| Huiyu Hao | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Personal info | |
| Japanese name: | 郝 慧宇 |
| Birthday: | June 19 |
| School: | Rinkai Girls' High School |
| Grade: | First-year high school |
| Media | |
| Debut: | Saki (manga), round 56 |
| Voiced by: | - |
| Mahjong | |
| Position: | Sergeant |
| Style: | Occult / Chinese style |
| Main skill/ability: | Chinese Mahjong |
Huiyu Hao (Hǎo Huìyǔ in Chinese Pinyin) is a first year at Rinkai Girls' High School and is from Hong Kong. In the Under 15 Asia Tournament she achieved the silver medal; she claims she only got a silver medal because the tournament used Japanese rules, which she was not familiar with at the time. She is one of three newcomers to the Rinkai team.
Appearance[]
Huiyu has brown eyes and blue hair with a headband, her hair tied in a bunch in the back. She wears a blue shift dress and attached wear with a strap.
Personality[]
Huiyu is shown to be quiet, calm, cool, and collected. However, she is quite confident in her abilities as well, as she thought that the Asia tournament would be a piece of cake, as well as when Satoha asked Huiyu to teach her Chinese mahjong, Huiyu responds with "I can teach you the rules, but are you sure? No one can beat me at that, you know."
It can also be inferred that she is rather proud of her Chinese roots, as she calls out "huu" (the Mandarin declaration of winning, similar to "ron" or "tsumo") before she declares her win in Japanese terms, as well as only being able to play in the Chinese-style, despite using Japanese rules.
Plot[]
Combined Training Camp Arc[]
Huiyu appeared at the end of the East Tokyo final when Kouko Fukuyo and Sukoya Kokaji were giving their run down on the Rinkai team.
Final Eight Arc[]
She is shown entering the tournament hall with the rest of Rinkai's team. During the vanguard match, Rinkai's coach says that she wants Yuuki Kataoka and Huiyu says that she thought their coach only took overseas students; however, the coach tells her that is the school's policy, not hers. When Satoha returns from her match, she and the rest of their team politely greet their ace. Huiyu and the rest of Rinkai then discuss Yuuki's play tatics during the vanguard match. She then leaves for the sergeant match.
After not winning the first hand, she immediately wins with a cheap tsumo. Satoha then has a flashback to when Huiyu was first recruited to join Rinkai. Here, Satoha wants to be taught Chinese mahjong, but Huiyu tells her that nobody can beat her at that. Huiyu is seen soundly defeating Satoha, Megan, and Nelly in Chinese mahjong before explaining that she came to Japan to practise Riichi mahjong because the rules are similar to the Asian tournaments'. She explains that the coach initially had her play in the Japanese-style, but the correct tiles wouldn't come to Huiyu until she went back to her Chinese-style mahjong, even under Japanese rulesets. Megan comments that Huiyu never declares riichi because of this; Huiyu responds saying she has no need for riichi.
As the game progresses Huiyu wins off of Mako Someya and later on Chikako Himori, furthering Rinkai's lead. When Chikako calls a chii, to remain in tenpai it throws off Huiyu because Chinese rulesets do not have the noten-bappu rule, this oversight on Huiyu's part is enough for Mako to win a hand. Huiyu then says that she has much to learn which means she can still get stronger. She is later shown winning off of Mako, with a hell-wait similar to Hisa Takei's style. When the match is finished, Huiyu walks away with the most points and an extension to Rinkai's lead.
At the start of Myeonghwa Choe's match, Huiyu asks their coach how she asked Myeonghwa to approach the lieutenant's match. Alexandra said the same thing to Myeonghwa as she did to Huiyu: there's no need to show all of her full power right now and to keep up the defense.
Before the start of Megan Davin's match, she tells Megan to "just do as you wish" when it comes to facing her opponents head-on, much to Alexandra's annoyance. When Megan begins to play strangely, Huiyu asks Alexandra about Megan's ability, and for clarification on what they currently know about it, which is not a lot.
After Nelly comes back from her match, Huiyu talks about her number counting she does at the end of match and calls it something like bluffing, which is considered bad manners at a Japanese mahjong table.
