exchange of points, preventing the would-be victim from [[NonStandardGameOver losing all of their points]] or at least facing a round that will be nearly impossible to recover from. Not ''all'' mahjong clients do this; ''VideoGame/MahjongSoul'' is infamous for allowing triple ''ron''.
106	** Normally, if ''kan'' is called four times in a single round, the round is drawn. However, if all four ''kan'' calls come from the same player, the game will keep going to allow them to try for ''suukantsu'' (a ''yakuman'' hand of four ''kan''s); in this case, if another player makes the fifth ''kan'', ''then'' the round is drawn.
107	** If any player has a hand of nine or more honors or terminal tiles at the start of the round, they may declare ''kyuushuu kyuuhai'' to draw the round so that they don't start at such a severe disadvantage. That said, this is an optional call, and some players will forego this play to instead play for ''kokushi musou'' (a ''yakuman'' hand of 13 honors or terminals and a pair of one of them).
108	** If a player has a concealed triplet, then draws the fourth instance of those tiles and declares ''kan'', then even though the ''kan'' is openly declared their hand is still considered closed, meaning they can still later declare ''riichi'' or play for a closed ''tsumo''.
109	* AwesomeButImpractical: In ''riichi'' rules, ''yakuman'' is the highest class of winning hands available, and scoring a ''yakuman'' awards a whopping 32,000 points (for comparison, each player begins with 25,000 points), or 48,000 if one is the dealer, which can easily give a player a nigh-insurmountable leader, and if ''yakuman'' was scored by claiming an opponent's discard and the ''tobi ari'' rule is enabled (immediate GameOver if any player falls below 0 points), that poor sap will likely die instantly of negative score unless they had a strong lead of their own. However, ''yakuman'' hands are exceptionally difficult to get, pretty much [[LuckBasedMission boiling down to luck]], and sometimes one can easily telegraph if someone is going for one[[note]]Such as someone calling ''pon'' on two different dragons for ''[[https://riichi.wiki/Daisangen daisangen]]'' (big three dragons -- have triples of all three dragons), or multiple ''kan'' calls for ''[[https://riichi.wiki/Suukantsu suukantsu]]'' (four ''kan'' calls)[[/note]], so players generally only try to play for a ''yakuman'' if their starting hand is close to it.
110	* BoringButPractical:
111	** ''Tanyao'' (a.k.a. "All Simples", a ''yaku'' consisting only tiles of 2's to 8's) in Riichi Mahjong is among the easiest to score with, but is consequently a meager 1 ''han''. That said, the ease of scoring with it allows the player to end a round quickly to deny someone else the win.
112	** In a similar vein, ''pinfu'', which is when a player forms a closed hand (i.e. no claiming an opponent's tile at any point) that only has three-tile sequences, one pair that isn't of dragons or a seat or round wind, and ''tenpai'' due to an "open wait" (you have a sequence to complete and one of two adjacent-numbered tiles will complete it).[[note]]Sometimes misleadingly called "all sequences" in English, but that is only ''one'' of the conditions. The formal definition is a hand with 0 ''fu''; the ''VideoGame/LikeADragon'' series calls it a "No-Points Hand" in English-language releases.[[/note]] It's common to end up with sequences as the game progresses, and the fact that this hand is always closed, which as far as your opponents believe could mean just about any other ''yaku'' in progress or not even near completing one, and an open wait gives you many different tiles to win off of, means you can sneak in a victory that nobody else saw coming because they discarded a number tile that they ''thought'' was ''probably'' safe. Like ''tanyao'', it's only worth 1 ''han'', but it can nonetheless block another player's high-value hand from winning, or help you maintain a lead and accelerate the end of the game.
113	* CoolButInefficient:
114	** ''Suukantsu'', a ''yakuman'' hand in the ''riichi'' variant, consists of four ''kan'' calls and a pair. It looks nice especially if you can nail all four calls by self-pick, but it's the hardest ''yakuman'' hand to get because of how telegraphed it is (even if you self-draw a ''kan'', you have to declare it or it doesn't count) and because four ''kan'' calls total from two or more players or a fifth ''kan'' call from any other player after you've gotten the fourth ''kan'' will cause a draw, meaning that other players will easily catch on and will make sure you can't form this hand either by calling ''kan'' themselves or simply winning with a much easier hand of their own. Yet despite the extreme difficulty of getting this particular hand, it's worth no more than other, easier ''yakuman'' hands, which by themselves are already AwesomeButImpractical due to the high degree of luck involved.
