Hiroko Funakubo

Hiroko Funakubo' (船久保 浩子 Funakubo Hiroko'') is a second year at Senriyama  Girls' High School who made it onto the team due to her analyzing strategy and the knowledge to counter back her opponent strength.

Appearance
Hiroko has medium length-brown hair and dark eyes with oval-shaped glasses.

She wears the standard Senriyama school uniform.

Personality
Hiroko is the one who informs her teammates about their opponents and how to deal with them. Her teammates compare her to a scientist. She has a growing interest in Arata Sagimori due to her different play style in every game. Thus, she is determined to analyze Arata as her new specimen.

Hiroko is typically serious and somewhat blunt, telling Izumi Nijou that there are many in her age group who are much better than she is, and that she should not focus too much on comparing herself to others.

Hiroko is in charge of making sure that Sera Eguchi wears her school uniform to matches.

Although she was born in Kobe, one cannot distinguish her from a student from Osaka.

Finding Fujishiro Arc (Toki Manga)
She arrives off the train and is contacted by Hiroe. She says she doesn't work for free and will get the appropriate award from Sera Eguchi. She later appears at the barbecue Mrs. Onjouji set up. She greets Sera but the girl forgets who she is. This causes Hiroko to insult her and take off her glasses to make Sera see her resemblance to Hiroe. As they walk and talk, she says that she plays mahjong. She know a bit about Ryuuka and Toki but insults Sera for hanging out with them and ditching Hiroe. Sera tells her that she was the one who got ditched and that she better stop insulting her friends. Hiroko apologizes and pulls out a jump drive that she says contains Nanami Fujishiro's data. She will give it to Sera for the price of her data.

The next day the girls gather for a match at Izumi's family mahjong parlor. Hiroko arrives late saying the star of the show is always last to appear. Toki takes her by the hand and says how excited she is. Hiroko brushes her off. At the start of the game, Hiroko says if she plays Sera, then she can get her hands on raw data and that'll be more than enough to pay for Nanami's data. Sera declares that she has changed the conditions for the match and gets the others to agree to it. Hiroko looks at the others looks at Toki and Ryuuka in disdain and says to herself they should not underestimate her and Sera and to stay out of their match. She then immediately feels Ryuuka go into Limitless Heaven mode. Sera warns Hiroko that Ryuuka like that is stronger than her. . Ryuuka wins with a tsumo. Hiroko plays this off as luck but decides to play it safe. She keeps observing Ryuuka and detailing her habits just as she wins off of Sera. She decides the praise Hiroe and Sera gave Ryuuka is well deserved. Sera laughs at the loss but Hiroko is furious and says her opinion of her has changed. Sera tells everyone she admires Toki's attitude in mahjong which causes Ryuuka to lose concentration. Hiroko keeps observing until Sera wins with her own tsumo. She fake praises Sera but tells her that she has worked on the art of "hanging on". Hiroko wins a quick and cheap tsumo. Hiroko then wins with a hit on Toki. She starts making the correlation between Ryuuka and Toki and wonders if the girl is strong.The overall outcome for the match had Hiroko took third place and decided that Toki was weak.

Hiroko puts the data on the table and Toki remarks if Sera will take it or not. The girls begin discussing if they should take it or not but Hiroko says either way it's hers because Hiroe Atago gave it to her. They all gather and Hiroko explains how and why Hiroe collected the data for Sera. Hiroko offers to look over the data and the girls agree. She is later seen studing the data.

National Tournament Arc(Achiga Manga)
Hiroko appears with her teammates coming back from sightseeing. When they go and check on their sickly member, she informs the others that they now have the tapes of their opponents matches. Afterwards she is shown making brief comments about Izumi Nijou.

Before the sergeant match of the second round, Sera Eguchi and the others were conversing about Yuu Matsumi. Hiroko had prepared Izumi a simulation program to help deal with her. She is shown next with her team discussing Yuu's playing style but notices that she changes her style to include every red tile and that their is not way to combat it. When Sera starts to leave for her match, Hiroko pulls her back and makes her change into her school uniform.

Her match was briefly shown but she did manage to gain points. In the anime after Achiga wins, Hiroko seemed a bit happy to have Arata Sagimori advance. And when Sera calls her out on this, embarrassed she informs her its for science.

Final Eight Arc
Hiroko appears with the rest of the Senriyama team walking towards their waiting room. She appears later in a flashback of Toki Onjouji's. Here she is playing Toki to see if she can see two turns into the future. During the last of Teru Miyanaga's turns as dealer, Toki again is on the verge of collapsing and has another flashback. Here Hiroko and the others are gathered around Toki's bed and tell her of the "Toki shift", which is a schedule for Senriyama to help her. Hiroko then tells her that she has worked out a list of recipes for the camp and that they really want to help Toki. She is then seen arguing with Izumi. Afterward we see flashes of the training camp. She is later seen with the rest of Senriyama going with Toki to the ambulance after she collapsed after her match. After Izumi's match, Hiroko welcomes her back. She then tells Izumi that third-years are generally better during the inter-high. While eating Izumi responds by telling her that there are some first year monsters out there. Hiroko agrees and tells her that even in her first year there were players such as Kei Arakawa, Koromo Amae, and Komaki Jindai. She then tells Izumi that she isn't even in the monster category even if she thinks herself one. She explains that Awai Oohoshi is probably the strongest first year, along with Saki Miyanaga and that Izumi shouldn't compare herself to others.

