Myeonghwa Choe

Myeonghwa Choe
	;
Personal info
Japanese name:	雀明華
Nickname:	"The Wind God"
Birthday:	June 23
Family:	Professor Choe (mother)
School:	Rinkai Girls' High School
Grade:	Second-year high school
Media
Debut:	Saki (manga), round 56
Voiced by:	-
Mahjong
Position:	Lieutenant
Style:	Relies on Wind Tiles
Main skill/ability:	Singing/Starting hands contain a 'pung' of her seat wind

“	The Wind God - Choe Myeonghwa!	”
—Hisa Takei, about Myeonghwa as she enters the stage.

Myeonghwa Choe (雀明華, Chē Myonfa) is a French-Korean second year student at Rinkai Girls' High School.

Appearance[]

Myeonghwa has long ash-blonde hair with shaggy bangs and red eyes.

She wears a short-sleeved violet blazer and matching skirt, with white pantyhose. She is always seen with her parasol.

Personality[]

From her few, short appearances, she seems to be a polite, well-mannered girl. Myeonghwa wants to gain independence as soon as possible to lessen the burden she places on her mother. She also enjoys foods that pop when you eat them like salmon roe. At times, Myeonghwa feels the cultural differences of being in Japan and is taking this time to learn and acclimate to Japanese culture.

Plot[]

Combined Training Camp Arc[]

Myeonghwa 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 first shown entering the tournament hall with the rest of the Rinkai team. She is then shown watching Satoha Tsujigaito's match. During the vanguard match, Rinkai's coach, Alexandra Windheim, says that she wants Yuuki Kataoka and Myeonghwa calls her gluttonous. She then laughs when Nelly Virsaladze quips that the coach is too thin to be a glutton and that her butt and breasts are lacking. Myeonghwa then says that she hopes everyone will see Satoha's world class skill after the match. When Satoha returns from her match, Myeonghwa is among those to greet her. She and the rest of Rinkai then discuss Yuuki's play tactics.

During a flashback, she is shown coming in late while the others are playing Chinese mahjong. She did, however, get to hear Hao Huiyu describe how she plays mahjong. While watching the halftime show about her, she describes her favorite foods to her teammates. After viewing her mom, she changes the channel to another halftime show.

Choegoingforkill — Myeonghwa getting ready to sink Yuan under zero points.

While Hisa Takei and Hiroe Atago chat, they notice a strong gust of wind blow. Myeonghwa then descends from the sky with her parasol and as she lands, a breeze blows a tile into her hand. Hiroe comments, saying that's a nice illusion, and the match begins. She quickly wins off of Yuan Iwadate, increasing her number of winning tiles by limiting her hand value. Myeonghwa and Hiroe take turns winning hands off of Usuzan while Hisa contemplates her difficult situation. Soon afterwards, Myeonghwa wins off of Yuan again with another cheapened hand.

Later, Myeonghwa is then seen dramatically increasing her hand value to that of a dealer sanbaiman by drawing a concealed honitsu and suuankou. However, Hisa calls her tile to change the drawing order and then wins by drawing Myeonghwa's winning tile thus negating Myeonghwa's attempt at a self-drawn suu ankou, and earning some points for Kiyosumi, and lowering the point loss from the other schools. In the 4th hand of the South round Myeonghwa wins off Yuan for 3200 points ending the first match. After the match ends, Myeonghwa opens her parasol and calmly walks away from the table.

At the start of the second match she corrects Hiroe's choice of courtesy as she finishes a snack and gets confused by her retort; but, after a moment of thinking about it, she tells herself she needs to focus on the game. Her starting hand shows she already has a pung of East wind tiles. After Hiroe, Hisa and Yuan share some banter, Myeonghwa feels left out and implies it may be due to her being a foreigner.

After Hisa hits Yuan with a direct-hit mangan, Myeonghwa remarks that Yuan only has 12,300 points left and thinks that it might be a good time to go for the kill. She is shown inhaling before she begins to sing. She quickly calls several tiles to speed up her hand and wins. Deep into the next hand, she notices Hiroe's mangan and thinks to play it safe and says that with her hand open, her wind tiles are a great defensive tool as well. However, upon discarding, Hisa hits Myeonghwa with a haneman of her own and Myeonghwa notes that she shouldn't underestimated these girls. In a later hand, she notes that Hisa has declared riichi on her dealership and decides not to discard her winds this round, but Hisa wins yet again with a haneman. Myeonghwa says that the wind was suppose to blow her way, before smiling and saying that Hisa enjoys quite the headwind.

Towards the end of Megan's match, Alexandra tries to explain Megan Davin's unusual play style and that it could be used only for six rounds over forty days. Myeonghwa then tells her that it wouldn't be very useful in league matches, but good enough for interhigh matches, which happen once a year, and thus can accommodate the charge time.

Towards the end of Nelly's match, Myeonghwa wonders why Saki Miyanaga didn't declare riichi, and says that if she did she would've gotten an ippatsu tsumo. Alexandra rebuts by saying that if she did Nelly would've shifted that anyways. Just before Nelly's winning streak, Myeonghwa comments that "it" is about to start.

National Championship Arc[]

Nelly brings up why Satoha wanted to go to Rinkai but Myeonghwa doesn't know. During the conversation, Myeonghwa says some weird things but notes that she is Hao and Nelly's elder and that she hopes they can live up to Satoha's expectations.

She watches Hao get a few wins and tells Satoha that the mood around her never changes.

