The Legend of Koizumi

That's right. Mahjong is man's attempt at recreating the Genesis.
—Pietro
Ragnarok... The Mahjong of the Gods!
—Koizumi

The Legend of Koizumi or Mudazumo Naki Kaikaku (Reform With No Wasted Draws), a manga by Hideki Oowada, is the story about how top country leaders battle it out with Mahjong to decide THE FATE OF ENTIRE NATIONS. Got an anime adaptation which premiered in February 2010.

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Tropes used in The Legend of Koizumi include:
  • Adaptation Dye Job: The Bushes are given blond hair in the anime, for whatever reason.
    • How else would we know they were American?
  • And Now for Someone Completely Different: Chapter 49 begins with a new protagonist: Understandable as most of the old guard died during the Twilight of the Gods arc.
  • Art Shift: Most of the major characters get at least one. Tymoshenko gets two within the space of three pages.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking: Apparently being a current or former Head of State means you're awesome at mahjong.
    • Head of State is probably elected based on their mahjong power.
    • The Pope is elected solely based on who wins the mahjong conclave.
  • Badass Automaton: Koizumi's partner for the final battle on the moon is ASIMO the robot. MADE IN JAPAN FTW.
  • Badass Grandpa: Junichiro Koizumi's grandfather, Japanese politician and cabinet minister Matajirō Koizumi, apparently taught his grandson how to play mahjong. Truth in Television: The real-life Matajirō Koizumi was known as the "tattoo minister" for the elaborate red dragon tattoo on his back -- a tattooing style more associated nowadays with Yakuza -- and the series plays up this fact.
    • He's only been shown in a short cameo, but based on his lineage (not to mention his epic beard), Grandpapa Bush likely qualifies.
  • Badass Longcoat: Bush Jr. used to wear one in his college years, and decides to put it back on during the battle against the Nazis. Also, after his death, Papa Bush's headstone gets its own badass longcoat.
  • Bait and Switch Boss: Rudolf Hess and Hermann Goring appear to be the foes that the Pope was going to face but Hitler decides to step in himself frying the two.
  • Battle Aura: EVERYBODY gets a battle aura when they play a special hand. Papa Bush is able to do one that causes his shirt to spontaneously disintegrate.
  • Berserk Button: Do NOT diss the Pope in front of Hitler. You will regret it. Speidel found this out the hard way.
  • Big Bad: Adolf Hitler. Yup, he's been alive all these years. And he has the ability to go Super Aryan.
    • Incidentally, the name he goes under while escaping from Germany is the surname he would have had if his grandfather hadn't acknowledged his illegitimate son: Schicklgruber.
  • Big Good: The Pope.
    • Though he clearly has no problem playing mahjong as cut-throat as the rest of the characters.
  • Bishounen: Pietro, complete with Bishie Sparkle
    • It is very disturbing that Hitler gets a little Bishie Sparkle of his own, when we first see him at the end of manga volume 3. This turns out to be some sort of glamor that Hitler's magic gives him. Yes, Hitler is magical.
  • Brain In a Jar: Josef Mengele hopes to cheat death with one. Yulia puts an end to that.
  • Brown Note: It's noted by Nazi scientists that just looking at a person with a significantly higher mahjong power level can cause serious negative effects to your health.
  • Butt Monkey: Taizo. George Jr. qualifies as well.
    • George Jr. is leaving this territory rapidly, as he seems to be taking around eighty-two levels in badass.
      • According to Colin Powell, George Jr. is the real Papa Bush, and the scoreboard even labeled him "Real Papa Bush".
    • Yukio Hatoyama, Japanese prime minister September 2008-June 2009, gets picked on consistently in both the manga's omake scenes and the OVA.
      • And then he ends up being killed by Kim Jong-il of all people. After being possessed by a squid.
    • Nicolas Sarkozy's two appearances are made of this.
  • Calling Your Attacks: Everyone adds specialized names to their mahjong hands like "PATRIOT TSUMO" or "PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC RIICHI".
  • Card Sharp: Everyone of any importance.
  • Charm Person: Hitler.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Hitler as SUPER ARYAN sure seems to be off
  • Cold Sniper: Former Japanese prime minister Taro Aso, shown to be a crack shot with a high-powered rifle. Again, a hint of Truth in Television, since the real-life Taro Aso was on Japan's shooting team during the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.
