M-League, a Japanese mahjong sports league, was recently named the “World’s Most Watched Literary Event”.
Having a viewership of hundreds of thousands to over a million viewers every game day, it easily beats any other televised literary event in the world. In 2021, the Booker Prize only had around 12,000 and the Nobel Prize for Literature only had around 90,000.
In a recent interview with Fujita Susumu, M-League chairman and recommender of Kobayashi Go’s mahjong book, he cleared up some misconceptions about M-League.
Many people think that players play for their teams so they can win the championship and prove they’re the best. In reality, players try to win their games so they have a chance to show off their books. And they do try to win the championship, but mostly to get money so they can quit their day job and have more time to write.
Fujita Susumu
Kadokawa, a book publisher and the owner of the Kadokawa Sakura Knights, has taken full advantage of the screen time, advertising every second they can and even making an official M-League Guidebook.
Despite this title, many viewers simply do not believe that the focus of M-League is not mahjong. As proof that M-League is actually a book event, both Mizuhara Akina and Sonoda Ken have both advertised their books in their post-game interviews. Players from opposing teams help advertise the books. Even the Unlucky Mopheus song “‘M’ Revolution” has more references to books written by M-Leaguers than mahjong terms.
It is expected that the awards ceremony for this award will be named “The World’s Most Watched Event about the World’s Most Watched Literary Event”.
In other news, Kobayashi Go is rereading his book “Increase your win rate by 5%” after almost discarding a tile that would have brought his win rate to 0%.
M-League Watch 