Yuu Matsumi

Yuu Matsumi is a third year at Achiga Girls' Academy and a protagonist in the spinoff manga Saki Achiga Hen episode of side A. She is the daughter of Tsuyuko Matsumi and the older sister of Kuro Matsumi who is the fourth member to join the new mahjong club.

When Yuu was younger, she wanted to join with the others in the children's mahjong club but she felt it would be awkward because she was older. She is very sensitive to the cold, so she covers herself head to toe when she goes anywhere.

Appearance
Yuu has blonde hair and green eyes.

She wears the standard Achiga Girls uniform with black pantyhose, a pink scarf, and pink mittens. Kuro says she also wears glasses and a face mask whenever she goes out. She also wears glasses when she's reading or trying to look closely at something.

Personality
Yuu is polite, shy, and a bit of a push-over. However, she can be determined at times, refusing to buckle even when faced with unfavorable situations, and being determined to win back any points her sister lost.She has a strong relationship with her sister, and has been friends with Ako Atarashi and Arata Sagimori for some time.

Yuu's biggest quirk is that she is very sensitive to the cold so much so that she freezes even during the summer and so always wears mittens, scarves, and other items to keep her warm.

Girls of Yumachi Arc
Yuu makes a cameo as a child together with her mother and baby sister when Harue Akado thanks their mom for the coaching she gave to her.

Introduction Arc (Saki: Achiga-Hen Episode of Side-A)
Yuu is seen under the kotatsu when Kuro and the others come to her house looking for another member for the mahjong club. After an explaination of who she is Kuro nominates her and Shizuno Takakamo and Ako Atarashi ask her to join. She then explains how she always wanted to join with the others when they where young but thought it was awkard before excepting their invitation. A while later the club gathers to look for another member and Yuu suggests that they go for Arata Sagimori and says that she was a big fan of Harue Akado. The next day everyone gathers to announce the completion of the mahjong club and to greet each other. A few months later Harue Akado joins the mahjong team as well and after another timeskip its spring.

Preparation Arc
With the start of the semester, Yuu and the others gather to offically start the mahjong club. In order to up their skill level the team was trained by Harue for the next two months. At the start of the Prefectural tournament, she and the rest were a bit nervous thanks to there being so many people and in their first match having to face Bansei High. However thanks to their training Bansei was no match for them and Achiga girls went on to win the whole tournament.

A few days later before the club gathered Ako asked where Yuu was and Kuro informed her that she was getting hugged to death by her classmates because they saw her on television. When everyone finally gathered, the club decided that in order to prepare for the nationals they would face some of the clubs that finished second in their prefectural tournament and Ryuumonbuchi was selected to be their first opponent. After the matches, Yuu was confused when Koromo Amae tried to exlain who had defeated her in the prefectural tournament. After a few weeks Achiga had beaten all their opponents except for Ryuumonbuchi. Later on the team held a training camp to further their skills and at the end of that they headed for the nationals. Stoping at a rest stop before Tokyo, Yuu was revealed to still be asleep in the car.

National Tournament Arc
The Achiga Mahjong team later arrives in Tokyo for the Nationals. As the group made their way for the ticket-drawing, Yuu converses with Harue as to why she chose Arata to be the club leader.The next day after Kuro awakens Shizuno and Ako, the team gathers to discuss the bracket and watch video of their opponents matches. On the second day of the tournament Achiga's first round match begins and Yuu is seen to be quite nervous beforehand. Yuu's match wasn't shown but Achiga advanced to the second round of the nationals.

After Kuro's defeat in the second round, everyone wished to go and comfort her but Yuu said she would go alone because she is her sister. When consoling her sister, she promised to get back all the points she lost and left for her match. Before the match starts Yuu reminds herself that Kuro has always been the one to save her but now its time for her to fight for her sister. During the match, she had a rocky start thanks to Izumi Nijou being informed about her playing style. However she adaptes to this and changed her playstyle to overwhelm her opponents.

Back in the waiting room Yuu apologized to her sister because she couldn't get back all of the points she lost, but Kuro dismissed that saying it was her fault. Achiga would go on to place second and advance to the final eight. Afterwards the team celebrated but was brought back to reality when Harue told them that even though they advanced they were beaten by 90,000 pts and that Shiraitodai is next for them as well. She then left for a meeting. Yuu went along with the others to get some ramen when they overheard Harue and Toshi Kumakura talking about Harue being a pro again. After arguing about what they heard they ran into Momoko Touyoko and Satomi Kanbara.