  • Collapsing Lair: After Hitler dies, the entire Nazi moon base collapses since it was only being kept up by his sheer power.
  • Combat by Champion: The Fourth Reich asks for five of them to decide the fate of the Earth. They are:
    • Junichiro Koizumi
    • Papa Bush (partnered with his son)
    • Vladimir Putin (partnered with Dmitri Medvedev)
    • Yulia Tymoshenko (partnered with Eleonora Pavlichenko)
    • The Pope (partnered with Pietro)
  • Combat Clairvoyance: Hitler is able to predict the outcome of his matches against Pope Benedict and declare victory as soon as the dice is rolled.
  • Combat Pragmatist: A fair few antagonists have crafty tricks up their sleeves, like signaling snipers if they use the advantage, or tiles that extend neurotoxin-tipped needles.
  • Deranged Animation: The manga's artwork is crazy enough, but the anime takes it Up to Eleven.
  • Died Standing Up: George H.W. 'Papa' Bush
  • Dies Wide Open: Koizumi
  • Disappeared Dad: Captain Sanada's father died before he was born, or so he thinks.
  • Doing It for the Art: The manga alone is chock-full of real-life details about the politicians, such as Taro Aso's Roman Catholic faith, that are used to build the characters and story development -- more so than you'd ever expect from a Widget Series.
  • Eagle Land: The story kind of goes back and forth on this. At first the Bush family (and thus America) is portrayed as Type 2 straight up, almost to ridiculous degrees. Both Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. get more sympathetic as time goes on, however, to the point that Chapter 19 is absolute, pure Type 1 (straight down to a baseball metaphor, no less), a massive Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, and quite possibly the only unauthorized yet tasteful use of Robin Bush in history.
  • Eiffel Tower Effect: How do you know that George W Bush is in America (as if you didn't already know)? You can see the Statue of Liberty from his bedroom window. His bedroom... in the White House. In Washington DC. 200 miles from Liberty Island.
  • Eye Scream: When he realizes his ability to predict hands is being used against him, Tristan gouges out his own eyes.
    • And lying someplace between that and Fan Service, panty shots. Nazi panty shots.
    • Is this Mariel flashing her panties or it was Hitler and his goonies?
  • A Fate Worse Than Death: After he is defeated, Hitler's soul is banished from his body and he is forced to play mahjong against the Big Three again, possibly for all eternity.
  • Fingore: A tile modified by Mengele extends needles and pierces Tymoshenko through her index and middle fingers and thumb.
  • Finishing Move: RISING SUN!!!
    • Everyone has one of these. Everything from "SIBERIAN EXPRESS!" to "THE BEGINNING OF THE COSMOS!"
  • Five-Man Band
  • Fling a Light Into the Future: Even though Pope Benedict is defeated and killed by Hitler, he leaves behind a clue that proves critical in figuring out his weakness.
  • Gonk: Kim Jong-il. Hatoyama also counts.
  • Go Out with a Smile: Koizumi, and also Papa Bush.
  • Green Thumb: Mao Zedong, of all people. He causes Pol Pot to explode into grass by looking at him.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: there are many.
    • Medvedev sacrifices himself to give Putin the tiles he needs to win. Putin himself declares that no country knows the meaning of Heroic Sacrifice better than Russia.
    • Bush Sr. sacrifices himself to protect Bush Jr., rather than win the game by letting him die.
    • The three blind seers channel the spirits of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin in order to train Koizumi to defeat Hitler. However, channeling such powerful spirits drains all of their life energy, killing them in the process.
  • Hope Spot: His Holiness defeated Hitler! And then suddenly SUPER ARYAN appears and kills the Pope in one round. Ouch.
  • Hot-Blooded: Everybody. Except Putin.
    • Even he has his moments.
  • In the Blood: Played straight with the Bushes and with Koizumi and his grandfather. Averted when Koizumi's son Kotaro can't play well enough to be an effective substitute for his supposedly deceased father in the first battle against Putin -- Kotaro, like his real-life counterpart, is an actor and not a politician.
    • Played straight with Captain Sanada, who turns out to be a long lost son of Koizumi and is a fast learner at Mahjong.
  • Incendiary Exponent: Four words: depleted uranium mahjong tiles.
    • Three words: PLUTONIUM mahjong tiles.
