akagi shigeru

Akagi Shigeru (赤木しげる) is the titular main character of Fukumoto Nobuyuki's Mahjong manga and anime Akagi: Yami ni Oritatta Tensai, and an older Akagi is a major character in another one of Fukumoto's works, Ten (manga).

Also known as "The Genius Who Descended Into The Darkness", Akagi is a fearless person and an expert at playing mind games. In the beginning of his own series he is a 13-year old boy in 1958 who has participated in a game of "Chicken" (in which two opponents drive full throttle at the edge of a cliff, and whoever brakes first loses) and barely avoided death. To make the police lose his tracks, he barges into a Mahjong place run by the Yakuza, where a man called Nangou is having a do-or-die gamble. In exchange for an alibi, he accepts to help Nangou out and despite having next to no knowledge of Mahjong manages to clear out Nangou's debts and save his life thanks to his intuition and cunningness. He then vanishes for 6 years, but makes a triumphant return afterwards. This marks the beginning of his rise to legend status in the Mahjong underworld.