Saki is a shy, bookish girl who claims to hate mahjong. In spite of this, she has near-supernatural luck, allowing her to dependably play to a score of +/- 0 (which is harder than winning). After some manipulation by Hisa gets her to win a game, she begins to enjoy playing mahjong, and joins the club.Her reason for disliking mahjong was that when she used to play with her family, they would always be sore losers and unpleasant winners, so she always had bad memories of the game. Her parents have separated, and she is estranged from her older sister Teru. Ironically enough, Saki resolves to go to the national inter-high mahjong tournament so she can meet (and play against) Teru, in the hope of being able to reunite the family.
Let's Get Dangerous: Whenever she plays seriously. Just try to pull off what she does all the time even once. The most extreme cases are, first by finishing her second game in the club with a four concealed triplets, on a draw after a tsumo, and thinking that would make her score +/-0. The Tournament Arc of course tops this.
Her Crowning Moment of Awesome in the prefectural finals is this. Koromo plays into three consecutive kan, and by the tournament rules, Koromo has to pay for all the points Saki would've earned, thus ending in Saki's comeback victory.
For the people wanting the exact combo, it was "An all-circles all pons/kans three concealed pons/kans three kans 1 red dora tsumo after a kan" It was worth 32,000 points altogether. Don't forget about that rule, either...
Meaningful Name: "Saki" means "bloom. " Saki's signature move, Rinshan Kaihou, means "the flower that blooms atop the mountain."
No Sense of Direction: During both the regional and national tournaments, she often gets lost in the tournament venues.
Parental Abandonment: Saki's parents are separated, and her mother and sister seem to be living in a different prefecture. She lives with her father, who only appear on screen a handful of times.
Spirited Competitor: At the regional qualifiers, she is quite excited by the prospect of being able to play against so many other strong players.
Wide-Eyed Idealist - Saki's idea that she can reunite her family by playing Mahjong sure is a stretch.
Willfully Weak: Before she decides to play seriously, she would instead aim for +/-0, which is the mahjong equivalent of ending a game of poker with the same amount of chips you started with.
Nodoka is a quiet, determined first-year member of the mahjong club. She was the champion of the previous year's middle school tournament, and is considered a genius at mahjong. She has a careful, analytical style of play, and is quick to discount any aspect of the game that is not "logical".In spite of her calm, mature appearance (and a big shelf), she has a somewhat childish side; she cannot sleep comfortably without her penguin plushie, Etopen.She becomes quite attached to Saki after losing a game to her.
Agent Scully: Because she doesn't believe in so-called mahjong "superstition", she simply doesn't notice when something weird is up. Showcased wonderfully in her match against Eisui's Hatsumi, where by just playing normally she throws a monkey wrench in the plans of the Himematsu and Miyamori players, who did notice Hatsumi's ability and were trying to stop it from triggering.
Badass Normal: In a series fulled with hax powers and super luck, her strength is in being very good at calculating odds, and is probably the closest the series has to a normal strong player.
Everything's Better with Penguins: Etopen, her penguin plushie. It later becomes a plot point, when Hisa suggests that she hold it while playing to improve her confidence.
Expy - Of Sigrid Aoyama, the main character of Kobayashi's previous manga, Fatalizer.
"Tacos rock!"The energetic, taco-loving Yuuki is a first-year member of the mahjong club. She and Nodoka have been friends since middle school. Her personality is generally childish, in line with her youthful appearance. Her game is extremely strong in the east round, but weakens in the south round.
Power-Up Food - Tacos, or anything that rhymes with it (To a lesser extent)
Took a Level in Badass: Happens before her first major match in the Nationals, where she comes into the arena sporting a cape and vows to show everyone that Kiyosumi isn't a weak team.
Hisa is the StudentCouncilCongressPresident, and the president of the mahjong club. She is a formidable mahjong player, though we don't actually see her play until the regional qualifiers. Her playing style is extremely psychological, deliberately misleading the other players to her advantage. She can play pretty well without using this tactic, but she favors it because it's fun to mess with her opponents and she enjoys flirting with the luck of the draw to win.Hisa has always wanted to enter the inter-high team mahjong tournament, but in previous years there were never enough club members for a team. Being in her third year, this is her final chance to play in the tournament.
Badass Decay: Just before her match in the second round of the Nationals, she becomes stricken with fear and convinces herself that her opponents are too strong, and ends up royally screwing up the early portion of her match and falls to last place. It doesn't last long, though.
