TV-Series
Description
Hisa Takei is a third-year student at Kiyosumi High School, where she serves as the president of the mahjong club and also holds the position of student council president. She competes in the lieutenant position, which is the third seat in team matches. Her background contains a mysterious element from her middle school years, when she was known by her former name, Hisa Ueno. During a national middle school tournament, she played against Mihoko Fukuji and was near the top of the leaderboard but mysteriously withdrew from the competition. This event later becomes a point of connection when she encounters Mihoko again in high school.
In terms of personality, Hisa is portrayed as a charismatic, confident, and friendly individual who possesses strong leadership qualities both at the mahjong table and in her duties as club president. She is known for being caring toward her underclassmen, such as when she comforts Yuuki Kataoka after a difficult defeat. Her strategic mind allows her to effectively read the strengths and weaknesses of others, and she has been described as scheming with good foresight. She can also be playful, enjoying teasing others, and she insists that people refer to her properly as student council president rather than simply as club president. Opponents have sometimes described her mannerisms at the table as having bad manners due to her habit of slamming tiles down with force.
Her motivation is deeply tied to the team aspect of mahjong. Hisa has long dreamed of participating in the national inter-high team tournament, but in previous years, the Kiyosumi mahjong club lacked enough members to field a full five-person team. She revived the club with the goal of reaching nationals, and it is only in her final year of high school that she is able to compete as a full team. Unlike players who focus on individual tournaments, Hisa prefers competing alongside others and was never interested in participating in the individual tournament alone.
In the story of Episode of Side-A, Hisa appears as a supporting character representing Kiyosumi High School, which is one of the prominent schools in the national mahjong circuit. While the spin-off focuses primarily on the Achiga Girls Academy team, Hisa and her teammates are shown as established competitors who have already qualified for the national tournament through their victory in the Nagano prefectural finals. Her role is to represent the strength and reputation of Kiyosumi as a formidable opponent that the Achiga team may face or aspire to compete against.
Regarding her key relationships, Hisa shares a unique and significant connection with Mihoko Fukuji from Kazekoshi High School, dating back to their encounter in middle school when Hisa was still known as Hisa Ueno. Within her own team, she is a mentor and leader to the underclassmen, including Saki Miyanaga, Nodoka Haramura, Yuuki Kataoka, and Mako Someya. She has demonstrated a caring nature toward them, providing guidance, comfort after losses, and even arranging training camps to help them improve. She also has a connection to professional mahjong player Yasuko Fujita, whom she considers a friend and has enlisted to help train her teammates by challenging them to difficult practice matches.
Throughout the series, Hisa shows development in her confidence and leadership. She began as a lone representative of the mahjong club at Kiyosumi without the resources to even visit other schools, yet she persisted in building the club from the ground up. By her third year, she has assembled a talented team and leads them through the pressures of tournament play. Although she displays great confidence in her abilities, she did experience a moment of wavering during the national tournament before recovering her composure.
Hisa possesses notable mahjong abilities that set her apart from other players. Her signature skill is winning on bad waits, also referred to as hell waits, which involve waiting for a tile that seems inefficient or unlikely to come, such as needing a single specific tile when most copies have already been discarded. She believes there is meaning to each tile and that she always wins when relying on such waits during crucial tournament moments. In less critical situations, she typically plays a rational and solid style, similar to Nodoka's approach. She also has a strong grasp of the flow of the game, allowing her to pick strategic moments to declare riichi. One of her notable techniques is declaring an empty riichi, a ready hand that actually has no winning tiles available, purely to intimidate opponents into playing defensively and forcing an exhaustive draw. Beyond her technical skills, she excels at reading other players, taking advantage of their cautious play, and even collaborating with other players to take down stronger opponents at the table.
In terms of personality, Hisa is portrayed as a charismatic, confident, and friendly individual who possesses strong leadership qualities both at the mahjong table and in her duties as club president. She is known for being caring toward her underclassmen, such as when she comforts Yuuki Kataoka after a difficult defeat. Her strategic mind allows her to effectively read the strengths and weaknesses of others, and she has been described as scheming with good foresight. She can also be playful, enjoying teasing others, and she insists that people refer to her properly as student council president rather than simply as club president. Opponents have sometimes described her mannerisms at the table as having bad manners due to her habit of slamming tiles down with force.
Her motivation is deeply tied to the team aspect of mahjong. Hisa has long dreamed of participating in the national inter-high team tournament, but in previous years, the Kiyosumi mahjong club lacked enough members to field a full five-person team. She revived the club with the goal of reaching nationals, and it is only in her final year of high school that she is able to compete as a full team. Unlike players who focus on individual tournaments, Hisa prefers competing alongside others and was never interested in participating in the individual tournament alone.
In the story of Episode of Side-A, Hisa appears as a supporting character representing Kiyosumi High School, which is one of the prominent schools in the national mahjong circuit. While the spin-off focuses primarily on the Achiga Girls Academy team, Hisa and her teammates are shown as established competitors who have already qualified for the national tournament through their victory in the Nagano prefectural finals. Her role is to represent the strength and reputation of Kiyosumi as a formidable opponent that the Achiga team may face or aspire to compete against.
Regarding her key relationships, Hisa shares a unique and significant connection with Mihoko Fukuji from Kazekoshi High School, dating back to their encounter in middle school when Hisa was still known as Hisa Ueno. Within her own team, she is a mentor and leader to the underclassmen, including Saki Miyanaga, Nodoka Haramura, Yuuki Kataoka, and Mako Someya. She has demonstrated a caring nature toward them, providing guidance, comfort after losses, and even arranging training camps to help them improve. She also has a connection to professional mahjong player Yasuko Fujita, whom she considers a friend and has enlisted to help train her teammates by challenging them to difficult practice matches.
Throughout the series, Hisa shows development in her confidence and leadership. She began as a lone representative of the mahjong club at Kiyosumi without the resources to even visit other schools, yet she persisted in building the club from the ground up. By her third year, she has assembled a talented team and leads them through the pressures of tournament play. Although she displays great confidence in her abilities, she did experience a moment of wavering during the national tournament before recovering her composure.
Hisa possesses notable mahjong abilities that set her apart from other players. Her signature skill is winning on bad waits, also referred to as hell waits, which involve waiting for a tile that seems inefficient or unlikely to come, such as needing a single specific tile when most copies have already been discarded. She believes there is meaning to each tile and that she always wins when relying on such waits during crucial tournament moments. In less critical situations, she typically plays a rational and solid style, similar to Nodoka's approach. She also has a strong grasp of the flow of the game, allowing her to pick strategic moments to declare riichi. One of her notable techniques is declaring an empty riichi, a ready hand that actually has no winning tiles available, purely to intimidate opponents into playing defensively and forcing an exhaustive draw. Beyond her technical skills, she excels at reading other players, taking advantage of their cautious play, and even collaborating with other players to take down stronger opponents at the table.