Hi folks, you may know me from the Blood of Bahamut translation or my tutorial on learning to play Japanese games in their original language, but if there's one thing more important to me than Japanese video game translation, it's Japanese Mahjong. You guys might be familiar with another type of mahjong (Hong Kong, Modern Chinese, etc.), but Japanese mahjong is a huge professional game in Japan and has influenced tons of media, including some popular anime and manga like Akagi, Kaiji (shown above), Saki, Kirinji, and Touhai. There are also lots of Mahjong games and games that include Mahjong in them (Mahjong Fight Club series, Gundam Mahjong for DS, the Yakuza series).
The game is really interesting, but pretty difficult to learn if you're just jumping in without any knowledge or background in Japanese, because most of the instructions and materials have only been available in Japanese until recently, and Mahjong media, including tournament videos and professional instruction has NEVER been in English.... until now...
Two foreign mahjong professionals who live in Japan and belong to an elite league of players that include manga artists Fukumoto (author of Kaiji, Akagi, Ten, and Zero) and Shinasaka Koji (author of Touhai) have gotten the OK to do English commentary for Mondo, an entertainment channel in Japan that broadcasts mahjong videos. These aren't random white dudes, they are some of the best Mahjong players on earth, and want other foreigners to enjoy these matches with professional commentary! If you are interested in the game or want to learn more about it, check out these videos:
This is important to me, because while I know a lot of Japanese, I want there to be more stuff about Mahjong in English!!