115	** Stacking ''yakuman'' is undoubtely an awesome feat, but most HouseRules don't pay more for a multi-''yakuman'' win than for a single-''yakuman'' win.
116	* FlowerMotifs: The eight Flower tiles. The four non-Season tiles within that set feature the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Gentlemen Four Gentlemen]].
117	* KnowWhenToFoldEm: ''Betaori'', or "Full Defense" in Riichi Mahjong. It's a strategy that forsakes any hand-building in favor of safe discards, whether it's to avoid deal-in, or to draw it out into Exhaustive Draw to cut losses.
118	* KyuAndDanRanks: By far the most common ranking system used in Mahjong games and leagues.
119	* LuckBasedMission: Depending on the variant, luck can be anywhere from a minimal factor to becoming the biggest factor in winning. In particular, the Taiwanese variant more than triples your score gain for a win by ''zimo'' (self pick, "drawn by yourself"; i.e., a lucky draw on your part rather than through another player's discard).
120	** Some (if not all) Hong Kong rules include the special hand "Picked by the Golden Cock": This is where you win by drawing the 5 Dots from the wall, and gives a ''huge'' bonus (e.g. 100 points in one version, where Mahjong itself is only 20 points). If you have doubles as well, this can result in a crushing lead.
121	** Most if not all rule variants award an extremely large number of points for certain special hands, which require some lucky draws on the part of the winner:
122	*** Thirteen Terminals (a.k.a. Kokushi Musou in the Riichi variant): One of each terminal (1, 9, Wind, and Dragon; thirteen tiles total), plus a second of any of them. Some groups award more bonus points if you draw one of each terminal first and are waiting to pair up any of them; this bonus may or may not require that you have not discarded any terminals prior to winning the hand.
123	*** Pure Nine Gates: The player must have a fully concealed (i.e. all self-drawn, no called discards) hand of 1112345678999 in any suit. They can then win on any numerical tile of the suit.
124	*** Big Three Dragons: A pong or kong of each Dragon tile. This is hard to accomplish because (a) you must draw two of each dragon before your opponents discard the other two, and (b) if you have two Dragon pongs, any sensible opponent will avoid discarding the third to give you the special hand. Additional bonus points if the other 5 tiles are a pong of a Wind and a pair of another Wind.
125	*** Big Four Winds: A pong or kong of each Wind tile. Even harder to accomplish than Big Three Dragons but for the same reasons. Additional bonus points if the pair in your hand is a dragon.
126	*** Kong Hand: [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin A hand of four kongs]] and a pair. Strategically speaking, this is probably the most difficult hand to get, partly because of the sheer luck involved in getting 4 of a kind for any tile in the first place, and mostly because this is the one type of hand that will always be outright advertised if a player is going for it, as it requires 18 tiles total. Compounding things more is that in some rules, a fifth kong declared in a single hand automatically makes that hand drawn, requiring that all kongs declared for this hand be done by the winner.
127	*** Heavenly Hand (a.k.a. Tenhou): The dealer's opening hand must be a winning hand (even if there are no other ''yaku'', drawing the winning tile counts as one). Possibly one of the purest examples of this trope, as there is no skill involved other than knowing your starting hand is a winning one. The odds of this happening are roughly 1 in ''330,000''! The less elite but still just as valuable Hand of Earth (a.k.a. Chiihou, a non-dealer winning with their first draw), and the Hand of Man (a.k.a. Renhou, winning off a discard before your first draw) are marginally more likely to occur but still very rare.
128	*** Seven Twins (probably the second most common special hand, after Picked By The Golden Cock): [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin seven pairs]]. Even more valuable if it's Yin And Yang (the pairs are of the winds and dragons).
129	*** The 'Four Concealed Pon', or Suuankou, hand is a bit less common than Seven Twins, but contains much the same requirement: quite literally, pulling four triplets without calling a discard until the end. As with those others listed here, in most riichi variants it qualifies as a yakuman (maximum-scoring) hand.
130	* NonstandardGameOver: When a player loses all their points and becomes ''hakoten'' (or "boxed") the game usually ends prematurely (some rules allow a player to continue if they have exactly 0 points; some rules will let the player continue with a negative score). To an extent, the ''agari-yame'' rule, where the dealer may end the game if they are in the lead on the last hand (normally the dealer plays another round as dealer if they win). Inverted in some rules where the game will continue into a West round if no one has reached 30,000 points after the South round.
