Shigeru Akagi

From Battle of Wits Wiki
Jump to navigationJump to search

Shigeru Akagi

Akagi.jpg
Character information
Name: Shigeru Akagi
Series: Akagi
Tier: Mastermind
Role: Lead Mastermind

Shigeru Akagi is the protagonist of the Akagi manga series by Nobuyuki Fukumoto. At the start of the series he is a thirteen-year-old boy who has never played mahjong before. After learning the game, however, he displays incredible talent and rises into a legend in the mahjong underworld.

Modus operandi

Akagi has an almost supernatural ability to read people, which he uses during his mahjong games to deduce what tiles his opponents are waiting for based on the shape of their discards. From a number of factors, such as how quickly the tiles are played, he can tell which discards are related or unrelated to the hand the opponent is trying to form. This allows him to split his opponents' discards into "safe" and "dangerous" areas, and therefore know which tiles he can discard without running the risk of playing into their hands.

Akagi's other great asset is his fearlessness, which allows him to pursue risky strategies without hesitation and turn his luck around even when all the odds seem to be against him. It also allows him to keep his cool under extreme pressure that would cause most people to break down. Because of this, trying to intimidate or psychologically destabilize him rarely works, and is likely to backfire.

To Akagi, mahjong is not so much about forming a good hand, but rather about destroying the hands of the opponents. Following this perspective he plays a very psychological game, where by making his opponents second-guess themselves and making them afraid of dealing into his own hand he can force them to discard the tiles they need to win. This playstyle further benefits from the fact that Akagi himself almost never displays self-doubt or fear, allowing him to keep the pressure on his opponents and control the game.

Like many of the people he plays against, Akagi also does not hesitate to cheat when an opportunity presents itself, by using sleight of hand to swap tiles in order to improve his hand or deceive his opponents about the tiles he holds.

Matches

See also: List of Matches in Akagi

As the protagonist, Akagi takes part in almost all Matches in the story. In some of them he arrives later to take over for some other player who is currently losing, inevitably changing the course of the match with his skills.

Stand-alone Tricks

  • Asking the Kawada Group for a revolver in exchange for meeting with them, in order to use it to defend himself against Takeru's friends who wanted revenge for the Game of Chicken. (Chapters 14, 16)
  • When playing Russian roulette with Ichikawa, estimating from the sound that the number of revolutions of the cylinder was between 4 and 9, and therefore the revolver wouldn't fire immediately. (Chapter 14)
  • When challenged by the Fake Akagi to draw 3 face-down tiles from a set of 9 to make a hand with shanten 4, using sleight of hand to steal the needed tiles from the set of open tiles. (Chapter 31)