Genre Savvy: She is well aware that some rather unlikely things tend to happen around a lot of players, including herself winning with really bad waits.
Guile Hero: Skilled at manipulating other players' thoughts to her advantage.
Willfully Weak: In the second to last match of the prefectural individuals, she tries to beat Saki, but loses. In the last match, she faces Touka, Yumi and Mihoko. She wins the match, but lowers her score in the last game, and ends up a single point below Saki for the last national qualification spot.
The bespectacled Mako is the sole second-year member of the club. She is very close to Hisa, being the only person that the president shows her doubts to. She has a photographic memory, and a pattern-based style of play that relies on comparing the game to others that she has seen in the past.Her peculiar manner of speech appears to be a result of being raised by her grandfather; she uses the pronounwashi, which is usually used only by old men.
I Don't Know Mortal Kombat - She often loses to raw or inexperienced players because they play in a method outside of the scope of her ability.
This was apparently remedied via Mako studying Maho's playing style at the Training Camp.
Japanese Pronouns: Mako uses the pronoun washi, which is normally the domain of older men. She was raised by her grandfather, so she probably picked up his speech habits.
Photographic Memory: Mako has memorized nearly every match she's seen played at her grandpa's mahjong parlor.
Madam Not Appearing in this Pinup: In several magazine fanservice pinups where Saki, Nodoka, Yuuki, and Hisa were present, Mako was entirely absent.
She suffers the same fate in a lot of doujinshi. Even in a Hakka-ya doujin where Hisa was paired with just about everyone, Mako was nowhere to be seen. Poor girl.
The One Guy of the Kiyosumi mahjong club serves primarily as comic relief, and as the club's errand-boy. He is a classmate of Saki's from middle school. Between his mediocre mahjong skills, his unrequited crush on Nodoka (and later on Mihoko as well), and Hisa delegating all of the club's heavy lifting to him, Kyoutaro generally has a hard time.His relative lack of familiarity with mahjong allows him to act as The Watson, giving Hisa and Yuuki the opportunity to explain things for the benefit of the audience.
Butt Monkey: He spends most of his time running errands for the club, and isn't very good at mahjong.
The club president of the Ryuumonbuchi mahjong club. Touka is a rich ojou whose family owns Ryuumonbuchi High School. She often plays the Alpha Bitch but she has her softer side too. As club president, she used her connections and research to assemble an all-star Mahjong team.
Touka: Was that a dream? Hajime: If you're talking about your consecutive victories against Koromo, Kiyosumi, and the professional Mahjong player... Tomoki: That was not a dream.
Determinator: She's actually this kind of person, when she means it, such as when she was scouting Tomoki. Tomoki used to be a very high-ranking player in an online RTS (suspiciously Stacraft-like) that 'emphasize quick thinking', and Hagiyoshi suggested her as a candidate for Touka's dream team. Wanting to test Tomoki's skill herself, Touka actually climbed the ladder from zero to top-100 after playing the game for six days straight, seemingly without taking any rest. Jun lampshades that that kind of determination would put a NEET to shame.
Touka: I'm going to lick you over and over and savor this delectable flavor!
The above quote was said as the voiceover to her spearwoman mahjong avatar molesting Nodocchi and Touka licking her lips. Even though she probably has no actual romantic or sexual interest in Nodoka, that scene is pretty heavy in the implication.
I Just Want to Be Special: This is half her reason for playing mahjong. She doesn't even care when a teammate messes up because it gives her a chance to save the day and be noticed.
Although she lacks the special abilities of a Saki or Koromo, or even Momoko, she's said to be a formidable player, which does suggest she's managed to build herself into a Badass Normal.
Informed Ability / The Worf Effect: As a former winner of the prefectural Mahjong tournament, she seems to lose rather badly during both the Team and Individual events.
Pet the Dog: Her interactions with Koromo. Her motivation for entering the mahjong tournament? She wanted to bring an invincible team to the prefectural and national tournaments so Koromo could meet new people and make friends.
Earlier on, when she has her butler fix Nodoka's stuffed penguin, even though she's from an opposing school.
Playing Against Type - You don't see Chihara Minori play these types of characters often, do you?
Promotion to Parent - Even without Hajime's interpretation of how Ryuumonbuchi is one big family, Touka essentially acts as Koromo's mother.
Tsundere: With Hajime being the one who provokes her deredere side.
