For some reason, mahjongg seems to be in the air for me this year.
There’s a fun anime called Saki that’s all about high school mahjongg tournament play in Japan. (I like the characters and story, but unfortunately it’s got tons of “fanservice” for the male viewer — jouncing breasts, panty shots, offcolor innuendo, etc. So this is a show only for those experienced in ignoring all this pointless supposed comedy.) It reminds me a lot of King Arthur’s knights in the Mabinogion, as every player has a different specialty which manifests as a sort of psychic ki superpower. (But only during mahjongg games. Mostly.)
Anyway, I’ve always liked the look of the mahjongg tiles and playing the inevitable computer matching games, but I’ve only gotten a chance to play the game once. This show gives you a lot of good visuals of how things work (albeit under Japanese rules), which you can then match against rules and descriptions online. It also is good at conveying a sense of excitement and love of the game, strategies and tactics, and the fun of guessing other players’ hands and coming moves.
There’s a fun urban fantasy (real urban fantasy, not supernatural romance) trilogy coming out from Jane Lindskold with an interesting mahjongg-based magic system, and folks with the powers of the Chinese zodiac animals. I recommend Thirteen Orphans highly. It’s a good fun read, with solid writing as its foundation. You’ll really enjoy it. (The second book, Nine Gates, just came out in hardcover.) I plan to hit the library and read her backlist, because clearly I’ve been missing something.
Finally, it turns out that the US military’s primary mahjongg variant is played under “the Wright-Patterson rules“, which were actually developed at McCook Field back in the day. I find this nifty.
Aliens in This World 