Last week was a success, so now we get a dealer repeat! In the 2nd week of M-League 2022-23, we had a lot of dealer repeats! The honba count reached 3 at least nine times this week, with multiple different players taking great advantage of their dealerships. Also this week, we had a shortcut to baiman, a lot of different tankis and an Ura 3! I don’t want to repeat myself too much, so let’s get right to it, shall we?
The Overseas Struggle: An Update
On October 13, 2022, M-League was suddenly region-locked on AbemaTV, meaning that viewers could no longer watch live broadcasts of M-Leaguer or past broadcasts. This led to M-League Watch’s article “M-League: The Overseas Struggle“.
On October 14, 2022, there was an update to the geolocking situation. Gemma, a pro with the Japan Professional Mahjong League (JPML) and the president of the World Riichi Championship (WRC), took the issue directly Abema and they are now “looking into it”.
M League fans! I escalated up that some of you guys were now no longer able to view the M League streams. Abema are now looking into it and hopefully there will be a solution! #mleague#riichimahjong
It was a regular Thursday around the world. It may have been the evening in Japan, but people were waking up to their alarms in the Americas, on their lunch break in Europe and finishing up dinner in Australia. But when 7:00PM in Japan hit, everyone got their phones out or turned on their computers and went to Abema TV in anticipation for M-League. But as 1900 JST turned into 1901 JST the screen was still dark. No “Glorious Day!”, no nothing. Only the AbemaTV mascot and the message「お住まいの地域ではご視聴できません」 (“Not available in your region”) was on screen.
Was really looking forward to watching today's @m_league_ game, but today's game on @abema_mahjong seems to be region-blocked, meaning overseas players aren't able to watch it (this is the first time this has happened). Hopefully they can fix this as soon as possible. pic.twitter.com/yJtzWjnsSF
We checked with each other on Discord. No, it’s not just you. We checked on Twitter. No news from AbemaTV, CyberAgent or M-League, but multiple people were reporting the same thing.
So, how did we get here?
M-League Philosophy
In M-League’s mission statement, there are four things listed under the league’s philosophy
Creating awareness of mahjong as an advanced mind sport
Dispelling the negative image of mahjong
Promoting inter-generational exchange and contribution of social development through mahjong
Contributing to international exchange and goodwill through mahjong
To overseas fans, the fourth one is the most important. With M-League’s international outreach, riichi mahjong can become more and more popular around the world.
M-League and the International Community
On April 18, 2019, CyberAgent announced that AbemaTV would now support worldwide viewing for certain channels, including M-League on their AbemaTV Mahjong channel.
This was a major breakthrough for all overseas viewers, whether Japanese or not. This meant that starting in the M-League 2019-20 season, western viewers could watch and follow their favourite teams, as well as watch mahjong with some of the best players in Japan.
The Pond’s front page
At the start of the 2019-20 season, Ozball and SBT created The Pond. It was the first site in English that followed M-League, though only a few games were covered.
In March 2020, COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic. Countries had stay-at-home orders and lockdowns in place, leading to people staying at home more. With more time in the house, more people started to learn how to play mahjong and caused more people to watch M-League.
M-League Watch’s front page
In late May 2020, Jellicode created M-League Watch with Ozball and SBT to provide a larger site with weekly M-League updates and player pages, as well as various other M-League related articles. Since then, interest for M-League has grown.
In August 2022, the 3rd World Riichi Championship took place in Vienna. It was the first opportunity for many overseas M-League fans to meet M-Leaguers, with Nikaido Rumi (二階堂瑠美), Nikaido Aki (二階堂亜樹), Honda Tomohiro (本田朋広), former player and commentator Fujisaki Satoshi (藤崎智) and commentator Hiyoshi Tatsuya attending the event.
Even after the event, Aki reminisced how many overseas players told her that they watched M-League.
The Overseas Struggle
Watching M-League as a foreigner, one of the biggest struggles is the fact that the broadcast is Japanese. Some key points, such as the number of tiles left for a player’s wait and strategy choices, are only found in the commentary. Especially for those who are just learning mahjong, the broadcast can be quite confusing. With it being a program with a primarily Japanese audience, the fact that the broadcast is in Japanese is understandable and unavoidable. And even though we understand very little of the commentary, we can still feel the excitement from the tone of the commentators’ voices (especially Hiyoshi).
A portion of the M-League Official Supporter registration page. Near the bottom, it requires you to put your prefecture and your address
For people who want to up their support, they were out of luck. Those who want to be official supporters of their favourite team are unable to because you need a Japanese address to become one.