131	* NoobBridge: One thing that trips up new players of Riichi is that to win a hand, you must have one ''yaku'' (scoring condition). [[https://riichi.wiki/Keishiki_tenpai Even if you have enough sets that you've reached tenpai, you still can't win if you don't have any yaku.]] This often confuses players who are playing mahjong through a video game, as many mahjong games will unhelpfully inform the player that they are in ''furiten'' (cannot claim a discard to win) even though they actually aren't, although some other mahjong video games will inform the player that they have a no-''yaku'' ''tenpai''. By far the most common way for this to happen is to make a bunch of sequences and triplets...except some of those sets (but not [[https://riichi.wiki/Chanta all]]) have a terminal tile (1's and 9's) while others don't ("all simples", one of the easiest (and consequently, least valuable) ''yaku'' requires that your hand has no terminals, i.e. only 2's through 8's).
132	* NoUnifiedRuleset: Variations generally relate to how hands are scored and when to call them. The base game allows calling mahjong once you have any recognized set, while some variations require a minimum score to make the claim.
133	* ObviousRulePatch: The "kuitan nashi" house rule in the Japanese Riichi variant, which disallows the ''Tanyao yaku'' to be open.
134	* OneHitKill: In riichi, if the ''tobi ari'' rule (game ends prematurely if anyone falls below 0 points) is followed and assuming the commonly-followed starting score of 25,000 points, it's entirely possible to [[PressStartToGameOver end the game after the first hand]]: Claim an opponent's tile for yakuman (32,000 points, or 48,000 if you're dealer) or, as dealer, win a sanbaiman the same way (36,000 points).
135	* TiebreakerRound: In the Japanese Riichi variant, some rules will have the game continue into a West round (or a South round in an East-only game) if no one has reached a quota (usually 30,000 points) by what would have been the end of the game. Some rules will end the game as soon as someone exceeds the quota, or sometimes the entire extra wind is played.
136	----
137	!Works that feature Mahjong:
138
139	[[foldercontrol]]
140
141	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
142	* The magazine ''Kindai Mahjong'', as the name suggests, is dedicated to manga series and columns about the game. Many of the manga series that are mentioned below originated from it.
143	%%How does it feature mahjong?* ''Manga/TenTheBlessedWayOfTheNiceGuy''
144	%%** ''Manga/{{Akagi}}'', a prequel to the above.
145	%%** ''Manga/WashizuLordOfMahjongHell'' as well.
146	* In ''Manga/{{Saki}}'', mahjong is a wildly popular spectator sport, with tournaments ranging from regional to national and even ''international'' levels. Specifically, the focus is on teams of cute high-school girls duking it out on matches that straddle the fine line between MundaneMadeAwesome and SeriousBusiness, with obscenely rare hands and a good dose of LesYay thrown in.
147	%%* ''Manga/FutabaKunChange''
148	* ''Manga/GambleFish'': A variant called [Change Mahjong] is shown through the TournamentArc.
149	* ''Manga/GoodDayToYouHowAboutAGame'': A CuteGirlsDoingCuteThings manga about mahjong, from the author of ''Manga/AnimaYell''.
150	* In ''Manga/HayateTheCombatButler'', one of Hayate's past jobs was playing mahjong player for those with mob debts.
151	* ''Manga/MiyukichanInWonderland'' has one where she reads a mahjong manga, then the characters emerge from it, make her join in, and then sure enough, it's revealed they're playing strip mahjong. HilarityEnsues.
152	* ''Manga/TheLegendOfKoizumi'', in which ''all world politics'' are secretly carried out by behind-the-scenes high-stakes mahjong games between politicians, referred to in public as "negotiations". UsefulNotes/ThePope explains that mahjong is mankind's attempt to recreate genesis.
153	** And all of that is before [[spoiler: the Nazis, who have colonized the moon, show up and the characters get involved in games where losing points equates to having your life force sucked out of your body and a full on loss literally killing you.]]
154	* ''Manga/CaseClosed''
155	** Kogorou loves playing it, but he's not very good; and Ran, being BornLucky, tends to win rather improbable hands.
156	** In a later case involving a SerialKiller, mahjong as a whole is pretty important: [[spoiler:several of the victims plus the killer of the past were mahjong players, the hints about the past killer's identity were related to mahjong terms, and a certain mahjong tile acts as Takagi's PocketProtector when [[JackTheRipOff the killer of the present]] shoots him.]]
157	** Another case involved the murder of a man who regularly held mahjong parties with his neighbor. The reason he was murdered [[spoiler:by his wife was because the husband kept gambling their money in those mahjong games, but he kept losing, so he had to keep selling their (personal) belongings to pay his debt]].