  • Incredibly Lame Pun: 'Man shall not live by pon alone!!!'[1]
  • Killed Off for Real: So far the Ragnarok battles have killed Dmitri Medvedev, Joseph Mengele, Papa Bush, Colin Powell, Otto Skorzeny and now Pope Benedict XVI.
    • Narrowly averted with George W. Bush, who was saved only by the Power Makeover provided by his Skull and Bones uniform jacket.
    • And now Erwin Rommel has died after losing his game against Hitler. Speidel also got himself killed for insulting Pope Benedict. It's also implied that Goring and Hess were killed when Hitler blasted them with lightning.
    • And after the final battle Hitler is killed by Koizumi's Rising Sun, but Koizumi himself eventually succumbs to the wounds he took during the match.
  • Les Yay: Tymoshenko and Eleonora come across as... quite a bit more than just friends. They've occasionally been described as a "D/s couple", but that isn't quite accurate since Tymoshenko would never willingly hurt Eleonora... or let anyone else hurt her, either.[2]
  • Life Energy: During the Ragnarok battles, the players' life energy is directly connected to their mahjong score (which starts at 25,000, just as in real mahjong). When someone loses a round, his or her life energy drains away by the corresponding lost points. Once a player's score hits zero, he or she is dead -- and if the dead player's score went negative, his or her partner's life energy is drained to make up the remainder.
  • Life Meter: The mahjong scoreboard during the Ragnarok battles displays the remaining life of all four players at the table.
  • Light Is Not Good: Super Aryan. Full stop.
  • Manly Tears: Koizumi can be seen shedding these for Papa Bush after his death.
    • Hitler also sheds some, along with Erwin Rommel, as the latter is about to die when he chose to face him in a mahjong duel.
  • Moe Moe: Yulia Tymoshenko usually looks and rather acts like this; scarily enough this portrayal is not that far off the mark, which makes it even funnier. She uses this to more or less hide her Dark Action Girl side, which also is not that far off the mark from real life, minus the mahjong craziness. If she doesn't do it for you, though, her assistant Eleonora (who is one of the few manga-original major characters) pretty much exists to fill this trope, complete with glasses.
  • Moscow Centre: The bonus chapter of the fourth manga volume features a younger Vladimir Putin, in his KGB days, visiting East Berlin in 1989....
  • Multinational Team: In this case, Earth's defense force against Those Wacky Nazis represents Japan, Russia, Ukraine, the United States, and the Vatican. (The United Kingdom would've been on this list instead of Ukraine, but Baroness Thatcher's ill health prevented it.)
  • My Greatest Failure: When he was younger, the Pope snuck Hitler out of the country. He didn't realize what he was doing at the time, but it has haunted him ever since.
  • My Mahjong Is Stronger Than Yours: Koizumi needs to train to ensure that he's strong enough to defeat Hitler and save the world. So who does he train against to acquire truly legendary mahjong powers and defeat Those Wacky Nazis? Blind female shamans possessed by the ghosts of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, of course.
  • Names to Know in Anime: Arguably the entire cast.
  • No Export for You: It will be a frigid day in Hell before any publisher outside of Japan even thinks of trying to license this thing. Can you even imagine the shitstorm that would result?
  • Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: Invoked by Colin Powell during the match between Bush Jr. and Skorzeny, telling Skorzeny that he'll be shot by several snipers if he's caught cheating, but otherwise he can get away with it. Skorzeny gets caught.
    • A good deal of characters engage in various cheating techniques, from quickly drawing four tiles and replacing three to make it seem like one was drawn to rubbing the faces off of tiles.
  • Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Averted several times, most notably with the depleted uranium tiles and Yulia and Eleonora's final attack on Mengele.
    • I suppose it's okay to make Chernobyl jokes if you're Ukrainian.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Benedict XVI claimed this to be the case with George Jr. (aka "Real/True" Papa Bush) and that only George H. W. saw through it... on the other hand, everything before that reveal suggests otherwise, or at least that George Jr. never saw through his dad's own act, and regards his father as "Papa" still.
  • Oh Crap: Hitler has a series of these during his final match against Koizumi. First, when Koizumi pulls off a winning move. The second time is when Hitler realizes said winning move ejects his soul from his body. The third and last time is when he is confronted by the spirits of the Big Three, the only other mahjong players capable of beating him.
  • Older and Wiser: former prime minister Taro Aso following the reboot in chapter 49.
  • Ominous Latin Chanting: Hilariously enough, a boy's choir sings in Latin while the Pope plays against Koizumi.
