Somebody care to explain the wordplay at work in this comic?
The basic joke is that they have no freakin' clue what they're doing. It's presented like only Serval's clueless at first, but then Kaban's even worse (or just running with it).
Tsumo - drawing a tile. Usually used in the context of winning on a tile you drew yourself (as opposed to taking another player's discard).
Riichi (reach) - Declaring you are one tile from winning, sort of like "Uno" in Uno. You get the special rule that you can draw any discarded tile immediately (instead of on your turn), but it locks you into having to get a specific tile because you can't discard any of the tiles in your hand when you declared Reach. (If other players know what you need, they will deliberately avoid making that discard, even if it hurts their own chances of winning.) You get a bonus to your score if you win off of a Reach.
Ippatsu - Winning within one round of declaring Reach (whether taking a discard or drawing on the turn after declaring Reach). Also gives a bonus.
Toitoi (toitoihou) - Winning with all three of a kinds (except for one pair). This means having, say, three separate 9s of bamboo, 4s of coins, etc. The exact numbers don't matter, so long as you have a triplet in every suit.
Mangan - A hand limited to a base of 2000 points because it has too many bonuses. A rare, high-value hand in betting-money mahjong (the limit is to prevent some rare hands from utterly wiping other players out).
Ron - Winning off of another player's discard (Kaban is counting the crab as having been discarded and her picking it up).
Yakuman - Special hands with extremely particular requirements (like "13 Orphans" having one of the 1s and 9s from every suit plus one of each wind and dragon tile) that are worth maximum points (2000) just for having them because trying to get them is a massive risk.
"Seafood Paradise" - The kanji for this (which doesn't match the phonetic "seafood paradise" that is in the sidescript) is similar to "ε½ε£«η‘ε", which is the kanji for the 13 Orphans hand.
The basic joke is that they have no freakin' clue what they're doing. It's presented like only Serval's clueless at first, but then Kaban's even worse (or just running with it).
Tsumo - drawing a tile. Usually used in the context of winning on a tile you drew yourself (as opposed to taking another player's discard).
Riichi (reach) - Declaring you are one tile from winning, sort of like "Uno" in Uno. You get the special rule that you can draw any discarded tile immediately (instead of on your turn), but it locks you into having to get a specific tile because you can't discard any of the tiles in your hand when you declared Reach. (If other players know what you need, they will deliberately avoid making that discard, even if it hurts their own chances of winning.) You get a bonus to your score if you win off of a Reach.
Ippatsu - Winning within one round of declaring Reach (whether taking a discard or drawing on the turn after declaring Reach). Also gives a bonus.
Toitoi (toitoihou) - Winning with all three of a kinds (except for one pair). This means having, say, three separate 9s of bamboo, 4s of coins, etc. The exact numbers don't matter, so long as you have a triplet in every suit.
Mangan - A hand limited to a base of 2000 points because it has too many bonuses. A rare, high-value hand in betting-money mahjong (the limit is to prevent some rare hands from utterly wiping other players out).
Ron - Winning off of another player's discard (Kaban is counting the crab as having been discarded and her picking it up).
Yakuman - Special hands with extremely particular requirements (like "13 Orphans" having one of the 1s and 9s from every suit plus one of each wind and dragon tile) that are worth maximum points (2000) just for having them because trying to get them is a massive risk.
"Seafood Paradise" - The kanji for this (which doesn't match the phonetic "seafood paradise" that is in the sidescript) is similar to "ε½ε£«η‘ε", which is the kanji for the 13 Orphans hand.
I know nothing of Mahjong, but based on your description here, it sounds not unlike a form of Poker or Rummy. Thanks for the info!
Riichi (reach) - Declaring you are one tile from winning, sort of like "Uno" in Uno. You get the special rule that you can draw any discarded tile immediately (instead of on your turn), but it locks you into having to get a specific tile because you can't discard any of the tiles in your hand when you declared Reach. (If other players know what you need, they will deliberately avoid making that discard, even if it hurts their own chances of winning.) You get a bonus to your score if you win off of a Reach.
You can call any discarded tile on any other player's turn if it lets you complete your hand ("ron"), so long as you're not in furiten (in a state of having discarded a tile that could complete your current hand), and you already have a minimum of one yaku ("tricks", i.e. hand combinations/conditions that give multiplier/exponent points). You don't need riichi for this (of course, riichi itself gives you one yaku). This is called damaten (silent "tenpai", or "listening for tiles silently"). Of course, priority rules apply, so if multiple players call ron, the player whose turn comes after the discarder gets to claim the tile (under atamahane rules, the most common variation. The other rules variant is to let each player claim ron, so the discarder has to pay each one).
Note that Riichi is derived from Chinese η«η΄ (lizhi, "standing straight [at attention]"). The phonetic similarity to English "reach" is coincidental.
NWSiaCB said:
Ippatsu - Winning within one round of declaring Reach (whether taking a discard or drawing on the turn after declaring Reach). Also gives a bonus.
Within one uninterrupted round of declaring Riichi. If the round is interrupted (by another player claiming a discard), ippatsu becomes invalid.
NWSiaCB said:
Toitoi (toitoihou) - Winning with all three of a kinds (except for one pair). This means having, say, three separate 9s of bamboo, 4s of coins, etc. The exact numbers don't matter, so long as you have a triplet in every suit.
You just need four triplets and a pair. Suit doesn't matter. They can be bamboos, coins, numerals, dragons or winds.
NWSiaCB said:
Mangan - A hand limited to a base of 2000 points because it has too many bonuses. A rare, high-value hand in betting-money mahjong (the limit is to prevent some rare hands from utterly wiping other players out).
Under standard rules, if you have more than 2000 basic points but less than 6 han (the aforementioned 'multiplier'/exponent points), the hand gets counted as Mangan and is limited to 2000 points (payout = 12000 if you're the dealer, 8000 otherwise). This is, as you said, to limit points payout as otherwise the value of the hand grows exponentially with each added han. The rule still usually applies though in competitive or casual mahjong that are not played for money.
(It also makes calculation of points far easier, as otherwise you would have do calculations like 110 * 2^(2+5) repeatedly throughout the game.)
Mangan are not that uncommon though. It's easily achievable via Mentanpin (Riichi + tanyao + pinfu) + Dora tiles (which give additional han but don't count as yaku). Aiming for mentanpin is also pretty much the default strategy in Japanese mahjong when your hand isn't anything special (because it's flexible and allow you to transition to other hands or play pure defense as circumstances dictate).
NWSiaCB said:
Yakuman - Special hands with extremely particular requirements (like "13 Orphans" having one of the 1s and 9s from every suit plus one of each wind and dragon tile) that are worth maximum points (2000) just for having them because trying to get them is a massive risk.
Yakuman is 8000 basic points (pays 48000/32000 dealer/non-dealer), or 4 x Mangan. This is the normal points limit under most rules, but a lot of variants also allow for counting multiple yakuman (so, a hand that qualify for two different yakuman would effectively have 16000 basic points, and some yakuman hands are 'rare' enough that they already count as two yakuman by themselves.)
Since nobody else has mentioned it, it's also not possible to riichi, tsumo, and score toitoi, since that would be suuankou, a yakuman.
Tsumo!Riichi, ippatsu, toitoi, acorn, crab.Ron.I don't really get it but I think I got a Japari yakuman.I don't really get it but I think I got a Japari mangan.Ah- The crab is going to Kaban-chan's side...Amaziiiing!!
Seafood Paradise!!Umyaaaa!!
I looooost!!