158	* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' has people play mahjong a few different times during the plot, and later on, a GaidenGame was created which is basically ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry''+[[RecycledInSpace MAHJONG]]
159	** This "recycled into a Mahjong game" business happens to many different series (Evangelion, Gundam, Haruhi-chan, to name a few). Even the Super Mario series is not immune.
160	* ''Manga/{{Saiyuki}}'' - The four main characters are often seen playing mahjong (and it's all but spelt out that they all cheat blatantly). Sanzo in particular once managed to draw the jaw-droppingly impossible Kokushi Musou (see LuckBasedMission above). (But then, he's Sanzo.) Gojyo once wisecracked that the only reason he was saving Goku's life was to make sure they had a fourth for mahjong games.
161	** Chin Yisou, one of the original series villains, had somewhat of a mahjong theme.
162	** The occasion of Sanzo's astonishing draw was doubly symbolically loaded, in that it was concluded with a West tile (as referenced above), suggesting both the group's westward journey and its frequent consequences.
163	* ''Manga/XxxHolic'' - Watanuki, Yuuko, Doumeki and [[spoiler: the spirit of a dying cherry tree]] play mahjong together as part of a ceremony to help the spoiler pass on into the next life.
164	* [[BitchInSheepsClothing Kakei]] from ''Manga/DrugAndDrop'' is revealed in an omake to love mahjong. Considering he's a {{seer\|s}}, it's a wonder why anyone agrees to play with him.
165	* The third series of ''Manga/{{Kaiji}}'' has a two-player variant called Minefield Mahjong.
166	* ''Legendary Gambler Tetsuya'' is about this, with lots of cheating involved.
167	* At one point in ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' "Ura-Dora" and "Mangan" are used as code phrases.
168	* The crew of the Bentenmaru in ''Literature/BodaciousSpacePirates'' play this while stuck in quarantine.
169	* The producers Watanabe and Katsuragi in ''Anime/{{Shirobako}}'' are often seen playing mahjong with anime industry bigwigs after work. The former's character introduction is him missing out on the studio's series premiere viewing party for a visit to a mahjong parlour (although at least the TV in the parlour is showing the premiere).
170	[[/folder]]
171
172	[[folder:Film -- Live Action]]
173	* There's a quick gag in ''Film/AnnieHall'' when Alvy is riffing on his Jewish background:
174	-->'''Alvy''' ''(performing standup)''''':''' I was thrown out of N.Y.U. my freshman year for cheating on my metaphysics final, you know. I looked within the soul of the boy sitting next to me. When I was thrown out, my mother, who was an emotionally high-strung woman, locked herself in the bathroom and took an overdose of Mah Jongg tiles.
175	* ''Film/LustCaution'' begins with a mahjong game, and the game is being played on several occasions throughout the film.
176	* ''Film/CrazyRichAsians'' has Rachel challenging Eleanor in a mahjong game in order to settle their score on Nick's future. The scene plays out that Rachel is winning the game but she loses. [[spoiler:Turns out that she chooses to lose because she wants Eleanor to realize that she's getting her way with Nick because Rachel willingly gave him up]]. Their game also includes a lot of [[http://blog.angryasianman.com/2018/08/what-was-really-happening-in-crazy-rich.html subtle symbolism]] that is [[GeniusBonus not explained to the audience]].
177	* ''Film/InTheMoodForLove'' is set in early 1960s Hong Kong within a Shanghainese community. There's a scene where protagonists Mr Chow and Mrs Chan spend a whole night chastely held up in a bedroom together because leaving would mean walking past where their landlords are playing mahjong ''all night long''. If their landlords saw one leaving the other's room like that, they'd think they were having an affair. And they are [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial definitely not having an affair]].
178	-->'''Chow:''' They'll play till morning?\
179	'''Chan:''' Mrs Suen says only eight rounds.\
180	'''Chow:''' You believe that?
181	* The villain in ''Film/TheUntoldStory'' begins his killings when accused of cheating at Mahjong.
182	* [[Creator/StephenChow Stephen Chow]]'s ''Film/FlirtingScholar'' is parody of a romance about an [[TheAce erudite scholar]] who is fed up with his multiple wives doing nothing but play mahjong all day, even going as far to destroy one of his paintings to create a tile to replace a missing one. He meets a young woman who he fell in love with and after much trials and tribulations he has earned the right to marry her only to find out that [[ShaggyDogStory she is also a mahjong addict]].