Unknown Rival: Nodoka is entirely oblivious to Touka's obsession with defeating her, to the point that she actually forgets Touka's name during the training camp at the end of the season.
Verbal Tic: Fitting her ojou nature, Touka finishes game-oriented declarations with "desu wa".
A 2nd year high school student and a member of Ryuumonbuchi's Mahjong club. In elementary school, she cheated using sleight of hand and because of that she now wears chains around her wrist to atone as well as make it more difficult for her to cheat. Touka saw some skill within her and recruited her as part of the Mahjong club as well as being Touka's personal maid. Hajime has grown a very strong affection for Touka.
The Atoner: For cheating in a mahjong game in elementary school.
Keigo: Subverted: Touka scolds her for using humble, maid-like language and Honorifics when Touka's father isn't around (and presumably she should be more informal among her friends).
A girl who is both a small moe girl fond of going into Super-Deformed mode as well as a feared Mahjong demon. Her Mahjong powers manipulate the probability of her opponents to such a degree that her opponents feel like the world is ending. Koromo is Touka's cousin and lives with Touka after her parents died.
Keigo: Koromo tends to lapse into extremely formal and literary Japanese at moments of extreme emotion, particularly when speaking about her deceased parents, who were Japanese literature scholars.
Put on a Bus: She does not attend the individual tournament so has no bearing on the story anymore.
However, both she and Touka show up in Tokyo when the Kiyosumi club is competing in the nationals, and also gave crucial advice to Yuuki at the training camp.
A fairly masculine girl who plays Mahjong by reading the flow of the game. Despite dressing in masculine attire and using the "Ore" pronoun, she tends to get annoyed when people refer to her as a guy.
Bifauxnen: She looks almost exactly like the stereotype of a male teenage delinquent.
]] Pool Episode]]. She has a strong crush on Touka and feels jealousy towards Hajime.
Demoted to Extra: Initially making a handful of appearances as a comic-relief character amongst the Ryuumonbuchi bunch, Ayumu's appearances and lines in both the Anime & Manga have now dwindled down to almost nothing. (Then again, she was an extra to begin with, so...)
Mihoko is a student in her final year of high school and is the captain of the Kazekoshi Girls' School Mahjong club as well as their best player. She has a very nurturing personality and attracts a lot of affection and adoration from the rest of the club. Because of her self-consciousness regarding her Mismatched Eyes, she gets into the habit of shutting one eye at all times.
Team Mom: Particularly when she protects the underclassmen from their coach's wrath.
Unknown Rival: A non-buttmonkey version: she wants to face off against Hisa one more time, but Hisa doesn't remember her until she opens her eye in their match.
Walking Techbane: For such a skillful mahjong player, Mihoko is helpless when put against electronics.
Yamato Nadeshiko: Her teammates are concerned that she is too selfless.
Kana is in her second year and is considered the second best player of of the Kazekoshi Mahjong club. She's very close to Mihoko and Mihoko is often very protective of her. Kana has quite a bit of a Cat Girl theme going on with her but it isn't always apparent.
Heel Face Turn - After the Team Prefecturals, just as she's set up and expected to beat the living hell out of Kana... She tells her to go kick ass next time.
Kick the Dog: In episode seven, she slaps Mihoko for not playing more seriously, and is just barely prevented from slapping Kana as well. Particularly egregious considering that the team still won the game.
Reasonable Authority Figure - In spite of her hard coaching, she keeps up with the team members, and gets a hell of a kick out of Bundou's vow on the phone.
A third year high school student and captain of the Tsuruga Academy Mahjong club. Yumi is a very strategic player who manages to hold her own against the two demons of luck, Saki and Koromo. She's very close to Momo and is responsible for bringing her into the club.
Badass Normal: Without any supernatural powers of her own, she puts up a fight against two demons of luck.
Genre Savvy: She relies on strategy and research about her opponents' likely hands to plan her game accordingly.
Graceful Loser: She provides the Kiyosumi team with extensive and detailed research about the playing styles of their likely nationals opponents, all of which she spent months collecting. This gesture even impresses Hisa.
The Lancer: Her skill, recruitment tactics, and no-nonsense maturity make her the logical Head Honcho, right? Instead, she's the compliment to Tsuruga's Club President, Satomi.
