Seiko Matano

 Seiko Matano (亦野 誠子, Matano Seiko) '''is a second year at Shiraitodai High, which is her first year with the main team.

Appearance
Seiko has short greenish-grey hair and magenta eyes.

She wears shorts along with her Shiraitodai uniform.

Personality
Like Seiko's nickname "The Fisher", she has a calm and patient attitude, such as when her team mates doubted that she beat Awai Oohoshi, she was only disgruntled for a moment before describing how she beat Awai.

Going into the semifinals, Seiko was quite confident in her playing abilities. However, her confidence has been shaken after the semifinals match, which is most easily seen in the beginning where she thinks she can stop Shindouji's ace pair simply by winning and after her match when she begs Awai to win in order to save herself more trouble.

Combined Training Camp Arc
Seiko was shown after Awai Oohoshi advanced her team to the national tournament.

Final Eight Arc
Seiko is shown with the rest of her teammates entering the playing hall before the final eight competition begins. After Teru Miyanaga's match, she welcomes her back. When Teru suggests they investigate Sumire Hirose's match, Seiko asks if its because she thinks that she might be giving away her ability somehow. And when they find nothing she says that they just have to wish Sumire the best.

As she sets at the table, the match begins. Seiko starts the game using her abilities to grab pons until she grabs a tsumo win. When Mairu Shirouzu starts to activate her abilities Seiko remembers a meeting Shiraitodai had prior to the match. Sumire and Teru explained Mairu's ability to Seiko and Awai Oohoshi. She asked if there is a tell and Teru informs her that Mairu will, after looking at her starting hand, put her tiles face down when she activates a bind, but she does this every hand regardless of if she makes a bind, making useless as a means of knowing which hands Mairu has limited herself.

Seiko decides that Mairu's ability has nothing to do with her, as the wins from Himeko are for Awai to deal with, but focuses on Mairu long enough for Hiroko Funakubo to win off of her. Later, in the east second round (dealer repeat), Seiko and Mairu have a calling battle for victory until Mairu intercepts her pon and wins. During the east fourth round, she once again is beaten by Mairu and Seiko says that she knew that Mairu was Shindouji's ace, but it wasn't just that - she's been the ace in the strongest school in Northern Kyushu for 3 years running and calls Mairu a true ace. Later she is surprised when Arata Sagimori declares riichi and wins. When Seiko decides to play more careful, she is won off of by Hiroko and again the next time around, preying on Seiko's habit of discarding suji and honour tiles when playing it safe. After continuous wins by her opponents, she says that she has never fallen to second place before and never has she lost so many points. She then says that Arata is giving her trouble, having switched up her waits from just pinzu to other tiles as well, and feels like she is trying to manipulate her. She is then shocked when Mairu wins with a baiman and thinks that in the captains match it will be a yakuman. Arata then ends the match with a win.

Walking down the hall, Seiko meets Awai. She tells Awai that being defeated puts her in a tough spot and if Awai loses she will be in more trouble. She then asks Awai to win for her and Awai says she was going to anyway. Later when Himeko Tsuruta is able to beat Awai's abilty, Seiko is stunned, not being able to believe a high school could break through Awai's 5-shanten zone and kan-ura dora attack. When Awai gets serious during her match, she says that the opponents must be tough because she's rarely seen this. Teru and Takami then informs everyone that Awai once got serious during the prefecturals. Seiko says that the reason was because she didn't want to lose in points to Takami. Later, after the second renchan of the match, she commented that she once stopped Awai double riichi by arranging the tiles in a circle which took away the corners which caused Awai to burst into tears. When Awai bursts into the waiting room and apologizes for getting second place, Seiko says that she will also do better next time.

During the Side-B semi's she is seen sitting with most of her team. She says that Rinkai is a shoe-in for the finals and wonders where Awai is.

National Championship Arc
While watching the shocking vanguard match, Seiko begins to analyze Yuuki Kataoka's hands.

Sumire gets hit for a win by Hao Huiyu and Seiko says she got hit so easily.

Upon hearing Awai mention gaining back points no matter how many was lost before her, Seiko thinks she was talking about her. She then vows to get a possitive score this time around.

Playing Style/Abilities
Matano's ability is to easily declare repeated pon, which is depicted as catching the tile that she just called with her fishing rod. After her third pon, she will usually tsumo within five turns, making her a fast player. Her beginning hands contain many pairs, and often contain pairs of honor tiles that give her yaku.

While playing safe, Seiko relies heavily on suji and honor tiles. Despite heavy losses in the first hanchan of the semifinals, Seiko managed to keep the first place spot, indicating she does have enough defensive capabilities when it comes down to the wire.

She said to Awai Oohoshi "I'm already on a tough place in the team" after her loss in the semifinals, indicating she thinks that her results show that she is the weakest player on their roster.

Etymology

 * The name Seiko means "sincerity" (誠) (sei) and "child" (子) (ko).
 * Seiko's surname Matano means "also" (亦) (mato) and "field, wilderness" (野) (no).

Trivia

 * The limit of 5 turns on Seiko's ability allows her to rebuild her hand and make a valid yaku, as after 3 calls, you can only have control of 4 tiles in your hand.
 * Seiko lost the most points over two hanchan out of any player presented in the Saki series, losing 59,400 pts.
 * This breaks Seika Bundou's old record of losing 49,000 pts.