Likewise, those who wanted to buy goods and merchandise couldn’t because items could only be shipped to Japan. When the Pop-Up Shop opened in April, overseas fans tried to get their Japanese friends (if they had any) to go and buy things for them so they can have it shipped.
Which brings us to today. On October 13, 2022, the M-League live broadcast was no longer available to viewers overseas. Some overseas fans resorted to using a VPN, while others resorted to illegal streams of the games.
The Future
Right now, the future of M-League for overseas fans remains unknown. If viewers can’t watch it, fans will have a hard time following it. If M-League would like to follow their own philosophy, then they should have all live M-League broadcasts be viewable to everyone around the world. The same applies to the YouTube videos on their official channel.
The next thing that M-League may be able to do is let overseas fans get in on the excitement. Maybe they can allow international shipping so fans can buy merchandise and uniforms. Even if they can’t get international shipping, overseas players should be able to become official supporters, have their membership card mailed to them and have access to member-exclusive content.
Conclusion
I really like M-League. I’ve been covering the league since the 2019-20 Finals when my favourite team, the U-Next Pirates, won the championship. Since then, I have seen the league improve with each new season. Even at the start of this season, they improved the beginner-friendliness of the broadcast by adding the waits and the yaku (in Japanese).
If the geoblocking that started on Thursday becomes permanent, I think M-League will have gone a step backwards. Even if we are a minority, we are still a community that can help spread mahjong to the world. I hope M-League and Abema TV/CyberAgent can fix this situation quickly and continue to improve the league for local and overseas viewers alike.
Come on, let’s bring in a new era of mahjong!
Update 1: On October 14, 2022 at around 2000 JST, Gemma, a pro with the JPML and president of the World Riichi Championship, was made aware of the situation got in contact with Abema. Abema is now “looking into it”.
M League fans! I escalated up that some of you guys were now no longer able to view the M League streams. Abema are now looking into it and hopefully there will be a solution! #mleague#riichimahjong
Update 2: On October 18, 2022, Abema acknowledged that the issue is related to copyright issues and that they are working on getting it fixed. For now, viewers may watch the game at 19:00 JST the next day on Abema’s M-League 2022-23 page. The VOD will only be available for 24 hours.
Update 3: On December 9, 2022, ABEMA announced that starting on Monday, December 12, 2022, overseas viewers will again be able to watch M-League broadcasts live.
After months of waiting, we are finally here at the start of a new M-League season! Back to setting our alarms (for some people, very early in the morning!) and cheering on our favourite teams and players! This week, we had three players making their debut, some new looks, and big wins. We also had comebacks, dora-filled hands and even more big wins! With all that, let’s get started, shall we?
Before the first games, the season started with an opening ceremony. Fans packed the Bellesalle Roppongi to watch the ceremony and the first games live.
At the start, each team, going by reverse order of last season’s standings, went onto the stage. When the team arrived on stage, each player would be named and the team would do their pose.
Uchikawa Kotaro (right) returning the M-League Championship Plate to Fujita Susumu (left)
After all eight teams were on stage, Uchikawa Kotaro, the captain on the championship-winning Kadokawa Sakura Knights, was invited to step forward to ceremoniously return the championship plate back to Fujita Susumu, the M-League founder and chairman.
After each team captain gave a short message, the senior advisor of M-League, Kawabuchi Saburo, went onto stage to officially start the M-League 2022-23 season. With the “Ganbare!”, the new season begins!
This season, Nissin announced that their yakisoba promotion will be returning this season, but now the stakes have doubled! This time, the first player to win chiihou will receive TWO lifetime supplies* of Nissin U.F.O. Yakisoba.
*Lifetime supply being defined as starting from the time the player wins until the player reaches the Japanese average life expectancy
M-League calculated that if Okada Sayaka (the youngest player in the league) were to win a chiihou, she would receive 43,070 bowls of yakisoba!
New Graphics
U-Next Pirates team graphic
Before the start of the game, they feature a new graphic before they reveal who will be playing that game.
Graphic indicating that Uotani Yuumi is waiting on the 7p and Suzuki Yu is waiting on the 7s
This season, M-League added a major upgrade to their overlay. Whenever a player is in tenpai, they now display the player’s waits.
Matsugase winning with Riichi(リーチ)/Ippatsu(一発)/Tsumo(ツモ)/Chiitoi(七対子)/Aka 1(赤１)/Dora 2(ドラ２)/Ura 2(裏２)
In addition, they now display the winning yaku after a hand is won. With these two additions, it allows beginners to understand more of what is going on.
Orange-tinted background for the Sega Sammy Phoenix winRed-tinted background for the Konami Mahjong Fight Club win
At the end of the game, the studio background lights will be to match the colour of the team that won.
