Yuri Manga: Saki, Volume 3

May 31st, 2010

In Saki, Volume 3, the curtain has already opened on the High School, Regional Mah Jong championships. The Kiyosumi team is meeting, some for the first time, their rivals from the other schools in the area.

Don’t click around looking for reviews of Volume 1 or Volume 2, btw. I haven’t read or reviewed them. On purpose. For me, Saki truly begins to be interesting at the regionals. And from here on in, it gets more interesting.

If you’ve seen the anime, the manga will be entirely familiar, as the women of Kiyosumi meet their rivals from Ryuumonbuchi, Kazekoshi and Tsuruga High schools. And, as we meet the various competitors, we learn their back stories which are almost universally Yuri-ish enough in nature to satisfy almost every craving.

In Volume 3, Yuuki suffers her devastating loss due to lack of Tacos, followed by a frustrating loss by Mako. When the third match begins, it’s up to team Captain Takei Hisa to make a splash – and so she does. Kazekoshi’s captain remembers her, and is distressed that she can’t warn her teammate about Hisa’s crazy play style.

Meanwhile, while Nodoka and Saki snuggle in the resting room, two creeps steal Nodoka’s stuffed penguin. It’s recaptured by none other than the infamous Ryuumonbuchi player, childish Koromo, who delights in being able to return it to Nodoka and make a new friend.

For me, this is where the series actually began. Everything up to this point was no more than a prologue, and an introduction to the main players. They are all here now, and the game is heating up.

What amazed me about the series at this point is that all the characters were likable. There were no evil rivals, only worthy adversaries, with their own passionate reasons to win – and that reason was often another member of their team. Interpersonal loyalties ride right on the edge of love and desire and in some cases, step well past that line.

This is not really a “Yuri” manga, of course. It’s a sports/game manga in which nearly everyone is a member of the Order of the Lily. Which just makes it double the fun for us. Especially as mahjong bores me to tears and I need something to pay attention to because I couldn’t care less what the game play is. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 5 They have no noses! How are they supposed to breathe? Moe art really distresses me….
Story – 8 Other than the fact that it’s about mah jong, it’s *great*
Characters – 8
Yuri – Tons. Everywhere you look. In fact, it almost seems hard to find a character not locked in a passionately emotional relationship in this manga
Service – 7 One more view of a thigh at the edge of a girl’s skirt and I was going to scream.

Overall – 7

I will happily pick up the remaining volumes to watch the manga move past the regionals and head to that mythical place Saki and Nodoka  yearn for – the National Championships. /fanfare/

4 Responses

  1. Erica: “They have no noses! How are they supposed to breathe? Moe art really distresses me….”

    Well, Krillin from Dragon Ball didn’t have a nose and no one made a fuss about it. Plus, if the characters don’t have noses, they don’t have to worry about having it grow longer every time they lie.

    So these character designs were more or less made to be fantasy proof.

  2. BruceMcF says:

    They have no noses! How are they supposed to breathe? Moe art really distresses me….

    And such tiny mouths. Being restricted to a liquid diet must be such a burden. I’m glad its not universal … El Cazzador with liquid tacos just wouldn’t be the same.

  3. sarcastic_weasel says:

    Don’t worry, Erica– for those of us who do actually play mahjong every now and then, we’re just amused by the insanely improbable hands everyone gets. But that’s what makes it more of a mahjong fantasy manga with a Yuri bat.

    Fortunately for you, Kobayashi Ritz takes a break every 2-3 issues (or at least it seems that way), so you should get caught up with your reviews pretty quickly. It only comes out every 2 weeks, so the progress is kind of slow at this point.

    My only nitpick with the manga as a whole is that it feels like Kobayashi has fallen more in love with the characters from the other schools than with the main characters sometimes, and Saki (the character) especially feels kind of two-dimensional in comparison. Dunno. Maybe Kobayashi is just holding back on her backstory.

  4. Super says:

    “Yuri – Tons. Everywhere you look. In fact, it almost seems hard to find a character not locked in a passionately emotional relationship in this manga”

    I always wanted to ask you, how do you feel about yuri in such titles? In the sense that you consider them an example of a genre and a real romantic relationship or just a platonic romance like in other yuri-sh works like Izetta?

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