No one really noticed Momo when she was growing up and because of that she become a Shrinking Violet that developed an invisibility power (during Mahjong matches, her power kicks in during the South Wind). Momo is fairly good at Mahjong even without her invisibility powers but she had no inclination to join the school's club. That is until Yumi makes it known that she's wanted.
Second year high school student. Mutsuki is fairly serious but sometimes lacks confidence. She's picked to succeed as Club President of the Mahjong club after the third years graduate.
Butt Monkey: Mutsuki always seems to take the brunt of Satomi's ideas or humor, much to her disillusionment.
A friend of Satomi who joined the club so that they could enter the five-person tournament. Kaori barely knows anything about Mahjong before she's thrust into a major tournament.
Spanner in the Works: Who gloriously throws a monkey wrench into Mako's pattern-based play (and to a lesser extent affects Touka and Tomoki as well).
Strategy Schmategy: Kaori proves to be extremely effective against players who rely on patterns and established strategies to calculate their opponent's next move, because they can't really predict what she's going to do next.
Meaningful Name: Shiraitodai is referred to as Team Torahime, and speculation has suggested that this involves Teru & Sumire (Teru being the tiger and Sumire being the princess).
"I...Have no sister!"Saki's estranged older sister, and the Third Year Captain of Shiraitodai High School's Mahjong team. Teru is a Mahjong superstar, and is ranked the Number One Player in the World. Since her parent's divorce, she has lived with her mother in Tokyo.
This trope also exists in-universe. Saki's flashbacks to Teru are highly idealized (Everything from her appearance to her voice), and even when it's clear that Teru has disowned her, she still holds out hope that she'll be able to change her through Mahjong.
Evil Sounds Deep - One of the many things that has changed about her from how she appeared in Saki's Dreams.
Signature Move: It's been hinted that her robbing a kan for a thirteen orphans is a serious danger.
More than that. Look at the foreshadowing in the epilogue. It's probable that her Signature Move is the potential double-yakuman "Nine Gates" (A hand composed of 1-1-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-9-9 of one suit, plus any other tile of the same suit), which is occasionally known as "Nine Lanterns". It's a hand that's considered impossible to obtain conventionally by a lot of players.
Slasher Smile: On the cover of the Eighth DVD. And HOW!
Villain with Good Publicity: Teru is featured in Mahjong magazines, depicted with a smile and a generic ambitious quote. The effects of this are felt in the first part of the Nationals, when Two security guards say that Nodoka is the only Kiyosumi player worth noting, meaning that people seem to have bought into Teru's lie that she didn't have a sister.
"You could at least try to smile."A third year at Shiraitodai High School, and a member of the school's Mahjong team. She is the only person known to Teru who seems to have had prior knowledge of Saki's existence.
Deadpan Snarker: In her first appearance, Sumire speaks to Teru in a very cold and chiding manner. She doesn't seem to buy Teru's excuse for not smiling, and asks Teru Didn't you have a sister? in an almost interrogative manner.
A third year player for Rinkai, and the lone Japanese member of the team.
Deadpan Snarker - Satoha doesn't beat around the bush when she mentions that Megan had ran away from her match a year earlier. Megan, however, doesn't deny this.
A second year player for Eisui, the team's Captain, and the daughter of the main family of the branches which compile Eisui's players. A year prior to the events of the story, she had achieved fame as the new Monster of the Nationals, but pushed herself too hard, and now has her teammates watching out for her.Her teammates call her Princess.
A third year player for Eisui, and the team's Taisho.
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass - They realized that she's the most dangerous player in Eisui...and she's on the team with Jindai, one of the 3 mahjong monsters next to Koromo and Teru.
Gag Boobs: Her miko outfit can't hide the fact that her knockers are huge, even compared to Nodoka's.
Willing Channeler: Her ability seems to work like this, where she "channels" one of the twelve spirits "possesing" Jindai. This means that any team facing Eisui is technically facing Jindai twice.
Usuzumi Hatsumi
A third year player for Eisui, playing the lieutenant's position. Similar to Yuuki, Hatsumi's game is extremely powerful during the north round. Her ability, called the "Gates of Evil" by Kumakura, makes it easy for her to gather north and east tiles, and to a lesser extent, south and west tiles as well.
Fetish Fuel Station Attendant - Loose clothing that looks like it's barely legal for her to be wearing (which actually slips off her shoulders during her match), white thighhighs, flatter than flat, doesn't wear a bra, and isn't bothered at all that she's shown on national TV essentially topless, and drawn with a tan in her second appearance in the manga...Hajime could be a NUN compared to her!