183	[[/folder]]
184
185	[[folder:Literature]]
186	* The Literature/{{Discworld}} novel "Literature/InterestingTimes" has the similar-looking Shibi Yangcong-san (a mixture of Chinese and Japanese for "Cripple Mr. Onion", which is the name of a card game analogous to poker previously seen in prior novels' European pastiche countries).
187	* The ''Literature/BreakingTheWall'' series by Jane Lindskold has an entire [[FunctionalMagic magical system]] based on mahjong.
188	* ''Literature/TheJoyLuckClub'': Jing-Mei mentions having played mahjong with "some Jewish friends" in college, prompting Lindo to note that that game is entirely different.
189	** The main narrator mentions the four mothers regularly gathered to play mahjong.
190	* The Creator/AgathaChristie novel ''Literature/TheMurderOfRogerAckroyd'' features one chapter titled "An Evening at Mahjong". This particular round concludes with a Heavenly Hand (instant win after the distribution) by Dr Sheppard.
191	* In ''Literature/RedDragon'', the 'Red Dragon' uses the mahjong symbol 'Red Dragon', although the inspiration for his name probably came from something else. He also played with mahjong tiles, using them like toy cars, as a boy.
192	* In ''Literature/ZeroMinusTen'', Literature/JamesBond gets in contact with a possible BigBad by playing high-stakes mahjong with him in a UsefulNotes/{{Macau}}nese casino.
193	* In ''Literature/BrideOfTheRatGod'' it's a recurring background event that Chrysanda/Christine plays that with various players (as part of her fascination and interest in Chinese culture) and often tries to get various people playing so as to have the right amount of players. Norah wonders at times if some of the rules are original mahjong rules (the "Charleston" is most certainly not).
194	[[/folder]]
195
196	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
197	* In an episode of ''Series/{{Seinfeld}},'' George Costanza's mother and some of her friends are playing Mah Jongg while George describes the pilot of the show he and Jerry are working on.
198	* ''Series/That70sShow'': "Mahjong? What the hell is mahjong?" It should be noted that Eric and Kitty were watching Annie Hall when thinking this.
199	* In ''[[Series/LieToMeSK Lie To Me]]'', mahjong is the game of choice, in the darkened back room.
200	[[/folder]]
201
202	[[folder:Music]]
203	* During the American fad, Eddie Cantor had a hit with "Since Ma Is Playing Mah Jong", the unfortunately racist rant of a husband whose wife has become addicted to the game:
204	-->''Since Ma is playing Mah Jong,\
205	Pa wants all the Chinks hung....''
206	::: A recording of the song by the Memphis Five with Billy Jones is on [=YouTube=] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOhtalqFMtk here.]]
207	* Another song dating from the American fad period is "Mah-Jongg", written by Music/GeorgeGershwin and B.G. [=DeSylva=] and introduced in the 1924 edition of ''George White's Scandals''.
208	* Music/SamHui's 1981 song "The Legend of the Mahjong-Playing Heroes" (打雀英雄傳) is about middle-aged and elderly individuals gathering after work to play mahjong.
209	* "A Pillow of Winds" by Music/PinkFloyd, from the album ''Meddle'', refers to a possible mahjong hand. Apparently the song was named as an inside joke on how much the band members played the game while on tour. Plus [[RuleOfCool it sounds cool]].
210	[[/folder]]
211
212	[[folder:Video Games]]
213	!!!Online mahjong clients:
214	* Riichi mahjong is available as one of the games in ''VideoGame/ClubhouseGames: 51 Worldwide Classics'', and like most of the other multiplayer games in the collection has online play. However, it has no ranking system, so there's no real consequence for quitting out because you dealt into a high-value hand.
215	* ''[[https://tenhou.net/ Tenhou]]'' is a browser-based client with a standalone client as well as ports for mobile platforms also available, and was the client of choice for the Western riichi community for years due to being relatively accessible compared to many other clients (which often suffer from not only being in Japanese only but also being on region-locked platforms or restricted to Japanese arcades) as well as community-made browser extensions that translate the client into other languages. It still is the preferred client for many Western players who are deep into mahjong, but natively English-language clients have popped up to provide a more accessible avenue for beginners.
216	* ''[[https://mahjongsoul.yo-star.com/ Mahjong Soul]]'' is a multilingual riichi and sanma client with ''gacha'' elements. Players can roll the gacha for cosmetics such as tile and board designs, as well as characters to serve as their avatars. However rolling the ''gacha'' will not give the player any gameplay advantages. Notably, it prevents non-Japanese players from being able to match up with Japanese players until they RankUp from Novice to Adept.
