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Episode 2 – The Awakening of Talent
The legendary night continues. Akagi continues to play, and play well. He doesn’t deal a single tile into Ryuuzaki’s hand, and everyone’s baffled by the newbie’s luck. He tosses out tiles that others would consider risky, but is correct in doing so every time. Akagi’s explanation: he can hear the “voices” of the discarded tiles.
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During a break in the gameplay, Ryuuzaki decides to call their rep player, Yagi. Meanwhile, Nangou and Yasuoka ask Akagi for the secret to his success against Ryuuzaki. What does Akagi see that the others do not?
It turns out that Akagi can classify each discarded tile into one of three types: safe zone, danger zone, and “noise”. That, plus the discard order and Ryuuzaki’s habit of glancing at his incomplete tile set when making a Riichi, made it easy for Akagi to figure out which tiles his opponent was waiting on. Yasuoka is amazed at Akagi’s insight, gained after only a few hours of playing Mahjong.
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10:07PM. The match continues, and Akagi is winning. Suddenly, there’s a knock on the door. The rep player has arrived! He takes a seat beside Nangou and watches Akagi play. Akagi continues to play well, responding to changes and ditching good hands without hesitation for a quick win. However, in the next round, Yagi Keiji notices a weakness: Akagi doesn’t know that he can Kan after declaring a Riichi. Of course, he still wins against Ryuuzaki despite this weakness.
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Yagi confronts Akagi during the next break and proposes that they make a little wager of their own: 100,000 yen per Han Chan session… or a finger! Akagi isn’t spooked by this and accepts the offer, as long as it applies to Yagi too. Yagi accepts this indignantly and walks away displeased. His attempt to put pressure on Akagi has failed spectacularly.
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The rep player replaces Ryuuzaki for the next round. He tries to pressure Akagi by declaring a Riichi early on, but Akagi just continues on, unfazed. Since that didn’t work, Yagi discards his winning tile in order to make Akagi doubt his own judgement of which tiles Yagi is waiting on. In exchange for a few points, Yagi hopes to make Akagi doubt himself more and more as the game progresses. However, Akagi decides to discard his own winning tile, much to Yasuoka and Yagi’s dismay. What is he up to?
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OPINION
Huh, so Akagi can hear voices, eh? I certainly hope he doesn’t mean that literally, but then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if the kid was a bit special. It’s fun watching everybody get thoroughly spooked by Akagi’s amazing newbie powers. He makes it all look so easy…
The whole business with the Kan seems a touch farfetched. Is something so minor really a critical weakness that will come back to haunt Akagi?
I think the Yagi versus Akagi confrontation was the best part of this episode. Chopping off a finger if you can’t pay up… an intimidating threat to the average teenager, unless that teenager happens to be Akagi. You can already tell that the kid’s going to eat Yagi alive in the next episode. Here’s hoping that Yagi has the cash on him. I have no idea what Akagi would do with a stack of forcibly amputated fingers. Great scene, plus we got to see Akagi’s eye twitch.
The one thing that bothered me was the end bit from the narrator. Since when was it a duel to the death? Unless one of them dies from the infected stumps where their fingers used to be…
Comments
Eris_sama
21 Oct 2006, 13:31
Oh, the problem was me. I had my screen on portrait rather than landscape.
sir_seagill
23 Jul 2007, 02:53
funny how the cop doesn’t do anything about the crazy deal. 😀
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