Some of you expected me to go gaga over episode 12 of Achiga, and I won’t disappoint. I don’t think a single post is enough to cover all the points of note, so I’ll start things off with the main character.
Onjouji Toki. It goes without saying that she has been overdoing things, taking crazy risks and turning a tile-matching game into a life-or-death ordeal. What I haven’t touched upon in previous posts is that everything she’s done in the Teru match is utter nonsense in terms of helping out her team win the match. Two teams advance to the finals, and there’s basically no way for Toki not to place second if she just bails all teh time. The other players get ronned from time to time, Toki doesn’t. The abysmal probability of her losing second place despite that disappeared when she won the first hand of the match and when Shindouji and Achiga ate one ron each, proving Teru was not aiming to knock out the no.2 seed Senriyama specifically.
The reason Toki’s actions were suicidal, in more ways than one, was because her fight was never about point totals to begin with.
In the tournament one year ago, Eguchi Sera did not face Miyanaga Teru. But she ended up with a no less painful role. After all, “by the time it was their turn, the match was as good as over.” How did Sera feel, tens of thousands of points behind her opponents and unable to do a thing about it? The powerlessness she felt back then was like what Ikeda Kana experienced in her fight against Amae Koromo – forced to go for high-scoring hands against opponents who could not possibly play into those hands – a merciless quicksand dragging her ever deeper into despair. The existence called ‘Miyanaga Teru’ made everything meaningless – her effort, her determination, her dreams. And when Ryuuka tells Toki of Sera’s sadness, it is because that is easier than talking about her own memories and pain. After all, she went through the same.
Losing happens. They both knew this. They could get over it. There was just one problem. This.
Osaka is huge. It is 2,871,680 people kind of huge. Those thousands of lights support the students attending Senriyama. The several hundred students take pride in their mahjong club. The several dozen mahjong club members come along for the Nationals to cheer on their regular team. The five member team based its schedule around supporting Onjouji Toki.
Tell those people that Miyanaga Teru is an absolute power and that second place is good enough. Tell them that it wasn’t worth trying. Tell them it wasn’t worth pulling out all the stops.
Toki risked a lot. But as the champion draws the tile that will cost her 16 000 points, we see her look up. Miyanaga Teru and Onjouji Toki lock gazes – the first time during the match that the champion is forced to look somebody straight in the eyes, acknowledge them. Like Kokaji-pro right now, Teru will remember this match even after ten years have passed. She might not remember Toki’s name, and that’s fine.
Senriyama did it.
Yaranakya 
Nice observation, there was a similar discussion on /u/ about how objectively Toki’s actions don’t make much sense. However Toki had long since lost her objectivity, and as she said herself right before Kuro’s Ron, she wanted to hurt Teru, make the champion know that she was not invincible.
Kuro may have scored the final hit, but Toki is the one who made it all possible.
Kuro gets points, Toki gets bragging rights ;).
Like they say, it’s also possible they want to play all five matches before the final, which would preclude any team getting knocked out by Teru as a possibility. FunaQ might want the statistical data because, even if you place 2nd you have to go through the whole ordeal again wrt Shiraitodai in the final. What’s the point of getting to the final if you can’t win in the end?
Great point. While most Shiraitodai should have plenty of data on them available, at least Ryuuka vs. Awai would be an important match-up to test out, seeing as Awai’s new to the team. Teru is difficult to match, so Senriyama has to go into the match with the assumption that they will have to mount a comeback after the vanguard match, so all data is precious. FunaQ is the hidden backbone of the team to begin with, and probably one of the reasons they reached 2nd nationally in the first place.
Yeah, I’ll even suggest that data on Awai might be unreliable till now. Teru creates such huge leads in the prefectural games that even if the other 3 teams last all 5 matches all the other Shiraitodai members need to do is play with a conventional conservative style against opponents forced to go for high point hands. This semi-final is really the last chance Serinyama has to size her up and perhaps force her to play with her real “powers” a bit. I imagine Ryuuka might be gunning for revenge a little as well, heh.
(If we go with the fan speculation Awai being the 1st year heir apparent to Teru’s 3rd year. Which will go with the standard Ritz template of 2/3 broken monsters and 1 scrappy normal in the interhigh final.)
There’s plenty reason to believe Awai will be scary. I might have a related post one of these days…
Of course Awai’s scary. SOMEONE is going to have to put up a fight against Saki, after all.