Ritz's blog post January 18th, 2021

There was a new post on Ritz's site. The first since March of last year so it's been a while. It's pretty long and covers a wide range of topics. I'll write a translation summary here.

 

New Volumes

First, a reminder that new volumes for all 6 series and Ritz's book of Illustrations are going to be released on January 22nd.

 (Covers for some of the new volumes)

Commemoration exhibit for the 15th anniversary of the Saki series

Ritz made some drawings specially for the exhibit, but then worried that the legs of the 8 appearing characters were a little too long. When submitting the pictures, Ritz asked the editor about making some changes but the editor said "no, you're too slow, there's no time, this is fine".

 

(See the promo picture for the exhibit a few posts back. Back then, someone already commented the legs were too long. Ritz agrees lol...) 

 

Continues after the break...

 

Ritz's Book of Illustrations

A fair amount of the special illustrations that are typically released with the tanks will also appear in the book. Not the ones for the upcoming tanks but some of the older ones. Corrections have been made on old illustrations that at the time had to be drawn in a hurry.

Game collaborations

Saki has ongoing collaborations with online mahjong games MJ and MahjongSoul.

 

(MahjongSoul in particular seems to be really popular right now. Four Saki characters (Saki, Nodoka, Koromo and Teru) are obtainable through a gacha system. They are all voiced by the same voice actresses from the anime.)

MahjongSoul was interested in including Saki characters even before the game was released in Japan. Ritz thought it would be nice if it helped introduce even one more reader to the series. Now that it's become super popular, Ritz is grateful.

Questions & Answers

- Can I ask for Saki drawings on commission?

Personally, I'd be grateful. But if we ask SquareEnix, I don't know what they're gonna say. I won't complain though. Probably.

- Kyoutarou and Saki know each other since 2nd year of middle school. I think it says somewhere that they are childhood friends but everyone might feel differently about what exactly is a childhood friend. Personally, they don't feel like childhood friends to me. Also, Kyoutarou doesn't know about Teru.

 

- Nodoka likes penguins in general and she has several penguin toys. There are other characters besides Etopen. One that looks like a baby emperor penguin is called Kuolematon.

 

- The two Eisui students who participated in the team tournament in the previous year are not mikos but normal students. The six fairy maidens and the princess herself are sometimes called mikos too but they aren't really mikos. They are sort of like celestial maidens who wear miko-looking clothes. So they don't perform Shinto shrine duties.

 

- Is Nodoka a lesbian?

She is a bi with a tendency towards being a lesbian.

- Will Kajiki (Yumi) ever appear again?

Yes, I think she will.

- Any plans for making Matsumi Yuu use a weather ability?

Nope.

- Maho calls Muro "Hiroko-chan" and Mika "Mika-senpai".

- Some of the special illustrations that go with the tanks are very erotic. Ritz says these kind of scenes never really happened. Think of them as imaginary situations or maybe something out of Kuro-chan's or Suehara-san's wild delusions. Similarly, pictures that look like bikini photoshoots aren't really that. Except for that one picture of Unozawa-san.

- In the past, there was no team tournament competition at the elementary school level but by the time of the Toki manga, there already was. The rules change every year. This year, the teams were made of 4 players. Shakurenji Elementary (Toki's school) was eliminated at the Prefectural Tournament.

- Teru's academic ability is higher than Saki's for the same school year. Even then, Saki is a better than average student. They are both about equally bright, I think.

- In Achiga's river bathing scene, Nodoka is wearing a school swimsuit under the parka.

THE END.