I'm kind of mixed about it. It feels rushed but the plot is still followable. and same, I wish we'd see more before the national tournament; it feels more natural to watch the characters endure through grueling mahjong matches instead of just a tick list of which schools they practiced against. I guess they have a good reason, as you said, and want to skip ahead to the more interesting national tournament, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
I know, it does really hurt the impact of "wow, they're at the national tournament!" when they make it seem so easy. For Kiyosumi winning the regional tournament was a serious, big challenge, but here it took like four minutes. Not enough... I know the reason, and it does work, I just wish it hadn't had to be this way.
I don't remember some of the older characters so I feel like rewatching it but no time -_-'
I remember most of them, but I have been following all three (sort of four, there are two different versions of the 4koma series Biyori) mangas.
Yeah, their personalities aren't as colourful and charismatic as the original Saki cast. I said this because for the previous episodes they just seemed so bland but in ep 3, they started to capture some of the original cast's magic. I'd attribute some of their blandness due to the time skips, which don't let us really connect to and watch the characters grow.
Yeah, that's really the thing -- these characters are decently good, but they aren't quite as strong personalities as the Saki cast is. Part of the issue is that fewer of them have awesome superpowers, and that the series is so fast paced that it has much less time for characterization, but they just aren't quite as interesting. They are good characters, and Shizuno's probably the best of the five, but Kiyosumi's group is hard to match, and Achiga doesn't quite do it. Still, it is a good group, and fun to watch... hopefully they get more characterization now that the pace is about to slow down.
She looks pretty different...the right certainly has a more substantial presence than the one on the left...
Right v. left? Apart from the hair she doesn't look too different in right v. left, it's top v. bottom that's the big change (obviously). If they ever make a second season of the main Saki manga and she shows up in it, I wonder which design they'll go with...