After giving Izumi Toki's room number, she continues talking but is cut off mid sentence as Izumi leaves. Hiroko notes that she should call some of the other members of the team to keep her company. After the lieutenant's match, she says that Sera should stop flirting on TV.

At the start of her match, Hiroko says that she needs to get second place back and that Shiraitodai is the biggest obstacle. When Seiko Matano starts to make her move, Hiroko says that they aren't many records of her since she just started for Shiraitodai but has already devised a theory about her abilities. She then says that she will test her theory and then beat the hell out of her in the finals. Hiroko then says that she can't aviod Seiko's calls too much or it would wreck her hand and soon after Seiko calls again and just as she guessed Seiko won withing five turns of making three calls. When Seiko starts paying attention to Mairu Shirouzu, Hiroko wins and says that if she continues to let down her guard she'll sink her under. Later in the rounds Mairu and Seiko are battling while Hiroko observes them. Getting excited she says that their data is delicious and that she'll bleed every last drop out of them. During the east fourth round she starts analyzing Mairu saying that she should be panicking but that she is an ace that shows very little tells. She is then surprised when Arata wins but says that she was correct in figuring out that her playing style resembles bowling. However she notes that she mixes in a dated playing style but doesn't know. After another Mairu win, she says that she's winning too much. Her next hand she is a dealer and declare's ''riichi. Mairu then declares riichi'' but Seiko deals into Hiroko's hand and again the next round. She then realizes that she is within 600 pts of second place when Arata declare's ''riichi. ''Hiroko is again surprised by Arata when she wins on different tiles then she calculated for. After another Arata win, Hiroko speculates that she is going through a change a well. Later she says that with how strong Mairu is that there isn't much she can do. She then turns her attention to Arata and says that she is a serious danger now and that she couldn't collect much data on her thanks to Yuuka Morigaki. She then realizes that Arata's playing style sometimes resembles Harue Akado. Later the match ends with an Arata tsumo.

Back in the waiting room, Hiroko is greeted by Masae Atago and Sera. After learning that Ryuuka to the playing hall as soon as she arrived, she wondered if Ryuuka is up to playing. She is see after with Sera at the waiting room comment about Awai Double riichi, despite only seeing two times Awai techniques, she manage to see throughly to Awai double riichi can be stop by shifting the flow of the tiles which Senriyama's couch as well as her aunt Masae Atago comment on her amazing analysis. Though, she didn't manage to tell Ryuuka about it as the second renchan already start and hopes the best for Ryuuka. While studying Shizuno Takakamo, she notices that her abilities go along with the dice roll and the mountains that make up the tiles. After the loss she is seen crying and being comforted by Masae.

During the Side B semi-final vanguard match, Hiroko notes that Usuzan has a strong captain and vice captain but the rest are not that good. Hiroko also says that their sergeant player has put in a lot of work and that Usuzan's ace is very highly skilled. In the lieutenants match she discusses Choe Myeonghwa's abilities with Sera and offers to pay the money Hiroe Atago owes Sera, noting that 30 yen is a "cheap" amount.

National Championship Arc
During the vanguard match of the fifth place game, she is seen discussing the game with her teammates, Hiroko appears at the end of the sergeant match, scolding Sera for attempting to leave in the boys' uniform. Later, she greets the other vice-captains before they play, including her cousin Kinue Atago, and they banter about which is worse, playing after Hiroe as her sister or cousin, both agreeing that Kinue has it rougher, as all of her matches take place after Hiroe's. Everyone is weary of Mairu Shirouzu winning, as it's widely known that Shindouji's double aces are somehow connected. Unfortunately, Hiroko ends up playing into Mairu's damaten lessening the lead they have.

Playing Style/Abilities
Hiroko's playing style is just like her personality, in that she likes to analyze her opponents during the match and counter it. While it gives her an advantage, if her analysis is wrong, or she has no information about the opponent, she will have difficulty responding to her opponent.

Etymology

 * The name Hiroko means "prosperous" (浩) (hiro) and "child" (子) (ko).
 * Hiroko's surname Funakubo means "ship" (船) (funa), "long time" (久) (ku) and "protection, guarantee" (保) (ho/bo).

Trivia

 * Hiroko's mother's maiden name was Atago.
 * According to the character tables from Volume 14, her mother is Masae Atago's younger sister.
 * Hiroko is the only regular on Senriyama's team to not be born in Osaka, being from Kobe.