Before the lieutenant match , Myeonghwa can be seen falling from on high down to the stage. Hisa asks everyone if it's okay if she uses her left hand and they don't mind. Myeonghwa says it makes her want to say no but for her to go ahead. After Hisa and Ako trade a few wins back and forth, Myeonghwa begins a winning streak starting with a win off of first place Takami and then goes on a renchan with two tsumos in a row to take first place from Shiraitodai. Hisa wins the next few hands with bad waits so Choe decides to play freely and gather the winds. She wins the hand. Myeonghwa then starts to sing signaling she is approaching her maximum speed. She then hits Takami for 7700 extending her lead. Myeonghwa wins three more times before she is stopped by a cheap hand by Ako. Ako wins during her dealership in South 4, but chooses to end the game there rather than to go on a renchan.

She returns to the table after the break and all the girls draw dealership. Unfortunately, Takami draws the last dealer, so all the girls understand that they must get to the last dealership with the least amount of hands possible. The girls work together for a quick Ako win then a quick Hisa win. Myeonghwa wins a tsumo next hand to push her lead. Takami then realizes that Myeonghwa has kept all the wind tiles from her initial draws, causing her harvest path to be blocked for the time. Ako and Hisa continue to trade cheap and fast wins back and forth, bringing the second half of the lieutenant's battle to South 4 without any bonus hands, meaning Takami could only plant 7 tiles for her South 4 dealership. However, despite Ako attempting to push for the win, Takami manages to win her first hand of the finals, extending the lieutenant match. She works with Hisa and Ako to hold off Takami for the rest of the match.

Playing Style/Abilities[]

Myeonghwa has two main abilities: her innate ability to draw three copies of her seat wind in her starting hand and a pair of the round wind and her active ability to increase her luck by singing.

Myeonghwa always starts with a set of her own seat wind as well as draw pairs of the round wind, and as such her winning hands have often been shown to have her wind set in them. This always guarantees her yaku and increases her chances of winning due to having a guaranteed finished set in her starting hand. Myeonghwa is also capable of stretching these wind tiles a long way for defence, as it can buy her time to figure out which tiles are safe. However, this also allowed Hisa Takei to score a win off of Myeonghwa, as Hisa made her wait with the last South tile, knowing that Myeonghwa would discard it as a safe play. Myeonghwa later adapted to Hisa's play and choose not to discard the winds in a defensive play. According to Hiroko Funakubo, despite her ability to always draw honour tiles, Myeonghwa does not aim for daisuushi, shousuushi, tsuuiisou, or other yakuman (besides suuankou) as she rarely gets wind tiles outside her seat wind or round wind.

In the semifinals and quarterfinals, she was told by her coach to play safely as their lead was big, so there was no need to do any flashy plays. Myeonghwa did this by sacrificing yaku and dora, lowering her score and increasing her potential waits, time and time again, often winning small hands simply to move the game along. She did this many times in the semifinals, winning off of Yuan. However, once she felt there was a chance to knock Uzusan under, she went on the offensive, singing and taking control of the flow of the game.

In the Finals, when Rinkai had to take second, Myeonghwa finally showed why she is ranked on the world ladder. Her control over the winds was not in fact limited to just the prevailing wind and her seat wind, but instead a bluff that Rinkai managed to hide all the way until the finals, that Myeonghwa can actually influence her off-winds to be in her hand as well. Myeonghwa favours half-flush hands thanks to a large percentage of her hand already being wind tiles, and she very easily wins mangan and above scoring hands, even without singing.

Her second main ability is to change the flow of the game by singing, aiding her initial draws and the draws after that. Sawaya Shishihara said to Yuan Iwadate that Myeonghwa invites luck in by singing. According to the announcers, Myeonghwa sings constantly in the European Mahjong tournaments and she is very strong there; however, Japanese rulesets do not allow constant singing, as it may disrupt the other players unfairly. In the interhigh however, players are allowed to sing in between hands while the walls are being set, this gives Myeonghwa a little time to push her luck a little further It has been hinted by Myeonghwa that the longer she sings - the stronger her influence over the flow of the game becomes.

Myeonghwa has another active ability: she can prevent a specific player from having any wind tiles in their initial draws. This has limited use, as excluding winds as whole tends to increase the chance that player will have a faster hand as they have less unconnected tiles to form their hand with. Furthermore, she must concentrate heavily in order to focus on that player, and this significantly hampers her score. To wit, in the first hanchan of the finals, Myeonghwa won 8 times and scored more than 50,000 points, but in the second hanchan of the finals when Myeonghwa choose to prevent Takami from drawing any wind tiles, Myeonghwa only won once, and barely has a surplus through that one win, mostly thanks to Ako and Hisa aiming for cheap hands. However, this shows that Myeonghwa is flexible and able to adjust her playstyle to what is happening on the table, from adjusting her safe discards to prevent a direct hit from Hisa's bad waits or to actively hampering Takami's initial draws to help prevent her yakuman.

Etymology[]

The given name name Myeonghwa means "bright" (明) (cho) and "flower" (華) (e).
Choe's surname Choe means "sparrow" (雀).
- According to South Korea's Revised Romanization guidelines, Choe name is romanized here according where her family name is likely to be a misnomer as the hanja (the Korean equivalent of kanji) reads as "Jak" (the same character as "jang" in "mahjong").
  - It is most likely intended to be the similar 崔, also sometimes romanized as "Choi" prior to the 2000 guidelines.

Trivia[]

According to Hisa Takei, Myeonghwa is "the product of Sophia Antipolis".
She is half Korean on her mother's side (Professor Choe) and half French on her father's side (Name unknown, deceased).
In the European Mahjong league, Myeonghwa is a top ranked player where she also became known as "venter" or "wind goddess".
Myeonghwa is one of three newcomers to the Rinkai team.
Myeonghwa is said to be a world class mahjong player.
Myeonghwa revealed that she was born from microbiology technology.