Miko: Follows the theme of her teammates for her match in the finals.
Himematsu High School
Atago Hiroe
"I set a trap, then attack mercilessly...I am the infamous 'Hiroe the Trap Master'!"The first thing one will likely notice about Hiroe is that she is loud and VERY blunt about her opinions. While with any other person this might have been considered the signs of empty bravado, in her case it is simply an expression of the pride she has in her skills; Hiroe knows she's good, and isn't hesitant in shoving the fact in everyone else's faces, regardless of whether or not they want to.Despite being considered the ace of her school's team, Hiroe plays the centerfield position.
Badass Normal: the only consistently good player (according to Hisa) in a team of normals that is ranked fifth in a competition stuffed to the rafters with magic mahjong monsters, she could epitomise this trope.
Kyouko Suehara
"The hell I care!"A third year player for Himematsu, and its player for the taisho position.
Incest Subtext: Kinue's motivation for joining the Mahjong team was so that she could play alongside her sister. It is HEAVILY implied that she is a Siscon.
The Interim Coach for Himematsu's Mahjong team. She and Fujita seem to have a history with each other, as Fujita goes out of her way to avoid meeting Akasaka. The former even compared her to Akado, the coach of the team in Saki Achiga-hen, meaning it's likely that they're contemporaries (along with Sukoya).
Conveniently Seated: As a flashback reveals, Shiromi's seat in class fits what one would normally expect a main character in any other series to be positioned in.
Not So Stoic: It is soon made a point that when Shiromi begins to put together a high-scoring hand, she becomes very visibly nervous. Also, her desperately trying to maintain her stoicism while trying to keep Aislinn from crying is rather cute.
Kakura Kurumi
A third year player for Miyamori. Although fairly competent, her playing style favors damaten, meaning that she can win despite not declaring riichi.
Big "Shut Up!": Directed at Hiroe in response to her incessant bragging during their match.
Little Miss Snarker: Has absolutely zero patience for Hiroe's loudmouthedness.
Miyamori's player for the taisho position, to say that Toyone is tall compared to her other teammates (or anyone else in the championships for that matter) is understating things. Scouted by Kumakura barely half a year prior to the championships, Toyone hails from a mountain village with very few children her age. With only the family TV to keep her company, Toyone had a relatively lonely childhood, something exacerbated by her unusual height. It's no wonder that she treats her transfer to Miyamori, as well as her acceptance into the school's mahjong club, where she can finally share her love for the game with other girls her age, as a big deal.Toyone is treated as their team's secret weapon, and they went to huge lengths to keep her playing style vague leading up to the finals. In the semifinals match though she has shown both a preference for calling pursuit riichis, as well as single-tile hands.
Cry Cute: Toyone starts crying after the first time she plays with the Miyamori mahjong club, since she can't continue for long, or else she won't be able to catch the train and bus home. This is because she wants to stay and play.
Foe Yay: Despite wishing to topple her team, Toyone is a HUGE fan of Jindai. She's also shown interest in Nodoka.
The Red Baron: Apparently the nickname she had in her town was "Right-behind-you Toyone" in reference to her playing style.
Red Eyes, Take Warning: Given the black-and-white nature of the manga, her eyes seem like Prophet Eyes at first, but chapter 94 reveals that the color of her eyes are actually a bright red. Unlike the usual example though Toyone is actually really nice.
A third year player for Miyamori, playing in the lieutenant's position. Sae's ability is to "seal" an opponent by concentrating her stare at the target. Once she has an opponent marked, it becomes nearly impossible for that player to be able to complete a hand, although playing this way puts a significant drain on her.
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass - When Aislinn lost, Kurumi jokes that she'd be of no help. She managed to lock Hatsumi's finishing move and manipulated it to hit Nodoka instead.
Fiery Redhead: Averted. While she has the hair color, Sae doesn't have the personality associated with it.
High-Class Glass: She wears Kumakura's monocle during her matches.
Kubrick Stare: She has this as a move-sealing ability. Impressive for what amounts to just looking at an opponent really really hard.
An exchange student from New Zealand, Aislinn rounds off the Miyamori team. A classmate of Shiromi, she joins the school's mahjong club after being invited to watch them play a game against Toyone, who was visiting the club at the time.Prior to the finals, she was noted to always get a closed hand tenpai before the 13th turn, ensuring a winning hand. According to Himematsu's Suehara, Aislinn also has the highest percentages in New Zealand's representative matches.
