Kyoutarou Suga

Kyoutarou Suga (須賀 京太郎 Suga Kyōtarō) is a first year student at Kiyosumi High School who was a middle school classmate of Saki Miyanaga and joined the handball club, in which he reached the prefectural final for the inter middle championship. After entering high school, he joined the mahjong club because of his unrequited crush on Nodoka Haramura (the inter middle champion) and he is the only male in Kiyosumi's mahjong club. While that may be envious, due to his poor mahjong skills, he only occasionally attracts the attention of Yuuki Kataoka and serves primarily as the club's errand-boy. Kyoutaro has a pet capybara that is featured in Yuuki's miniseries at the beginning and end of almost all Saki manga volumes.

Appearance
Kyoutarou is a tall, handsome and slim young man with shaggy blonde hair and brown eyes.

He normally wears the standard Kiyosumi uniform; although lately he has been seen not wearing the jacket.

Personality
Although Kyoutarou fights off Yuuki Kataoka's flirting, he likes to repeatedly poke her and is inevitably rewarded with a punch. While Yuuki flirts with him, she also treats him like a dog when he fetches Yuuki her tacos. Between his mediocre mahjong skills, his unrequited crush on Nodoka Haramura (and later on Mihoko Fukuji as well) and Hisa Takei delegating all of the club's heavy lifting to him, he gets minimal attention and respect.

Playing Style Abilities
According to Makoto Takakuda, Kyoutarou isn't very good that he can't remember anything, and his Love-jong stats seem to indicate this as well. However, it clearly shows that he has potential.

Introduction Arc
Kyoutarou first appears after Saki Miyanaga glanced at Nodoka Haramura while reading and he asks her to go to lunch with him, so she can buy the "ladies lunch" for him where they met Makoto Takakuda (one of Kyoutarou's friends). When Saki gets curious about his phone, he reveals that it's a mahjong game and that he has just begun playing. He then inquires about Saki's knowledge of mahjong and then decides to take her to the mahjong club. When Saki properly meets Nodoka, Kyoutarou informs her that she's the middle school champ. Once the first years begin playing, Kyoutarou is thoroughly defeated and notes that Saki's mahjong style is weird.

Later when Saki has already joined the club but Nodoka isn't talking to her, Kyoutarou tells Saki that Nodoka's feelings are complicated. She was built up as a genius and was the middle school champ; but Saki defeated her and played her +/- zero style. He then tells her that now she knows how good it feels to win and there isn't any reason for her to break even anymore. Once again the first years play and Saki handily defeats them until the last game where Yuuki Kataoka "won" and Nodoka storms off. The next day Kyoutarou finds out that Saki and Nodoka are having lunch and begs to come along. When they arrive, they are joined by Yuuki. Yuuki then mentions something about being her wife and Kyou daydreams her as his wife. The delusion is broke when Yuuki tells him that Nodoka prefers mahjong to men and tries to steal his lunch. He then gets tangled up and lands on top of Yuuki.

Training Camp Arc
Kyoutarou appears along with the other first years eating lunch together after begging to join earlier. In the club room after Hisa Takei announces they are going to participate in the prefectural tournament, he notices that he can only join the boy's individual tournament. After a while Kyoutarou notices that Mako Someya isn't present with the others and Hisa tells him that she had work, in which Saki Miyanaga and Nodoka Haramura should help with. Later in the day, Hisa tells him that Mako's place is a mahjong parlor. While picturing Nodoka, Yuuki appears and tries to appeal to him by wearing a maid uniform and flashing him but to no avail.

Later the training camp kicks off with Hisa explaining the weak points of her first years and what they need to do to work on those areas. To help Saki, she had Kyoutarou bring his personal PC to the camp and show her how to use online mahjong. While playing with the others, he asks if they have any special training for him, but there wasn't one. Mako tells him that he is too bad of a player and can't remember anything and they wouldn't know where to begin with him. At night in his room, he sees a shooting star and tries to say "Nodoka will be my wife" three times before it disappears and fails. We are then shown flashes of the training camp up until the day of the preliminaries.

