Saki 01: Why Saki is a parody

Posted: April 6, 2009 | Author: flomu | Filed under: Uncategorized |8 Comments »

FAIL-O-METER
Incredible.  Simply incredible.
Failure is either larger than a city or smaller than a stick of gum, depending on whether or not you know how to play mahjong, or whether this is a parody or not.

 

 

 The biggest problem I have with Saki is not knowing whether or not it’s a parody.

If it were a parody, I’d say: GREAT job.

If it isn’t, then… holy shit, this fails.

 

THE EVIDENCE

The loli.

The spazzy loli.

The animal-wearing spazzy loli.

The pigtailed, animal-wearing spazzy loli.

The pigtailed, fang-tan, animal-wearing spazzy loli.

The pigtailed, fang-tan, animal-wearing spazzy loli voiced by Rie Kugimiya.  (gomen, I just had to put that in here)

It’s too ridiculous.  She’s too stereotypical.  She wears a longcat as a belt, is miles shorter than everybody else, eats constantly, has a fang, is constanly making weird facial expressions, and has childish hair.  She is more of a stereotypical loli than any other anime character I’ve ever seen before.  Taking her character seriously is very tough to do, as she’s basically the loli archetype.

Basically, if you don’t know mahjong, you can’t understand half the episode.
Who the hell cares if Saki can break even every single time if you can’t understand what that even means (or that plus/minus zero means breaking even…)?

To have this not be a parody, either the targeted audience (i.e. Japanese people) all know mahjong (a lot do, but…), or this is one fail-filled show.

HOLY SHIT, A 70 MINIPOINT 2 FAN HAND!!11111oneone

Since when has mahjong been srsbsns?

Plus if it’s going to be this dramatic in the first episode, then I can definitely say that when an actual match comes up (as in, “nationals”), I will be cowering in the corner of my room, trying to get away from all the lightning, thunder, cheerleaders, disco ball, and fireworks coming from my screen.

Seriously, do we need the electricity?  The dramatic placing down of the tile is already too flashy, and now you’ve got biribiri doing your work.

BAH.

wat.

You know, when a character flat out explains the rules of the game in a separate section, you know something’s up.

Later, the characters say, “So basically, the time’s cut in half.”  “Yeah.”  (something along those lines)
Either they are trying desparately to simplify the game in layman’s terms or they’re just making fun of one of the biggest problems with game/sport-based anime: how to connect the game/sport to the viewers.

 

HAH, even the loli realizes that she’s in a parody!

The student council congress president has one large ahoge.

In fact, there is an entire scene dedicated to her ahoge to draw viewer attention to the fact that she possesses an ahoge.

So why is this scene even here?  My guess would be that it’s to …antistereotype (?) Hisa.
An ahoge usually represents clumsiness and stupidity, but Hisa doesn’t seem to be very clumsy at all.  Rather, she’s the one who notices that Saki gets three +-0s in a row.  Obviously, this very fact obviously shows Saki’s blatantly obvious skill at obviously getting obvious +-0s in an obvious row.  Obviously, Hisa isn’t smart.  Rather, she’s the smartest of the dumbest.

It’s pretty hard not to go “huh?” if Saki gets three +-0s in a row (I mean, even by chance… isn’t that incredibly tough to do…?  It’s like winning the lottery three times in a row [not a good example]).  Yet nobody questions it or points it out.  It takes somebody with an ahoge (somebody clumsy) to point out that Saki has an unusual skill in breaking even.

So what does all of this mean?  Well basically, it means that the other characters are retards.  They can’t even tell that Saki is gifted, and they need an “idiot” to tell them before they realize it themselves.

The yuri/lesbianism in this episode also shows signs of parody.

What kind of main character falls in love with another girl?  It’s so ludicrous that a romance between Saki and Nodoka would only serve to tell the audience, “Hey, this is really far from reality, because things like this usually don’t happen to japanese high school freshmen girls!”

Yes, I know that GONZO loves its fanservice (just look at Strike Witches!), but the fanservice here was in-your-face nonetheless.

The ‘obligatory fanservice shot’ near the beginning of this post and the screenshot above are just about as obvious “THIS IS FANSERVICE” as you’re going to get, really.  And what better to reinforce parody aspects than to give us random fanservice shots?  Basically, my reasoning here is that of Hayate no Gotoku, which used Hinagiku fanservice a lot for comedic effect: “random fanservice diverts viewer attention away from the main storyline, and inserts a degree of randomness into the anime.”  This degree of randomness translates somewhat into “why is this happening in a mahjong-based anime again…?” and thus, parody.

 

In conclusion,

Saki is either a great parody or a crappy, what-the-hell-is-going-on??!? anime.

OVERLY DRAMATIC MUCH?

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