Conveniently Seated: Like Shiromi, Aislinn's seat in class — at the corner close to the window — is where a main character in any other series might be seated.
Cute Mute: While she can talk, she speaks very little Japanese and thus communicates via a drawing pad.
Hair Decorations: While they look like hairpins, they're actually the markers she uses for her drawing pad.
Informed Ability: Aislinn's ability to draw her "ideal" table, and always get a win. We're never able to see it, as Mako blocks her attempts to get a winning hand at every turn.
The Worf Effect: Other characters noted that they shouldn't underestimate her- Only to lose badly to Mako and lose their place as first.
Kumakura Toshi
The faculty adviser to Miyamori's Mahjong club, she was the one that scouted Toyone, which gave the school the chance it needed to qualify for the inter-high finals. She seems to have an eye for talent; aside from Toyone, years before she scouted Akado Harue (the current adviser to the Achiga team) for a corporate-funded professional team. When she encounters the latter again at the Nationals, she tries so again, this time for another company.
Grandma, What Massive Hotness You Have: Despite being significantly older than most of the cast, she looks no older than any of her students in a bathtub scene in Chapter 84.
A pro Mahjong player who's friends with Hisa. She plays against Saki and Nodoka before the big tournament and schools them which ends up teaching Saki and Nodoka to take their practice seriously. Fujita is also the color commentator for the regional tournament.
Dirty Old Woman: Acknowledged as such, considering that her interactions with Koromo are a little...Suspicious.
Slasher Smile: During her game with Saki and Nodoka before the regional qualifiers, she sports a truly psychotic look.
Fukuyo Kouko
A play-by-play commentator for Inter-High Radio. In High School, she became a fan of Kokaji Sukoya in her championship year, and has since come to work alongside of her.
Kokaji Sukoya
A color commentator for Inter-High Radio and a professional Mahjong player. 10 years prior to the events of the story, she won the National Championship in High School.
One of Nodoka's Kohai from Takatobara Junior High, the school she came from before coming to Kiyosumi. Cheers for Nodoka during the Prefecture finals match.
Chekhov's Gunman: Introduced as a seemingly random and very minor comic relief Satellite Character of Nodoka's. Later revealed to have a special ability of her own.
Mega Manning: Maho's ability. Works on any skill, but only one per round per day for each ability.
A loner who enters only the individual tournament.
It's All About Me - Her justification for not entering the team tournament. She rather coldly says how she'd rather not have players who aren't as good as she is drag her and her family name down. Needless to say, the Pride Before A Fall trope was just a matter of time.
Meaningful Name: She excels at the South Wind round, and the "nan" in her surname is the kanji for "south". In addition, her given name sounds like "kaze", meaning "wind".
Pride Before A Fall - Nanpo is introduced as, while being reserved, rather self-important and arrogant. Needless to say, Saki defeats her.
Saki is a shy, bookish girl who claims to hate mahjong. In spite of this, she has near-supernatural luck, allowing her to dependably play to a score of +/- 0 (which is harder than winning). After some manipulation by Hisa gets her to win a game, she begins to enjoy playing mahjong, and joins the club.Her reason for disliking mahjong was that when she used to play with her family, they would always be sore losers and unpleasant winners, so she always had bad memories of the game. Her parents have separated, and she is estranged from her older sister Teru. Ironically enough, Saki resolves to go to the national inter-high mahjong tournament so she can meet (and play against) Teru, in the hope of being able to reunite the family.
Nodoka is a quiet, determined first-year member of the mahjong club. She was the champion of the previous year's middle school tournament, and is considered a genius at mahjong. She has a careful, analytical style of play, and is quick to discount any aspect of the game that is not "logical".In spite of her calm, mature appearance (and a big shelf), she has a somewhat childish side; she cannot sleep comfortably without her penguin plushie, Etopen.She becomes quite attached to Saki after losing a game to her.
"Tacos rock!"The energetic, taco-loving Yuuki is a first-year member of the mahjong club. She and Nodoka have been friends since middle school. Her personality is generally childish, in line with her youthful appearance. Her game is extremely strong in the east round, but weakens in the south round.