Opening day for the upcoming M-League season is almost here! This season will be different from the last, but how so? Today, let’s answer that question and take a look at what’s new for the M-League 2022-23 season.
Every season, there are plays and wins that grab your attention and get you excited. They can be high-scoring hands, intriguing games and even an incredible fold. With the upcoming season just a week away, let’s take a look back and see my choices for the top 5 plays of the M-League 2021-22 season.
In a news release published on August 26, M-League revealed the schedule for the 2022-23 season.
The M-League 2022-23 regular season will start on October 3, 2022 and end on March 21, 2023. Games will be played each week on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 1900 JST, with the exception of the final games of the regular season, when there will only be games on the Monday and Tuesday.
This season, the number of games in the regular season has increased from 180 games (90 days, 90 games per team) to 188 games (94 days, 94 games per team). For the semifinals, they will now be 30 games long (15 days, 20 games per team) instead of 24 games (12 days, 16 games per team) in previous seasons. For the finals, the final four teams will battle it out over 16 games (8 days) instead of 12 games (6 days). In total, 18 additional games (9 days) have been added to the 2022-23 season.
For your convenience, I have created a Google Calendar of the schedule (with times in JST), as well as one for each team. There is also an iCalendar (.ics) file that you can download to put the schedule on your computer’s calendar.
Any mistakes are purely my own. If there is any discrepancy between the calendar and the official M-League schedule, the official M-League schedule is correct. For those wondering, the featured image above with the nice format was released in an official M-League press release with the image being found here.
Professional Organization: Saikouisen Pro League: A1 Titles: 46th Saikoui
For the U-Next Pirates‘ first pick, they chose Suzuki Yu (鈴木優) from Saikouisen. Suzuki Yu has been in the spotlight this past year after winning the Saikouisen league title. Previously, he was also in the final 16 of the Mahjong Saikyousen.
Yu had so many emotions at the time that he had trouble gathering his thoughts, but thanked everyone for the congratulations.
Professional Organization: NPM Pro League: A1 Titles: 20th Mahjong King, 11th Mahjong Dragon, 16th Nihon Open
For the Kadokawa Sakura Knights‘ pick, they chose Shibukawa Nanba (渋川難波) from Nihon Pro Mahjong (NPM). Shibukawa is a familiar face to those who watch M-League, being a commentator for the league for the past two seasons. His strength at the mahjong table has been proven through his NPM league games, where he is the current NPM League title holder. In addition, he won the 20th Mahjong King Tournament, the 11th Mahjong Dragon Tournament and the 16th Nihon Open.
Upon hearing the news, Shibukawa chose to express his gratitude with a simple “Arigatou Gozaimasu!!!”
Professional Organization: NPM Pro League: A1 Titles: 29th Dragon King, 10th Mahjong Dragon, 7th Autumn Challenge Cup
For the Pirates’ 2nd pick, they went with Nakabayashi Kei (仲林圭) from Nihon Pro Mahjong (NPM). Nakabayashi is the current Dragon King title holder. The title win wasn’t just a one-time event, as he is currently an NPM A1-Leaguer, as well as winning the 10th Mahjong Dragon tournament and the 7th Autumn Challenge Cup.
For the draft, Nakabayashi was streaming the results and reacting to them. When his name was called, He cheered and repeatedly sayid “Maji!?” (No way! Really!? Seriously!?)
And those are the three newest M-Leaguers! Congratulations to Suzuki Yu, Shibukawa Nanba and Nakabayashi Kei for being drafted! How will they do in the league? How well will their teams do? What strategies will their opponents use to beat them? As always, we’ll just have to wait and see!
As the summer season begins, so does the M-League 2022-23 preseason! And with every preseason, the opportunity to draft some new players is upon us with the M-League Draft! Today, we’ll be taking a look at when it will happen, who will be able to draft and who could be drafted.
The Draft
The M-League 2022-23 Draft will take place on July 11, 2022. Unlike previous years, the draft will not be streamed live on Abema TV’s Mahjong Channel. Instead, the information will be posted on the M-League website and the M-League Twitter after the draft meeting has finished.
EDIT: In a news release published on June 7, M-League announced that it has reversed its decision and will now be broadcasting the draft on their YouTube channel on July 11, 2022 at 1900 JST.
All teams have the option to draft from any of the five supporting professional mahjong organizations:
Japan Professional Mahjong Federation (JPML)
Nihon Pro Mahjong (NPM)
Saikouisen
Mahjong Union (Mu/μ!)
Real Mahjong Unit (RMU)
Note: M-League Watch predictions to follow. Teams are not limited to the players listed below, nor are they guarantees of any player being drafted.
