| Suzu Ueshige | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Personal info | |
| Japanese name: | 上重 漫 |
| Birthday: | January 6 |
| School: | Himematsu High School |
| Grade: | Second-year high school |
| Media | |
| Debut: | Saki (manga), round 68 |
| Voiced by: | Arisa Date |
| Mahjong | |
| Position: | Vanguard |
| Style: | Favors Chanta Based Hands |
| Main skill/ability: | Wins explosively |
Suzu Ueshige is a second year at Himematsu High. She previously played the vice captain role but switched to playing vanguard. When she fails the goals set by Kyouko Suehara, she has her forehead written on as punishment.
Appearance
Suzu has dark hair tied into pigtails with two red ties and dark blue eyes. She wears a standard Himematsu uniform. Her most distinguishing characteristic is her bare forehead and is sometimes written on by Kyouko Suehara.
Personality
She worries a lot about her opponents moves and actions during her play, however, she soon sheds this carefulness and becomes confident in her abilities once they activate. In her freshman year people tended to bully her. It is hinted that she is close with Kyouko.
Playing Style / Abilities
While playing with Himematsu's rules, Suzu is considered a weak player and is always in last place. However, according to Suehara, if the match is simple and only counts incoming points, she is very skilled, even coming in first. Also according to Suehara, she plays and wins explosively, and has the ability to win "explosive" hands, especially when she is playing against stronger opponents. However, the opponents she can explode against are very vague; against clear-cut powerful opponents, she will explode, such as against Satoha and Sera, yet did not explode against Shiromi or Yuuki who are also both powerful players. Yuuki was warned to be careful when Suzu starts winning with 7-8-9 tiles.
Unfortunately for Himematsu, the national's qualifying and quarterfinal matches were misfires, as Suzu did not win "explosively." However, in the semifinal's vanguard match, she won with a baiman, taking Himematsu into second place. Afterwards, it is revealed that when "her fuse has been lit" her hands lean towards terminal and honour tiles, (with Yuuki being warned about Suzu's 7-8-9 calls). It is speculated by Hiroe that Suzu's draws became better in the South round because Satoha was about to go on the offensive, backing up Suehara's claims that Suzu gets stronger as her opponents do.
When her fuse is lit, she goes on a winning streak comprising of relatively high paying hands (often leaning towards chanta and junchan tiles), eventually reaching expensive hands comparable to that of Yuuki's closed-riichi hands in the East rounds, being iishanten for a yakuman on the first discard. However, she has been advised to taking the cheaper win in order to win if it comes along before her expensive hand; and does so especially when she takes into account that she'll get crushed by Satoha if she gives Rinkai's ace that chance against herself. If someone else wins during Suzu's renchan, her fuse is stopped, but this only delays the explosion, according to Suzu.
In the Zenkoku-Hen video game, and in the Match for 5th, her explosion included 6-7-8-9 tiles, greatly widening and adding versatility to her, allowing her to go for tan'yao or junchan hands.
Plot
National Tournament Arc
Suzu is first seen along with the rest of Himematsu watching Kiyosumi's match on the waiting room television, with her exclaiming that " the braided one has stupid luck".
A few days later her team advances to the second round against Kiyosumi. At the start of her match she begins to remember the briefing she got from Suehara. She must first pay attention to Yuuki Kataoka then the others, but it doesn't help as Yuuki quicky wins. With Yuuki continuing to take points, she laments the goal Suehara set for her ( to stay within 30,000pts or be punished). When Yuuki declares that she will make sure the second round doesn't happen, Suzu is surprised and doubts her, saying that she would be the strongest monster if she could do it. She then gets won off of by Yuuki twice in a row, then when Miyamori's Shiromi Kosegawa makes a move, Suzu remembers the briefing on her. After this Komaki Jindai announces that she has been asleep and will play to her best, much to Suzu's shock. When the situation seemed grim, Jindai plays into Suzu's hand and gives her her first win to her delight. We then see a flashback were it was Suehara that recommended her for the regular team but doesn't want anyone to know. At the end of her match, she was in last place and missed her goal by 600pts.
When everyone leaves,we see Suzu trying to sneak into the waiting room but is caught by Suehara. She then apologizes for losing so many points.It then looked like she was going to get a lesser punishment when Suehara forgot her perminant marker. But Akasaka Ikuno gives her one to complete the promised punishment. She is later shown before the start of the vice-captain match. When Kinue Atago kicks etopen, Hiroe Atago says she use to be a goal keeper in middle school. Suzu then says that even still she shouldn't just kick something. After Kyouko managed to place second, Suzu and the rest are shown welcoming her back. After Yoshiko Kainou is introduced, she and Yuuko Mase get excited and ask her about the legends surrounding her mahjong career.
