Mukoubuchi Chapter 17

And after only 10 months, the next chapter of Mukoubuchi is out!! I have no excuse for the delay on this one besides life being sucky and not feeling like doing every job on this chapter. Tambur also took a while to quality check it. So eh. It's done now though, so let's finally continue the Kannagi arc! Go read the last chapter, since I'm sure you've forgotten what happened by now!!

Chapter Link

"This is a match between two demons in human form!!"

I really like this chapter, the Baccarat duel was interesting even though there wasn't any strategy to it, and Kannagi's play style is definitely really interesting, it surprised me every time I reread the chapter that she called pon on the hatsu after playing it the previous discard. What she did was assume that because Kai was able to direct-hit her with the tile she got to Tenpai with twice in a row, he must have the best end of the flow, and that it would only get better from there. In other words, if Kai is going into Riichi, he will most likely draw his winning tile on the Ippatsu, therefore in order to stop it she had to call and disrupt the turn order, and the only way to get the Hatsu from the player to her right was to make the Hatsu a safe tile by playing it herself. If you allow for the existence of flow, it's a pretty nice maneuver.

While reading this series, I think it's best to suspend your disbelief of "flow is bullshit", because a great many of the characters in the series fully believe in flow and think they understand how it works. Some of Kai's tactics also rely on reading the flow and taking advantage of it, which is part of what makes his playstyle so otherworldly. In this series at least, Kai and others like Kannagi understand flow to such a great extent that they can plan around it and even sometimes manipulate it through their actions.

But it's not just in manga. A great many real Japanese people also express a belief and understanding of the flow of luck. If you play against enough people in Japan, it wouldn't take very long for you to find someone who will outright criticize your play because you weren't taking advantage of the flow, which is something Garthe Nelson (one of the only non-Japanese Mahjong Pros in Japan) wrote a blog post about on reachmahjong.com. Even Mahjong Pros, who aim to make mahjong a game of skill rather than luck for the most part, are not opposed to considering that a player might be riding the flow when discussing their plays. Tsuchida Koushou is a well-known and respected mahjong pro who has a series of videos in Japanese discussing not only the existence of flow but the patterns of it and the best way to account for the flow in your playing. These videos are rated very positively, which is unusual given that Japanese people tend to be very critical and negative on the internet, which goes to show that even laymen in Japan are willing to consider the existence of flow.

So that begs the question. If so many people in real life believe in flow... what exactly IS it? Well, I'll try and shed some insight on it from my years of research on the matter. First of all, "Flow" is a literal translation of the Japanese word 流れ (Nagare). Nagare is used to describe the flow of rivers and of water in general, so it makes sense that it would be translated that way. But what the translation fails to express is that the word Nagare also means "the course of events" in general. When watching a baseball game, you will often hear the commentators cry out "the Nagare is in [team]'s favor!" after they score hits or runs, which is equivalent to an American Football commentator saying "[team] has the momentum!". As a matter of fact, I often translate Nagare as "momentum" in certain contexts to make it more understandable.

But it's not just in sports, Nagare is also used to describe the "flow" of conversations, of a business meeting, of a person's day, or really anything that changes over time in an observable manner. So that in mind, the word "Nagare" carries more meaning than just "Luck". When you read a character talking about Flow, they're talking about the way the game unfolds in a general sense, as well as in a luck-based sense. I don't believe there's really a direct equivalent to the word in any western language. You can talk about "hot streaks" all day, but that's only one aspect of the overarching flow of a game.

From my understanding of the concept, Nagare in Mahjong is somewhat arbitrary, but can be affected by players' actions. Sometimes, the flow is equally favorable to everyone. Sometimes, it's equally terrible for everyone. Sometimes it starts with a bias towards one player or more, but it can change from round to round depending on the "momentum" the players achieve. If you allow other players to walk all over you, you will tend to be negatively affected by the flow of the game, but dealing into other player's hands is also something that gets you on the bad end of the flow. Conversely, winning hands tends to get the flow on your side, and so does standing up to other players and not allowing them to get away with doing whatever they want. Making dangerous tiles pass against a Riichi is a good way to get the flow on your side, but if you deal in, you can expect a worse starting hand in the next round.

Flow seems to favor seat position rather than the player playing. If one player is riding a hot streak and then the seats are shuffled around, the player who sits down in the same seat should be able to pick up that hot streak right where it left off. Furthermore, changing the draw order by calling on tiles allows the "hot" tiles to flow to different players, and allows them to pick up the favorable flow. A lot of people scoff at Legendary Gambler Tetsuya saying "I stole that guy's luck by calling pon" in the first episode, but the true meaning of that quote is that he's stolen his good draws by changing the draw order.

That's about the gist of it. So... do I believe in Nagare? Well... kind of. I think online mahjong is pure random and has no room for flow, but in mahjong with real tiles? Yes, I believe it's real. I've seen so many things happen that fit with what I just described to you. I've been able to seize the flow by playing well, and lose the flow by playing meekly. I've won games because I was able to read the flow correctly, and lost games because others read the flow better than I could. I was skeptical at first, but the more I play mahjong, the stronger my belief in flow becomes. I understand why so many mahjong manga deal with playing around flow, because in the game of mahjong at least, it's a real phenomenon.

I might get into my theories about the cause of flow next time, but I still have another blog post to write tonight so I'll save it for now. Hopefully this at least gave you an understanding about what the characters in this manga think flow is, because this arc is going to dive deep into reading the flow! Next chapter will be in... less than a year from now, hopefully!!