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Saki Mahjong Manga to Get TV Anime from Gonzo in 2009 (Update 2)

This year's 24th issue of Square Enix's Young Gangan magazine will reportedly announce on Friday that a television anime adaptation of Ritz Kobayashi's Saki mahjong manga has been green-lit for 2009. The magazine had already indicated that there would be an "important announcement" in the next issue. The story centers around Saki Miyanaga, a timid freshman girl who has never enjoyed the Asian tile game of mahjong. However, another freshman brings her into their high school's mahjong club and into the competitive world of mahjong tournaments. Square Enix posted a free preview of the manga online. Four compiled volumes of the manga have been published since it began in 2006 in Japan.

Source: 2ch

Update: The Young Gangan magazine issue includes the following cast list:

Kana Ueda: Saki Miyanaga
Ami Koshimizu: Nodoka Haramura
Rie Kugimiya: Yūki Kataoka
Ryōko Shiraishi: Mako Someya
Shizuka Itou: Hisa Takei
Jun Fukuyama: Kyōtarō Suga

Manabu Ono (Dragonaut - The Resonance, Transformers: Cybertron) will direct, and Tatsuhiko Urahata (Card Captor Sakura, Hajime no Ippo, Strawberry Panic!) wil be in charge of scripts. Masakatsu Sasaki (Erotic Torture Chamber) will design the characters and oversee the animators at Gonzo. Studio Easter's Hiroki Matsumoto (Itazura na Kiss, Shikabane Hime: Aka, Welcome to the NHK) will design and supervise the background art. SANZIGEN will produce the 3D animation, while Yōta Tsuruoka (Air, Clannad, ef: a tale of memories) will direct the sound.

Update 2: The official website for the anime series has launched.