217	* ''Mahjong Fight Club'' is Creator/{{Konami}}'s take on mahjong, released originally in arcades before also being released on other platforms. Its sequels feature online play through Konami's eAmusement arcade game network. The arcade net-enabled versions did get localized for the pan-Asia Pacific market, but without successful results.
218	* ''Sega Net Mahjong MJ'' by Creator/{{Sega}}, for PC and mobile platforms. It did have an English-language version but was shut down after only one year.
219	* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has ''Riichi'' mahjong in—where else?—the Golden Saucer. While it's not played for anything other than rank, and possibly a few [[SoundTest orchestrion rolls]], it's still frightfully addictive.
220	* The MMORPG ''VideoGame/BillyVsSnakeman'' features fully playable mahjong, and winning games earn Mahjong Points that can be spent on various benefits. Certain allies can be recruited and/or leveled up by beating them in special matches with extra challenge rules (one ignores the Furiten rule, another conceals her discards, and the last can only be beaten with a very complicated, counter-intuitive hand).
221
222	!!!Offline mahjong games:
223	* There's a ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' fangame, titled ''Touhou Unreal Mahjong'', which revolves around mysterious mahjong boards appearing. It uses Riichi rules, plus special abilities.
224	* In Japan, prior to the early 2000s crackdown by MoralGuardians, strip mahjong games (played against female AI opponents that would undress as they lost succesive rounds) were an arcade standby. These were notoriously difficult due to using rules variants that heavily stacked the game against the player. Nowadays one occasionally comes out for the PC, but it's somewhat more of a niche genre there.
225	* The ''VideoGame/LikeADragon'' series has mahjong parlors where you can play against CPU opponents and potentially win lots of in-game cash. In some of the titles there's an online mahjong option available from the main menu, but unless you're matching with a friend right then and there, it's ''typically'' just going to turn out as an offline game anyway because the server population trends towards anemia.
226	* ''VideoGame/DreamCClub'' has a SpinOff called '''Mahjong Dream Club'' which borrows all of the main series elements such as a beautiful club hostess and lots of fanservice, and places them on a table to play mahjong.
227	* ''Kemono Mahjong'' is riichi [-WITH [[UsefulNotes/FurryFandom FURRIES]]!-] It is available on iOS and Android and features a unique interface designed to better accomodate smartphones in portrait mode.
228	* ''VideoGame/YakumanDS'' is riichi [-WITH [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros THE MARIO CHARACTERS]]!-] It was available for the UsefulNotes/NintendoDS in Japan only.
229
230	!!!Non-playable instances of mahjong in video games:
231	* Litchi Faye-Ling of ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'' needed a few more [[ChineseGirl Chinese]] touches--the panda, Taoist philosophy, love of green tea, the UsefulNotes/{{Qipao}} and yin-yang hair clip apparently weren't enough—so she was also conceived as an avid mahjong player. Several of her move names come directly from mahjong terms, with her [[LimitBreak super moves]] being named after high-value hands like "Thirteen Orphans" and "All Green".
232	** In fact, aside of the fruit pun, Litchi's name could also be a spin on that "Japanese ''Riichi''" mentioned above.
233	* In ''VideoGame/Killer7'' you witness a mahjong game between four negotiators, which ends with the quad murder-suicide as a result of one party declaring ''ron'' without realizing that he was in furiten. This symbolizes the backdoor dealings in the world of politics.
234	* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', one of the rooms room in Don Corneo's mansion has a mahjong table.
235	* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'' features some arcade cabinets you can purchase to [[AnInteriorDecoratorIsYou decorate your house]], including a mahjong cabinet.
236	* ''VideoGame/Onmyoji2016'': Jikigaeru's skin dungeon has this as a gimmick.
237	[[/folder]]
238
239	[[folder:Western Animation]]
240	* In ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda1'', Po's father mentions that his great-grandfather won his noodle shop in a game of mahjong.
241	* Seen a few times in ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'', and appears to be Uncle's favorite game. In "Pleasure Cruise", he claims he was in 1955 the Hong Kong community center champion, but he loses many times to Tohru's mother, who states herself to be a quintuple all Kyoto finalist.
242	* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Chowder}}'', Truffles is a mahjong player. Since Truffles is a classic ''[[AlterKocker yenta,]]'' it's probably the American game.
243	* On an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheCritic'', Penny was playing this with Doris.
244	[[/folder]]

Context TabletopGame / Mahjong