Saki

Saki (咲-Saki-) is an ongoing Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Ritz Kobayashi. The story revolves around a first-year high school girl named Saki Miyanaga who is brought into the competitive world of mahjong by another first-year, Nodoka Haramura. The manga has been serialized in Square Enix's Young Gangan since February 3, 2006, and has been collected into eight tankōbon volumes in Japan as of June 2011. A 25-episode anime adaptation by Gonzo aired between April and September 2009 on TV Tokyo. A spin-off manga illustrated by Aguri Igarashi, Saki Achiga-hen episode of Side-A, began serialization in the September 2011 issue of Monthly Shōnen Gangan and will also be adapted into an anime by Studio Gokumi in spring 2012.

Story
Saki Miyanaga, a high school first-year student, hates mahjong because her family would always force her to play it and punish her regardless of the outcome of the game. Due to this, she learned how to keep her score at zero, neither winning nor losing, a skill said to be more difficult than actually consistently winning. However, her friend Kyōtarō from middle school, completely unaware of such circumstances, convinces her to visit the school's small mahjong club upon entering into high school. After the club discovers her ability, they recruit her permanently and convince her to win instead of breaking even. She easily does so with her skill and discovers a new love for mahjong. This leads the team to enter the prefecture's high school mahjong tournament with the goal of reaching the national high school competition.

Saki: Achiga-hen of Side-A
The side-story manga, Saki: Achiga-hen Episode of Side-A, follows a girl named Shizuno Takakama, an old friend of Nodoka Haramura, who used to be in Achiga Girls Academy's mahjong club together. A few years after the club disbanded and the two split up, Shizuno spots Nodoka on television as she makes her stride in mahjong. Wanting to see her old friend again, Shizuno decides to revive the Achiga Mahjong Club so that she can face Nodoka in the inter-high national championships.