4-episode series debuts in December, film opens in January

This year's 19th issue of Square Enix's Young Gangan magazine revealed on Friday that Ritz Kobayashi's Saki manga will get a second live-action project. The project will include a live-action television series and a live-action film adapting the Saki Achiga-hen episode of side-A spinoff manga. The live-action series will have four episodes and premiere in a late-night time slot in December. The live-action film will open in Japan in January.

The magazine teased an "important announcement" for the manga on Tuesday, and Kobayashi is resuming the main manga in the issue after a two-month hiatus.

The Saki Achiga-hen episode of side-A manga focuses on a different cast of characters at Achiga Girls' Academy in Nara prefecture. The series ran in Square Enix's Monthly Shōnen Gangan magazine from 2011 to 2013, with six compiled book volumes. It also inspired a television anime adaptation in 2012.

Yen Press is publishing the original Saki manga in North America digitally, and it released the 11th volume on August 29. Yen Press describes the series:

Saki's never been a big fan of mahjong. A lifetime of being forced to play with family at holidays (and losing her money as a consequence...) has left a foul taste for the game in her mouth. When she's convinced, though, to play a game with her classmates, she discovers that not only has fending off her family left her with an uncanny ability for the game but, more surprisingly, that it can even be fun!

Is this revelation enough to cleanse Saki's distaste for the game? Can her classmates convince her to join their club, or is there just too much baggage to make it worth her while?

If you're looking for the number one mahjong manga out there, you've found it!

Kobayashi launched the manga in the magazine in 2006, and Square Enix published the 16th compiled volume on December 24. The manga has since inspired five spinoff manga series.

The original manga inspired a 25-episode television series in 2009, and a new television anime project titled Saki - The Nationals launched in 2014. The Saki Achiga-hen episode of side-A spinoff manga also received a television anime in 2012. The four-panel spinoff manga Saki Biyori inspired an anime DVD in 2015. A live-action television adaptation of the manga debuted last December, followed by a live-action film in February.

Source: Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web via Otakomu