Hisa is the Student 
The bespectacled Mako is the sole second-year member of the club. She is very close to Hisa, being the only person that the president shows her doubts to. She has a photographic memory, and a pattern-based style of play that relies on comparing the game to others that she has seen in the past.Her peculiar manner of speech appears to be a result of being raised by her grandfather; she uses the pronoun washi, which is usually used only by old men.
The One Guy of the Kiyosumi mahjong club serves primarily as comic relief, and as the club's errand-boy. He is a classmate of Saki's from middle school. Between his mediocre mahjong skills, his unrequited crush on Nodoka (and later on Mihoko as well), and Hisa delegating all of the club's heavy lifting to him, Kyoutaro generally has a hard time.His relative lack of familiarity with mahjong allows him to act as The Watson, giving Hisa and Yuuki the opportunity to explain things for the benefit of the audience.
The club president of the Ryuumonbuchi mahjong club. Touka is a rich ojou whose family owns Ryuumonbuchi High School. She often plays the Alpha Bitch but she has her softer side too. As club president, she used her connections and research to assemble an all-star Mahjong team.
A 2nd year high school student and a member of Ryuumonbuchi's Mahjong club. In elementary school, she cheated using sleight of hand and because of that she now wears chains around her wrist to atone as well as make it more difficult for her to cheat. Touka saw some skill within her and recruited her as part of the Mahjong club as well as being Touka's personal maid. Hajime has grown a very strong affection for Touka.
A girl who is both a small moe girl fond of going into Super-Deformed mode as well as a feared Mahjong demon. Her Mahjong powers manipulate the probability of her opponents to such a degree that her opponents feel like the world is ending. Koromo is Touka's cousin and lives with Touka after her parents died.
A fairly masculine girl who plays Mahjong by reading the flow of the game. Despite dressing in masculine attire and using the "Ore" pronoun, she tends to get annoyed when people refer to her as a guy.
Tomoki is a quiet and stoic girl. She's very serious except when she's being snarky.
Ayumu is Touka's other maid and is never seen in series outside of her Maid garb*]] Pool Episode]]. She has a strong crush on Touka and feels jealousy towards Hajime.
Mihoko is a student in her final year of high school and is the captain of the Kazekoshi Girls' School Mahjong club as well as their best player. She has a very nurturing personality and attracts a lot of affection and adoration from the rest of the club. Because of her self-consciousness regarding her Mismatched Eyes, she gets into the habit of shutting one eye at all times.
Kana is in her second year and is considered the second best player of of the Kazekoshi Mahjong club. She's very close to Mihoko and Mihoko is often very protective of her. Kana has quite a bit of a Cat Girl theme going on with her but it isn't always apparent.
The White-Haired Pretty Girl of Kazekoshi's Mahjong club as well their representative in the Meganekko round. Miharu is friends with Kana.
Seika is a first-year student at Kazekoshi Girl's High School who managed to move up into the Mahjong Club's regulars in a mere two months.
"IKEDA!"Coach of the Kazekoshi Mahjong team.
A third year high school student and captain of the Tsuruga Academy Mahjong club. Yumi is a very strategic player who manages to hold her own against the two demons of luck, Saki and Koromo. She's very close to Momo and is responsible for bringing her into the club.
No one really noticed Momo when she was growing up and because of that she become a Shrinking Violet that developed an invisibility power (during Mahjong matches, her power kicks in during the South Wind). Momo is fairly good at Mahjong even without her invisibility powers but she had no inclination to join the school's club. That is until Yumi makes it known that she's wanted.
Second year high school student. Mutsuki is fairly serious but sometimes lacks confidence. She's picked to succeed as Club President of the Mahjong club after the third years graduate.
A friend of Satomi who joined the club so that they could enter the five-person tournament. Kaori barely knows anything about Mahjong before she's thrust into a major tournament.
"Wa-ha-ha!"President of the Tsuruga Mahjong club. She's often known for her Catch Phrase "Wa-ha-ha!" Satomi is good friends with Kaori.
"I...Have no sister!"Saki's estranged older sister, and the Third Year Captain of Shiraitodai High School's Mahjong team. Teru is a Mahjong superstar, and is ranked the Number One Player in the World. Since her parent's divorce, she has lived with her mother in Tokyo.
"You could at least try to smile."A third year at Shiraitodai High School, and a member of the school's Mahjong team. She is the only person known to Teru who seems to have had prior knowledge of Saki's existence.
A second year player for Shiraitodai High School.
A second year player for Shiraitodai High School.
