Fridge / Saki

• In Saki, a complete beginner, Kaori, manages to win a game against tournament level players because her inexperience rendered her completely unpredictable to her Meta Game-steeped opponents. Confusion Fu pointed out the Fridge Logic that, since Mahjong is used to gamble, it should've been easy for experienced players to win off a rookie. my response: Mahjong is Serious Business to these girls. Gambling isn't their goal, it's seeking Worthy Opponents and defeating them. For this reason it never would have occurred them that they would even play such a newbie, so nobody thought of trying to hustle her, either. — Sgamer82
  • This could also be the case in Angelic Layer; just replace "Mahjong" with "battling doll Mons". Misaki was unpredictable because she came in cold, and had no pretensions of being the best, so she learned more from every opponent. — Gamer From Jump
  • It's also exacerbated by their play style; all the other girls in that match specialized in analyzing their opponent's play. Since Kaori barely knows the rules, there is no possible way of doing that, and when she's one tile away from a massive win she's just as nervous and flustered as when she's got a terrible hand. Nodoka, who focuses more on probabilities and therefore would be better able to judge which hands she can have as opposed to which ones she's acting like she has, would probably have taken her apart. — nameheregrr
• When you think about it, the likely origin of Nodoka's insistence that Saki play seriously is almost as depressing as Saki's choosing to play for +/0 points to avoid her family getting mad at her. Her father looks down on Mahjong as a game based, in his mind, purely on luck, he thinks she's wasting her time by practicing it, and he doesn't seem to care that she's made friends through the game or that she's able to win a championship. Nodoka's remarkably subdued and sad during those scenes, and it's clear that her father showing her so little support with regards to something she enjoys and is good at is hard on her. Perhaps this is part of the reason why Nodoka is upset to lose to someone who didn't initially like mahjong.— Valiona
  • Additionally, it can be inferred that the reason why she doesn't believe in superstitions is in part due to her father dismissing mahjong as a purely luck-based game. She wants to believe, and possibly convince him, that she earns her victories, so players having supernatural gifts for the game quite possibly flies in the face of that argument.— Valiona
• Momo's childish speech isn't her trying to be cutesy; rather, her speech never matured because she stopped communicating when she was a child.— Valiona
• Toyone's "Tomobiki" skill wasn't something she had until she transferred to Miyamori. The four calls she makes represent her four teammates, who are her first four friends. Then the final tile in her hand, which she says is no longer alone, represents her. She is immediately able to draw and complete the pair because she herself is no longer alone.==Legendary_Boy_A
• Besides just generally having strong powers, there's another reason Saki and Teru are so fearsome: All the guaranteed victory powers (eg. looking a turn ahead and calling Riichii, winning with a pursuing Riichii, Koromo's last-tile wins) seem to come with the same caveat, they only work as long as no one changes the draw order. Saki's Kans change the drawing order, plus they interfere with larger-scale lockouts because the normally inaccessible tiles largely wind up in the dead wall. Teru doesn't seem to have a similar ability (though she did get one quite well-timed Kan) but she exploited the same effect by discarding a tile just to get someone else to discard the tile so she could call it. — nameheregrr
  • Another fearsome ability the Miyanaga Sisters share is their ability to manipulate points in their favor. Most players shown in the series are known only for being able to win through a specific hand, ^note Koromo's Haitei Raoyue, Kuro's Dora magnet, Toyone's Tomobiki, and Kasumi's Suit magnet through a specific condition, ^note (Yuuki's high win rate at East Wind, Hisa's preference for hell waits, Toyone's riichi-chase, Sumire's archery inspired playstyle, Touka's "Cold State", using skills or abilities related outside of mahjong, ^note Mako using Photographic Memory to remember tile arrangement so she can make the appropriate move, Momoko's lack of presence extending to her discards, Toki's one-turn futuresight having good analysis of players' habits, discards. and winning percentages, ^note Mihoko, Nodoka, Yumi, Kyouko, Hiroko, or having extraordinary luck ^note Kaori, Kirame). Saki and Teru are shown to be capable of adjusting the values of their hands and their opponents' discards to achieve a specific kind of result (Saki's ±0 style and Teru's value-increasing win streak). What's more frightening is that both sisters can do this practically at will, while even those that rely on analysis still have to rely on luck to get the results they need. The only difference is that Teru needs to win multiple times to be able to increase her points, while Saki can turn a low-valued hand into an absurdly high-valued hand in one turn.^note  She does this twice in the Nagano finals, turning a 2000 point hand into a 24000 dealer baiman, and a 12000 point hand into a 32000 point kazoe yakuman which was the hand that caused Koromo's downfall —Hoki
• Saki's ±0 playstyle gives her more than just a way to control the points in her favor as it also gives her the distinct advantage of concealing her weaknesses. As Himematsu's Suehara noted, players usually look at rival schools' players' play records in order to discern things like winning hands, tile distribution, and losing hands. Saki's wins are all recorded matches, leading to players immediately taking note of her rinshan kaihou. Saki's losses, on the other hand, (to her family, to Fujita at Mako's cafe, to Cold Touka at the training camp) were unrecorded but she had records of games where her ±0 play came to effect. In short, as far as the tournament records show, Saki rarely, if ever, has losing hands. As such, other players will not be able to effectively counter Saki's playstyle because they cannot formulate a strategy that would force Saki to break or not have a rinshan kaihou, and even if such a strategy does exist, Saki will only have to play normal mahjong to get around it.—Hoki
• The positions of the players in the final match seem detrimental to Saki's goal of reconciling with Teru through mahjong because she and Teru are on the opposite sides of player positioning; Teru being the current Vanguard of Shiraitodai while Saki is the Captain of Kiyosumi. As such, Saki's opponent in the Captains' match would be Awai. However, Saki has stated that in order to get to Teru, she must first beat Awai, which now makes sense since Awai currently has Teru's favor, and if Saki can beat her (along with Shizuno and Nelly), then surely Teru, at the very least, recognize Saki. Then there's the individual's match, where Saki, if she gets to the finals match, will have a chance to face Teru herself.—Hoki
• It is repeatedly hinted that pro mahjong player Yoshiko Kainou has some kind of ability to summon spirits that help her in mahjong matches. One instance of this happening is when she summoned the spirit of an Aztec God in order to protect herself from Teru's Shomakyou during their tournament match. Yoshiko is also the older cousin of Haru Takimi of Team Eisui, a team composed of shrine maidens that can summon spirits. Therefore, Yoshiko's ability might stem from the fact that she's part of a family of spirit summoners. - Hoki
• Saki and Teru being two years apart is surprisingly fitting. Saki, a relative newcomer to mahjong who has great potential but little practical experience, faces Teru, the champion, who's at the top of her game. It also means that this is likely the only chance Saki has to reach out to Teru through mahjong, at least while in high school. Valiona