Final Eight Arc
On the day of the semi-finals, Suzu comes prepared to face Yuuki's closed expensive hands, however, she is surprised when Yuuki begins opening her hand, focussing more on speed than point totals. When Rinkai's ace and vanguard, Satoha Tsujigaito joins in the offensive play, Suzu becomes even more wary, and they go through several exhaustive hands before Yuuki declares riichi yet again, however, when Suzu and Usuzan's Naruka Motouchi play safe, they end up playing into Satoha's hand, ending Yuuki's renchan.
However, undeterred, Yuuki begins calling tiles again, taking control of the game through speed, blazing through the East round right into the South round. In the very first South Round, Suzu's ability activates for the first time in the National tournament, and she wins with a baiman, taking Himematsu to second place, above Rinkai.
It is revealed that once her ability activates, Suzu will go on a renchan of her own, waiting for another explosion to happen; when this occurs, her hand will tend to consist of 7-8-9 and honour tiles. She does go on a brief renchan, overtaking Kiyosumi for first, but it is ruined as she is about to win with a potential yakuman when Satoha purposefully calls tiles to give more draws to Naruka and take tiles away from Suzu, causing her to play straight into Naruka's non-riichi haneman.
Suzu's explosion
With the end of Suzu's renchan, Satoha's east turn appears, and everyone at the table is wary of Rinkai's ace, who proceeds to go on a renchan knocking Himematsu into third, and taking Rinkai to first place. In the third bonus hand of Satoha's renchan, Suzu remembers that Yuuki Kataoka gave up her big hands to win quickly and recalls that Kyouko and Hiroe told her to do the same before. With this in mind, Suzu then gets off another explosion, taking them to second place. The rest of the vanguard match is unseen, however, it can be assumed to have turned into a violent match between Rinkai and Himematsu.
Back in the waiting room, Suzu was getting praised until Ikuno reminded everyone that they had gambled that she would stay withing 30,000 pts of the leader. She then closes her eyes not wanting to see what happens next. However she notices that it was lipstick used on her forehead and opens her eyes. When looking at the drawing she mistakes a victory flower for a crab cake.
During the Lieutenant's match, Suzu and the others discuss how Hiroe is planning on winning some points, either blocking Hisa's way to second or making Usuzan bust.
National Championship Arc
After all the participants gather in the arena and greet each other, Suzu and the other vanguards sit at the table as the match begins. In the first hand Usuzan's Naruka Motouchi calls a daburii during Suzu's dealership. and Suzu says if she plays into it, it'll just be chance - and she does play into the baiman. Unknowingly to her, Senriyama's Toki Onjouji allowed her to play into it by not calling an exhaustive draw. Suzu calls tiles in the next round, in an attempt to get back some points when Toki declares riichi, knowing she has one of the highest ippatsu rates in the country, Suzu calls again to cancel it; despite this, Toki still wins with a haneman. In the next round, Toki declares riichi, and Suzu wants to call to drop the ippatsu but cannot call any tiles allowing Toki to win with a dealer haneman, everyone thinks that if Toki continues, there will be no stopping her, and Suzu's fuse lights.
In the next hand, Suzu achieves tenpai but decides not to declare riichi, given her wait and yaku are poor. However, Toki quickly wraps up the hand before Suzu can change her wait and declare riichi. She quickly wins the next hand with a haneman tsumo and then remembers Suehara's advice against Toki. If she's in iishanten and declares riichi the same turn she reaches tenpai, it's much easier for Toki to shift the draws because she will see Suzu declare riichi with her future sight and prevent Suzu's tenpai. Conversely, by waiting a turn after achieving tenpai to declare riichi, she can throw off Toki as after achieving tenpai, she can call riichi at anytime, and it may be beneficial to have Toki ruin her hand at an attempt to prevent Suzu's win. Suehara also advises Suzu to consider chiitoi much more heavily, and in the next hand, she wins a direct haneman off of Naruka, with a 2-pin chiitoi wait allowing her to jump to second place over Usuzan.
Things go awry for Suzu during her dealership, Kirame and Toki begin collaborating together, with Toki purposefully giving Kirame tiles to call on and skip Suzu's turns, give Kirame a 2000/3900 tsumo, increasing the distance between Himematsu and Senriyama due to the dealer penalty. Kirame's win also ends Suzu's last dealership.
After the match she apologizes to her team.
Trivia
- Suzu is probably a reference to the main character of the manga/anime Jarinko Chie. Chie lives in Southern Osaka and has a similar hairstyle (including the red tie). The character tables in the 14th volume reveal that Suzu's father owns an Okonomiyaki shop. Chie's father owns a Horumon shop where Chie works, serving also Bakudanshu/Poktanju - literally "explosive sake". An Okonomiyaki shop is featured prominently in Jarinko Chie as well.