A first year player for Shiraitodai High School. Serving as the team's Taisho, she has been shown to have substantial power.
A first year player for Rinkai from Georgia.
A third year player for Rinkai from the United States.
A third year player for Rinkai, and the lone Japanese member of the team.
A second year player for Rinkai. Ranked in European mahjong league. She is French-Korean.
A first year player for Rinkai from Hong Kong.
A second year player for Eisui, the team's Captain, and the daughter of the main family of the branches which compile Eisui's players. A year prior to the events of the story, she had achieved fame as the new Monster of the Nationals, but pushed herself too hard, and now has her teammates watching out for her.Her teammates call her Princess.
A third year player for Eisui, and the team's Taisho.
A third year player for Eisui, playing the lieutenant's position. Similar to Yuuki, Hatsumi's game is extremely powerful during the north round. Her ability, called the "Gates of Evil" by Kumakura, makes it easy for her to gather north and east tiles, and to a lesser extent, south and west tiles as well.
A first year player for Eisui, she plays in the centerfield position for her team.
A third year player for Eisui.
"I set a trap, then attack mercilessly...I am the infamous 'Hiroe the Trap Master'!"The first thing one will likely notice about Hiroe is that she is loud and VERY blunt about her opinions. While with any other person this might have been considered the signs of empty bravado, in her case it is simply an expression of the pride she has in her skills; Hiroe knows she's good, and isn't hesitant in shoving the fact in everyone else's faces, regardless of whether or not they want to.Despite being considered the ace of her school's team, Hiroe plays the centerfield position.
"The hell I care!"A third year player for Himematsu, and its player for the taisho position.
A second year player for Himematsu.
Hiroe's younger sister, and a second year player for Himematsu.
A third year player for Himematsu
The Interim Coach for Himematsu's Mahjong team. She and Fujita seem to have a history with each other, as Fujita goes out of her way to avoid meeting Akasaka. The former even compared her to Akado, the coach of the team in Saki Achiga-hen, meaning it's likely that they're contemporaries (along with Sukoya).
"How dull..."A third year player for Miyamori.
A third year player for Miyamori. Although fairly competent, her playing style favors damaten, meaning that she can win despite not declaring riichi.
Miyamori's player for the taisho position, to say that Toyone is tall compared to her other teammates (or anyone else in the championships for that matter) is understating things. Scouted by Kumakura barely half a year prior to the championships, Toyone hails from a mountain village with very few children her age. With only the family TV to keep her company, Toyone had a relatively lonely childhood, something exacerbated by her unusual height. It's no wonder that she treats her transfer to Miyamori, as well as her acceptance into the school's mahjong club, where she can finally share her love for the game with other girls her age, as a big deal.Toyone is treated as their team's secret weapon, and they went to huge lengths to keep her playing style vague leading up to the finals. In the semifinals match though she has shown both a preference for calling pursuit riichis, as well as single-tile hands.
A third year player for Miyamori, playing in the lieutenant's position. Sae's ability is to "seal" an opponent by concentrating her stare at the target. Once she has an opponent marked, it becomes nearly impossible for that player to be able to complete a hand, although playing this way puts a significant drain on her.
An exchange student from New Zealand, Aislinn rounds off the Miyamori team. A classmate of Shiromi, she joins the school's mahjong club after being invited to watch them play a game against Toyone, who was visiting the club at the time.Prior to the finals, she was noted to always get a closed hand tenpai before the 13th turn, ensuring a winning hand. According to Himematsu's Suehara, Aislinn also has the highest percentages in New Zealand's representative matches.
Touka's teleporting butler.
A pro Mahjong player who's friends with Hisa. She plays against Saki and Nodoka before the big tournament and schools them which ends up teaching Saki and Nodoka to take their practice seriously. Fujita is also the color commentator for the regional tournament.
A play-by-play commentator for Inter-High Radio. In High School, she became a fan of Kokaji Sukoya in her championship year, and has since come to work alongside of her.
A color commentator for Inter-High Radio and a professional Mahjong player. 10 years prior to the events of the story, she won the National Championship in High School.
One of Nodoka's Kohai from Takatobara Junior High, the school she came from before coming to Kiyosumi. Cheers for Nodoka during the Prefecture finals match.
Nodoka's other Kohai from Takatobara Junior Highwho also cheers for Nodoka during the Prefecture finals match.
A loner who enters only the individual tournament.
