[Digital] Saki Episode #25 (Season Finale)

[The Great Bear]

Review by Greg Smith

Mania Grade: B+
* Audio Rating: NA
* Video Rating: NA
* Packaging Rating: NA
* Menus Rating: NA
* Extras Rating: NA
* Age Rating: 13 and Up
* Region: All Region
* Released By: Crunchyroll
* Running time: 25
* Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen
* Resolution: 480p (720p also available)
* Series: Saki

Series Retrospective:

When I first started watching Saki, I did not really know what to expect…While it is, in terms of genre and formal composition, a sports anime, with all of the classic cliches including secret techniques, training camps to improve one's abilities, surprise outcomes and all of the slightly over the top special effects, from lightning flashes to slow motion movements, Saki has been more enjoyable than that. There has been a very good use of pacing, even during the lengthy number of episodes devoted to the Prefectural Qualifying Tournament…
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What has made the show all the more interesting has been the characters.
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It's not a great show. The animation is competent, but nothing particularly special. The voice acting is very suitable for the situations, but it is very much in line with the broad caricatures that some of the characters are. In terms of writing, the "sports" situations, while they have been rendered into mahjong terms, have been seen elsewhere. But, it is a very entertaining show. Even if much of what you see here is not entirely original or very different from what can be had elsewhere, the overall execution has been solid and the show will even have replay value, as one wants to see again, from the beginning, the journey that Saki takes from a shy little girl who hates mahjong to one of the most feared players in her entire prefecture.

Recommended.

[Suwako Moriya]

Saki works for me because it has a variety of cute girls that are awesome. Also, I like the fact that the opponents are actual characters and not just enemies to defeat.