National Championship Arc[]
Nelly brings up why Satoha came to Rinkai in the first place and Huiyu is also curious. During the conversation though, she finds Myeonghwa to be a little weird.
During the first hand of her match, Mako calls riichi on the 7th turn. Huiyu reaches tenpai on the following turn, and keeps Mako's winning tile by decreasing her wait and potential score, getting rid of a possible sanshoku. Regardless. Mako wins the hand and continues to do so on her own dealer turn.
On Mako's third win, Huiyu notices that Mako discarded the 4-sou, and kept the 1-sou, getting rid of the tan'yao yaku but not playing into Huiyu's hand.
In the following hand, Sumire targets Huiyu's excess 2-wan, causing her to play into Sumire's mangan. Sumire once again targets Huiyu for a win after Mako's dealer repeats. She says that Sumire's ability is becoming a bit bothersome. After Mako and Sumire go back and forth, Huiyu notices that Mako and Yuu were able to dodge Sumire before and that she'll be the only one targeted now.
Huiyu says that she can't focus on defense being so behind and that she'll play by feeling. This seems to work for her as she wins two good hands in a row before Yuu starts to turn up the heat and win a few in a row as well. Huiyu then starts to play her style of Chinese mahjong and begins a win streak. When Sumire turns a 2,700 hand into a haneman thanks to riichi, Huiyu thinks that riichi is definitely strong, but continues to go with her style anyways, winning 5 hands in row, including a surprise win against Yuu. In the middle of this, Huiyu thinks back to a conversation with Myeonghwa about her inability to adapt to Japanese rules, and wonders if her stubborness is hindering her or helping her - during this conversation, Myeonghwa suggests that although the saying is "when in Rome, do as the Romans do", that this may not be helpful to Huiyu, and later their coach asked Huiyu to retain how she would play in Chinese mahjong, but to keep Japanese rules in mind. Huiyu wants to pass on as many points as possible to Myeonghwa, who helped her achieve her current style.
After an exhaustive draw, a desperate Sumire ends the streak with a quick hand and that also ends the half.
Starting the second half, she hits Yuu for a ron. Mako narrowly avoids dealing into Huiyu, Yuu's, and Sumire's hands. After the other players trade a few wins back and forth, Huiyu wins a haneman, and despite Mako's yakuman win, ends the sergeant match with a mangan to close the gap to the top. Despite Yuu's explosive first half of the sergeant match, Huiyu's consistency won her more points overall to pass onto her lieutenant as well as close the gap to the top.
Playing Style / Abilites[]
Huiyu is originally a Chinese mahjong champion and is the current silver medalist in the Under 15 Asia Tournament. To unleash her true power, Huiyu has to play like she would with Chinese rules, even if that is detrimental to her in the ruleset in use. This mainly shows in her sacrificing efficiency and score to form yaku that are valid only in Chinese rules. For example, she sacrificed pinfu and iipeikou from her hand to create a "Pure shifted chows" pattern, despite this both reducing her wait and lowering her score.
Huiyu also never declares riichi, and does not seem to care about dora when attacking, as neither of those exists in Chinese rules. If she does not play Chinese-style, she will not get good draws and has a hard time winning. Huiyu focused on defensive play in the quarterfinals, which shows that she can still adapt to this characteristic feature of the Japanese rules. However, she tries to win every single hand, as exhaustive draws are also not a feature in Chinese mahjong.
Mako Someya also mentioned that at times Huiyu reminds her of Hisa Takei because of how often Huiyu cuts the amount of tiles she can wait on in order to win.
She also seems to have a good read on what tiles other players need to win as most of the time when attacking, she will accept their winning tiles into her hand, changing her waits in order to do so. However, Sumire was able to get around this with her special ability, aiming for Huiyu's excess tiles.
Trivia[]
- Although Huiyu is said to be from Hong Kong, the only Chinese she is shown speaking is Mandarin, despite the fact that primary language used in Hong Kong is Cantonese.
- It is possible that she learned mahjong from a Mandarin teacher or coach, as playing in China would require Mandarin rather than Cantonese.