Kanbara takes the team to the place where Tsuruga was staying and introduced them to Yumi Kajiki. After hearing their story, Yumi agrees to help them and gets Kanbara to pick up Mihoko Fukuji, Nagano's best individual player. When they are done playing Kanbara takes them to their hotel. The next day Yuu and Achiga meet up with Kei Arakawa, who was the only person who agreed to play them. However Kei called some of her friends over and they all played against Achiga. Yuu is present when Shizuno calls them together and reveals that Harue is not leaving them to turn pro.

Final Eight Arc
Before the matches begin, she is present to wish Kuro good luck. At halftime, Yuu and the rest go meet Kuro for encouragement. In a flashback of Kuro's she is seen with her mother and also crying at her funeral. Later she is shown celebrating Kuro's winning hand to end her match. Yuu, together with all of Achiga go to the entrance to see Toki Onjouji off to the hospital. Back at the waiting room, she leaves for her match.

When the match begins, she remains quite and observing. But after witnessing Sumire Hirose's ability being used, Yuu has a flashback. Here she is in the greenhouse and is approached by Harue. They later take a look at some game film Harue has aquired about Sumire. Harue then explains Sumire's abilities. When its her turn as dealer, Yuu notices that Sumire is now aimed at her. She then proceeds to change her hand and dodge Sumire's attacks. When Sumire tries for a second attack, she wins off of Sumires discard. With this Sumire decides to aim again for her but she dodges again and wins once again.

After the match, she thanks them for the game and heads back to the waiting room. However on her way back she is greeted by Ako. After Ako complements her, she hugs Yuu and tells her that she wants to warm her but it's a lie. Ako then says what she really wants is Yuu's winning streak luck (and, jokingly, her boobs). She then tells Ako if she is okay with her then she can have them; Ako thanks her and says she isn't shaking anymore. She is later present when Ako comes back during intermission and explains Takami Shibuya's abilities.

Before Arata leaves for her match Yuu wishes her good luck. She is later seen watching Arata's match. Before Shizuno's match she mentions she has warmed up and it gets Yuu's attention. Later Harue asks her what Awai Oohoshi rolled and Yuu informs her snake eyes. Yuu again is the one to inform Harue of what the dice rolled, this time it was ten.

She is later shown celebrating with the others after Shizuno's victory to advance them to the finals. When they go to the finals stage together, Yuu says she hopes the place is warm. After they head back to the hotel to celebrate a little more, Harue gets called away by Hayari; Harue tells the girls to go to sleep.

She later appears in Achiga's hotel during Nodoka's match, and discusses with Ako the individual data of Nodoka.

National Championship Arc
Yuu is seen fiercely rooting for Kuro Matsumi during the vanguard match.

During the first hand of her match, Yuu decides to play it safe and fold when Mako calls riichi, although Mako wins anyways, and wins a couple more tsumo during her dealer turn. Yuu stays quiet until Hao starts winning two hands. She hits everyone with a tsumo and starts to gather warm tiles for her next hand before thinking back to a conversation between her and Harue. She tells Yuu of the Push-Pull balance and how she relies on it and to be more confident. Yuu says it is now time to push and ends up hitting a dealer baiman. The next hand she makes Sumire think she folded because she would be trying to target her and managed to dodge her hit. While fooling everyone she hit them with a tsumo haneman. Sumire wins the next hand. Hao begins a win streak. Sumire breaks the streak and wins two in a row before the half comes to an end.

At the start of the second half, Yuu plays into Hao's hand.

Playing Style / Abilities
Yuu's ability is to draw in any tile that has red paint on it, as they look warmer. Typically, she favours the manzu and chun tiles because their colouration is mostly or completely red. Her ability to draw in these tiles is not as strong as Kuro's ability to draw in all the dora tiles, but Yuu is much more flexible in the amount of tiles she can use.

However, if her opponents manage to use her own style against her, she can broaden her view, stop focussing on the chun and manzu tiles and begin using the pinzu and souzu tiles that also contain red. This makes her plays much less predictable as she uses more tiles and has wider waits. She is shown out playing Izumi Nijou and later Sumire Hirose because of her flexible play as well as catching them off guard (though for various reasons).

She can kind of sense which tiles she's about to draw, as according to Toki Onjouji they have a similar playing style.

Etymology

 * The name Yuu means "evening" (宥).
 * Yuu's surname Matsumi means "pine tree, fir tree" (松) (matsu) and "fruit, good result, truth" (実) (mi).

Trivia

 * Yuu manages the school greenhouse because its warm and has lots of Tsuyuko Matsumi's favorite flowers.
 * Yuu's ability to draw in the red tiles because they're "warm" is a reference to the fact that red light on the electromagnetic spectrum and has a similar wavelength to infrared radiation which is linked to heat.