Naki no Ryuu Chapter 16

We're back with a new volume of Ryuu, and the beginning of the match against Ishikawa.

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Thanks to Penchan for the cleaning and typesetting. They may be spending more time cleaning Mukoubuchi now, but that doesn't mean that Ryuu is getting left behind.


Mahoraga (Makora in Japanese) represents the ox. If you look at the table of contents, you will see that we are nearing the end of the 12 Heavenly Generals chapters. What are the significance of those Japanese sounding chapters, you ask? Well, that will have to wait for another time.

 I just want to start off by saying that these double page spreads are dope. Props to Penchan on making them look awesome.

Anyways, this chapter begins the showdown between Ryuu and Ishikawa. On the way, Ishikawa's hitman makes the black and white metaphor to describe his loyalty to his boss. It's a pretty common one, especially in yakuza stories, but I couldn't help but be reminded of the Cho-Han arc in Akagi.

Ryuu's cool factor gets super out of control in this chapter. I've tried discarding the same tiles as someone else while playing mahjong, and it's nearly impossible to do past the first 3 or 4, even if you're lucky. For Ryuu to do it well over 20 times in a row is inconceivable, though given his seeming omnipotence over the tiles it's just pretty interesting. After Ishikawa's riichi it's less cool though, because technically discarding safe tiles.

Speaking of which, Ishikawa had a crazy wait with that souzu heavy hand. It was a 1-4-7 2-5-8 3-6 sou wait! Where have I seen a hand like that before... That's right, Akagi's current chinitsu hand! But now I'm just making connections out of thin air.