Prefectural Tournament Arc
Kyoutarou arrives for the early morning train and he is nearly run over by Yuuki Kataoka. Kiyosumi High School then board the train and arrives at the tournament hall. In the audience hall, Kyoutarou notes how hard it must be to not hear anyone root for you as Hisa Takei announces the lineups. He then teases Yuuki when Mako Someya insists she cannot count points and is pushed down by her. When Mako started off poorly during her match, he asks Hisa if she is in trouble but Hisa tells him she is fine. Kiyosumi goes on to defeat everyone and make a trip to the prefectural finals.

As a reward for doing well, Hisa takes everyone to a ramen shop. On the way home he pushes Yuuki on her bike until they stop and Nodoka Haramura tells them the story of Vega and Altair. Kyou imagines him and Nodoka in this scenario until Yuuki interrupts and says its about her and Kyou. He then walks home with Yuuki while she teases him.

Before the start of the vanguard matches, Yuuki realizes she doesn't have enough tacos to last her so she instructs Kyoutarou to go and buy them. He arrives at halftime of her match and finally delivers her tacos. Yuuki once again teases him. However he is then quickly sent back out to buy food for the girls lunch. When he returns Kiyosumi is in last place. He rushes to the waiting room and asks what happened. As Nodoka returns from her nap, Kyoutarou fantasizes about her. Kyoutarou makes various comments throughout the remaining matches until Kiyosumi wins the tournament final. He then takes a picture of the girls with the tournament trophy.

Individual Tournament *Anime Only Arc*
After learning Kiyosumi High School is going to the Sports Land pool as a reward, Kyoutarou fantasizes about Nodoka Haramura. but Yuuki Kataoka interrupts this and tries to promote her own swimsuit but he is uninterested. At the pool Yuuki jumps into the water next to Kyoutarou and makes him be the motor for her inflatable raft. Later minus the upperclassmen Kiyosumi wonders the hall looking for the VIP room and runs into Ryuumonbuchi High School. After a bit of an exchange, they go back to the pool and continue to play.

During the tournament, Kyoutarou appears at lunch time very depressed and the girls then ask why he is here and not at the boy's individual tournament, he says he lost. There were so many participants that they held eliminations in the morning. We then get a flashback of a cocky Kyoutarou getting thoroughly trounced. Everyone then tries to cheer him up until Hisa Takei tells him that they are counting on him to buy food for them later. He then spends the rest of the tournament in the audience cheering on his team.

Days later, he sees Saki waiting on Nodoka to finish her interviews and asks her if she owns a yukata. He wants her to wear one so Nodoka will and then fantasizes about going on a date with Nodoka in a yukata. His delusions are once again interrupted by Yuuki who then brags about her sexy underwear that she's going to wear at the uncoming festival and tells Saki and Kyou about the planned second training camp. During the night of the festival, he had a race with Yuuki up the stairs and lost. He quickly gets over the disappointment when he sees Mako Someya, Saki Miyanaga and Nodoka in yukata where he then follows Yuuki to a taco stand and he later watches the fireworks with everyone.

National Tournament Arc
At the hotel, Kyoutarou runs into Hagiyoshi and he trains to improve his taco making skills for Yuuki Kataoka. Before the first round, he reveals that he met Hagiyoshi while trying to buy tacos for Yuuki in the prefectural tournament and he makes various comments throughout the matches.

Final Eight Arc
Kyoutarou is rarely shown except to make a few comments during and after the matches.

National Championship Arc
Right after the east round ends, Kyoutarou makes it back to the waiting area and he says although it took him longer he will now begin to make his strongest tacos for the next round.

When Yuuki Kataoka returns, Kyoutarou is ready as he hands her "the strongest tacos" that he learned since the prefectural tournament and he then brags that his cooking might be better than Saki Miyanaga's cooking.

After the vanguard match, Kiyosumi is informed that Etopen is damaged. Saki tries to rush to go buy a sewing kit but Kyoutarou stops her and says he's the one that should do it.

When Nodoka brings up being concerned about Hisa, Kyoutarou mentions that even if she were in some sort of trouble, her decision may be what is best for her. He then tells them all they can do is root for their seniors.

Etymology

 * The name Kyoutarou means "capital city" (京) (kyou), "thick, big" (太) (ta) and "son" (郎) (rou).
 * Saki Miyanaga calls him Kyou-chan.
 * Kyoutarou's surname Suga means "ought, by all means, necessarily" (須) (su) and "congratulations, joy" (賀) (ga).
 * Hisa Takei (the club president) calls him Suga-kun whenever she gives him errands.