After watching xxxHolic episode 6, I found myself wondering this: Why hasn’t there been any anime or manga solely on the topic of Mahjong?

We’ve had anime and manga based on food, bread, Go, chess, Tamiya, tennis, gambling, card games, etc but none on Mahjong. While I’m no expert, I do play the game for fun every once in a while and there’s really a lot of depth to the game. You need to plan a strategy based on your initial hand, predict your opponent’s hands and adapt accordingly.

While it’s possible to get a very good hand right at the start (I once won the round on the very first tile discarded) there really isn’t such a thing as a bad hand. It’s how you play that determines whether you have good or bad tiles.

Something I’ve been trying to get since forever. Pity the last pair isn’t a dragon.

The lighthearted and comedic episode around mahjong proved that mahjong can be a fun and interesting focus in a series. One might think that mahjong is also a form of gambling and that it might be a bad influence, but there’s already Kaiji. Mahjong is also a rather healthy game as it has already been proven that the game keeps your mind sharp.

Hatsune Miku, the Mahjong Girl.

This was one of the more memorable and interesting episodes in xxxHolic & Kei so far. Watanuki’s royal beating and zashiki-warashi’s open comment about his full green tiles were definitely the best parts of the ep. Even everyone’s favourite vocaloid leek wielding girl makes a cameo appearance on a Mahjong guide book cover.

Unlike Kaaya‘s cat impression, Watanuki just looks wrong like this…

So, when are we getting an entire series about Mahjong? Or perhaps xxxHolic should change its focus towards the game instead of the paranormal.

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