News

Sekirei's Sakurako Gokurakuin Draws Saki Spinoff Manga With Male Cast

This year's seventh issue of Square Enix's Young Gangan magazine announced on Thursday that Ritz Kobayashi's Saki mahjong manga will have a new spinoff manga titled Saki re: King's Tile Draw (seen in bottom row of image below) centered on five male characters. Sakurako Gokurakuin, the creator of the Sekirei manga, is drawing the new spinoff, and it will launch in Square Enix's Gangan Online magazine on March 25.

Kobayashi commented on the manga, asking readers to guess which character is which, hinting that "the names are only slightly different, but they're totally different characters."

Yen Press is publishing the original Saki manga in North America digitally, and it describes the series:

Saki's never been a big fan of mahjong. A lifetime of being forced to play with family at holidays (and losing her money as a consequence...) has left a foul taste for the game in her mouth. When she's convinced, though, to play a game with her classmates, she discovers that not only has fending off her family left her with an uncanny ability for the game but, more surprisingly, that it can even be fun!

Is this revelation enough to cleanse Saki's distaste for the game? Can her classmates convince her to join their club, or is there just too much baggage to make it worth her while?

If you're looking for the number one mahjong manga out there, you've found it!

Kobayashi launched the original manga in 2006, and it has inspired several other spinoff manga series.

The original manga inspired a 25-episode television series in 2009, and a new television anime project titled Saki - The Nationals launched in 2014. The Saki Achiga-hen episode of side-A spinoff manga inspired a television anime adaptation in 2012. The four-panel spinoff manga Saki Biyori inspired an anime DVD in 2015. The live-action television adaptation of the original Saki manga debuted in December 2016, followed by a live-action film in February 2017. Saki Achiga-hen episode of side-A also inspired live-action film and television series adaptations, which premiered in December 2018 and January 2019, respectively.

Source: The Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web