U-Next Pirates
The U-Next Pirates are known to be a digital team. Asakura Koushin is the first Tenhoui (highest rank for the online mahjong website Tenhou.net) and Ishibashi Nobuhiro is the author of “Black Digital Mahjong”. As such, the U-Next Pirates are likely going to choose a player that has a large online presence or has done well on online mahjong.
If they want to choose a Tenhoui to replace Asakura, they have a few options:
In addition, they may choose amongst other players that have played or are currently playing in the Tenhoui Meijinsen competition (Kobayashi, Asakura and Ishibashi have previously played in the invitational competition), such as:
According to a poll done by Mahjong Watch, Shibukawa Nanba, Suzuki Yu and Daigo Hiroshi are the fans’ top 3 choices.
Kadokawa Sakura Knights
With the exception of Okada Sayaka, the Kadokawa Sakura Knights have chosen players that were already in the top league of the organization. Both Uchikawa and Sawazki were JPML A1-Leaguers, while Hori Shingo had just won the NPM League title. The current title holders for their respective leagues are as follows:
JPML: Sasaki Hisato (Already on Konami Mahjong Fight Club)
In addition, the Kadokawa Sakura Knights may also choose to players who are currently in A-League or have previously won the league title. Some popular players include:
In the Mahjong Watch poll, the top three fan choices for the Kadokawa Sakura Knights are Nakabayashi Kei, Shibukawa Nanba and Daigo Hiroshi (it is theorized that Shibukawa is lower because of the assumption that the Pirates will choose him as their first pick).
And that’s all you need to know! Who will have the privilege to become the next M-Leaguers? How will they do in the upcoming season? As always we’ll just have to wait and see!
On June 30, it was announced that the Kadokawa Sakura Knights would not be renewing Sawazaki Makoto‘s contract, meaning that he will not be playing for the Kadokawa Sakura Knights in the 2022-23 season.
In a letter posted on Twitter, the team noted that Sawazaki has been making a good recovery after his hospitalization earlier this year, but the mental and physical load of M-League, as well as other team activities, may be overbearing as he recovers. As a result, they decided not to renew Sawazaki’s contract.
Sawazaki Makoto was the 3rd round pick of the Sakura Knight in the team’s first season in 2019. In his first year as an M-Leaguer, he was a big help in scoring points, scoring +234.3pt and placing 5th overall in the individual standings. In the 2021-22 season, his team managed to get to the finals for the second year in a row and placed 2nd overall. In the 2022-23 season, his was a big contributor to the team’s success, he placed 2nd in the individual standings and scored +399.7pt. With the big start, his teammates played their best and the team eventually won their first ever championship.
In a Twitter thread, Sawazaki expressed his disappointment of not being able to help the team in the finals, but was proud of the work that he and his teammates were able to do to win the championship. He thanked the fans for all the encouragement and that he is truly grateful for it. As he recovers, he says that he will continue to play mahjong on Ron2 and the Mahjong Fight Club arcade games, as well as in professional league tournaments.
Soon after the news was released, his teammates tweeted out messages. They described Sawazaki as a team mainstay and a father. They said that they will keep the lessons that he had taught with them and that they would continue what he had started.
Starting in the 2020-21 Season, a new rule was set in place stating that a team that does not make the finals two years in a row with the same players is forced to change their roster. As the Pirates failed to make the finals in the 2020-21 and the 2021-22 Seasons (placing 7th and 6th, respectively), they were forced to remove at least one player this off-season.
In M-League’s inaugural season, both Asakura and Ishibashi were drafted by the U-Next Pirates as the team’s original crew, with Asakura being the 2nd round pick and Ishibashi being the team’s 3rd round pick after they failed to get Suzuki Taro due to a random draw with two other teams.
In the 2019-20 Season, both Asakura and Ishibashi were major contributors to the Pirates’ success. For Asakura, he won a Daisangen in Game 5 to give the team a well-needed points boost. For Ishibashi, he was the top performer in the semifinals and won Game 11 in the finals to help the team win their first championship.
However, both of them have had their struggles in M-League. Asakura had triple-digit negatives in the 2019-20 and the 2020-21 season, as well dead hands from a false tsumo and a 237s chii. Ishibashi struggled a lot in the regular season, failing to finish any of his four seasons in positive territory.
In Asakura’s note, he apologized for not being able to do more for the team and thanked everyone for the past four years. He also said that he will do his best as both a Youtuber and as a new father.
In a tweet and his note, Ishibashi said he was disappointed by the result and also thanked the everyone for their support and all the wonderful experiences over the past four years.
Kobayashi thanked both of them for the lessons that they taught and that he will be sad that they will no longer be playing together. Mizuhara said that she will run as best as she can with the baton that was passed to her.
M-League Watch 
