The 2023-24 Season starts in just over two weeks! Today, we will be going over all the new things that have been announced over the past few months to get you ready for this upcoming season.
This article will cover all the news since the M-League 2023-24 Preseason: Late May Update published on May 27, 2023.
Beast Japanext Reveal and Tournament
After it was announced that there would be a new M-League team sponsored by BS Japanext, it was revealed that the team’s name would be the “Beast Japanext” as a pun on the sponsor’s name and the team’s mascot would be a wolf.
Along with the name and mascot announcement, the team revealed the eight players that would play in their audition tournament. You can read about the name, logo, mascot and tournament details below.
After 16 games of tournament action, Sugawara Hiroe was victorious and got an automatic spot on the team roster.
You can watch all tournament games with an ABEMA Premium subscription.
IKUSA
After being first announced in January, the EX Furinkazan IKUSA tournament finally came to a close on June 4. Sporting a pair of Pikachu earrings, the winner of the tournament was Hitotsui Shinya from JPML. With the win, he receives a 1 million yen prize and will be the team’s Special Sparring Partner (SSP), giving him an automatic seed as a finalist for any future new member auditions for the next three years.
You can watch select preliminary matches with an ABEMA Premium subscription.
M-League x Saikyousen
On May 28, the M-League x Saikyousen match took place. The top 8 players from the M-League 2022-23 season were pitted against each other to see who would get a spot in the Mahjong Saikyousen 2023. After Mizuhara and Sonoda won Table A and Hisato and Takamiya won Table B, Sonoda took home the prize by winning the final table, booking his spot in the Mahjong Saikyousen 2023.
You can watch Table A, Table B and the Final Table with a VPN and an ABEMA Premium subscription
M-Tournament
From June 12 to August 6, 32 M-Leaguers and 20 select pros participated in the M-Tournament competition. At each stage, only the top 2 players advanced to the next round, with the championship-winning Shibuya Abemas automatically seeded in the top 16. You can read more about the tournament in the previous M-League update:
After almost two months of action, the final table was decided, featuring Shibukawa Nanba, Nikaido Rumi, Ishidate Takehiro (JPML) and Sakamoto Masashi (Saikouisen) (despite the Abemas getting seeded high, none of them were able to get past the top 8). After two more games, Shibukawa Nanba was the eventual winner of the tournament.
You can watch the entire tournament with an ABEMA Premium subscription.
Elementary School M-League Tournament
On August 27 and August 29, two M-League tournaments called the “CoroCoro Cup” took place with elementary school students as the competitors.
The first tournament took place in Osaka and had 32 players. After winning a suuankou, the champion of the tournament was a 2nd grader with +202.7pts
The second tournament was in Tokyo with 32 players as well. The winner of this one was a 3rd grader with a score of 224.9pts.
ABEMA News did a 10-minute news story highlighting the tournaments. It can only be watched from Japan or via VPN.
Roster Changes and the M-League 2023-24 Draft
After the Kadokawa Sakura Knights and EX Furinkazan announced that they will be keeping all of their players and the Sega Sammy Phoenix made changes to their roster, we were still waiting on five more teams to announce their status.
On May 29, the Akasaka Drivens, who were forced to change their roster after failing to make the finals two years in a row, announced that they were dropping both Murakami Jun and Maruyama Kanako. Since they dropped Maruyama, the team is forced to draft at least one female player at the upcoming draft.
In the weeks following, the other four teams (Team Raiden, Konami Mahjong Fight Club, Shibuya Abemas and U-Next Pirates) all announced that they would be keeping their players. All eight announcements were conveniently compiled in an M-League Twitter Thread.
On June 30, seven new players were drafted. Four of them were chosen by the Beast Japanext (Sarukawa Masatoshi, Sugawara Hiroe, Nakada Kana and Suzuki Daisuke), one went to the Sega Sammy Phoenix (Daigo Hiroshi) and two of them went to the Akasaka Drivens (Asami Maki and Watanabe Futoshi).
The contracts for all 36 players were confirmed within the week, solidifying the rosters of all 9 M-League teams.
Schedules and Calendars
On August 3, revealed the schedule for the 2023-24 season. In total, there are 216 games in the season, 28 more games than the previous season. you can read more about the schedules and access team calendars below.
New Uniforms
On September 1, M-League revealed the new uniforms for all 9 M-League teams
The Akasaka Drivens have chosen a brighter green on their uniform this year (presumably to reduce confusion between them and the Beast Japanext colours), having it accented on the sleeves). Otherwise, some small changes to their tartan pattern leaves the base design fairly unchanged.
The Beast Japanext’s inaugural jersey will have a forest camouflage look, evoking the natural habitat of the wolf. Their wolf mascot is featured at the front sitting on a tile and their wolf logo on the back.
The EX Furinkazan have changed their uniform quite a bit, with their logo now sported on their right shoulder. On the front, the letters “EX” are written in stylized brushstrokes and the word “FU-RINKAZAN” printed beside it. In addition, the team also has more sponsors on their uniform, including the online riichi game “Riichi City“.
The new Kadokawa Sakura Knights uniform hearkens back to their 2021-22 season uniform with a mostly white uniform and some sakura designs on the side. Other than that, a few more sponsor are sported on their uniform.
The Konami Mahjong Fight Club have opted not to have their dragon on the uniform this year. Instead, they have sharp white brushstrokes with green accents.
The Sega Sammy Phoenix uniform is largely unchanged, save for the removal of the green sleeve cuff.
The Shibuya Abemas have changed their uniform style to have vertical stripes with two shades of brown and a single black stripe in the middle.
Team Raiden has chosen to have their name on the side and tilted 90 degrees. The yellow stripes are now on the right side and their base design is comprised of tessellated grey triangles.
The U-Next Pirates uniform now has large blue stripes with different shades and accented with green for the first time.
New Official Store and Goods
On August 22, it was announced that M-League would be opening an official store in Hakata, their fourth store after their Tokyo, Osaka and Sapporo branch.
A week later on August 29, they announced some new goods that will be available in their store, including hoodies, fans and keychains.
Official Supporter Perks
Starting September 1, M-League fans can become official M-League supporters for the 2023-24 season. The cost of a membership is 7,150 JPY for the year and requires a Japanese address.. Official supporters will receive
- Access to Public Viewing presale tickets
- The ability to buy official uniforms
- Access to team-only events and services
- Acceess to the Paifu Viewer
Returning members will also receive a physical 2024 M-League calendar
And that’s all the M-League news over the past few months! On September 18, the new season will start! How will the first game unfold? Who will win it? Who will win the season? As always, we’ll just have to wait and see!
M-League Watch 