  • One Last Smoke: Skorzeny, just before his Facing the Bullets One-Liner
  • One-Way Trip: With Area 51 and Baikonur destroyed, which both contain the only spacecraft capable of traveling to the Moon, Koizumi instead opts to take one of Japan's rockets there. However, it only has enough life support capacity to get him to the Moon, making a return trip impossible.
  • One-Winged Angel: SUPER ARYAN!
  • Only Sane Man: Taizo, while being the Butt Monkey, definitely qualifies. "A UFO??!! Are you kidding me?!
  • Opposite Gender Clone: Mariel for Mengele.
  • Original Generation: The manga originally used only public figures, major or minor, as major characters (Taizo Sugimura is an actual Diet member in Japan, even today; "Yukari" isn't actually given a last name but is generally understood to be a generous portrayal of Yukari Sato, another minor Diet member). As the series went on, however, some of the world leaders didn't really have "seconds" most people would recognize (especially in the series' country of origin), so a few were invented expressly for the manga: Pietro for Pope Benedict, Eleonora Pavlichenko for Yulia Tymoshenko, and Mariel for Josef Mengele and later the Nazi side in general. The Nazi side also picks up Tristan and Isolde later on, who are named for the characters in the legend (specifically Wagner's opera version) but are otherwise wholly original; they serve as Hitler's seconds.
  • Patriotic Fervor: to rival surpass Metal Wolf Chaos!
  • Power Limiter: You thought that the pope was strong before? Wait 'til you see him without his "Shackles of Golgotha"!
    • This is used in conventional mahjong rules so you don't get retarded scores off of one good hand. Guess what Putin proposes during his match with Koizumi? Over 900,000 doesn't even begin to describe it.
  • Psychic Nosebleed: Looking into one whose Mahjong Power is far greater than you can cause this.
  • Puppeteer Parasite: OVA only: Yukio Hatoyama and his wife are not-so-secretly being controlled by aliens. This unfortunately leads to an unpleasant moment shortly after Hatoyama is shot.... Yet another slight exaggeration of the truth, if the Other Wiki is to be believed.
  • Refuge in Audacity: The series is so over the top, it's hard to feel offended.
    • Hell, even if you disagree with many of these people in real life, it's hard not to cheer our heroes on. Especially during Bush's baseball flashback.
      • Double hell, most of the time, you'd have to cry foul when using a real-life Dead Little Sister like Robin Bush, but it's done so tastefully here that it feels more like a tribute than anything else.
  • Rule of Cool
  • Save the Villain: How can you tell that the Pope is the Big Good? He's trying to save HITLER. Even Hitler himself is shocked.
  • Serial Escalation: How high stakes can the games of mahjong get? How utterly ridiculous can the situation get?
    • In the words of Koizumi himself:

Taizo. All of mankind's greatest endeavors and achievements started off as impossible from the ground. If you don't do the impossible, you're less likely to succeed!

  • Serious Business: Mahjong is used for everything from negotiation to deciding the next pope to saving the world from NAZIS IN SPACE!
  • Sequel Hook: Even though the Nazis are defeated in the end, some of manage to escape into deep space.
  • Special Guest: Kobayashi Ritz appears in the second bonus chapter
  • Shout-Out:
    • It can hardly be coincidental that Putin's SIBERIAN EXPRESS ends with three nines. It's an actual yakuman hand called Nine Gates (or, if you like, Nine Lanterns)[3], but the train motif makes you wonder...
    • Mengele also mentions the Ark of the Covenant before he dies.
    • Now rushing to A zone!
    • Two words : SUPER ARYAN!!!
      • On the DBZ note, Mariel's power scanner looks suspiciously familiar...
        • To push the Shout-Out home, one of the Nazis even asked if it was broken, and it also went OVER 9000.
    • On the more literary side, Hitler's two 'monderkind', Tristan and Isolde, named for the famous Wagner opera Tristan and Isolde.
    • You cannot grasp the true form of Hitler's attack!
    • George Bush Jr.'s premonition scene from the OVA is almost a straight transcription of a similar scene from AKIRA. "Many, many people die, then we get to meet Akira/Mao again. . ."
    • The author is a huge Gundam fan who previously worked on Gundam parodies, so there's no surprise for some Gundam ShoutOuts.
      • Margaret Thatcher predicted the outcome of the match between Koizumi (dressed in all white) vs. Putin (in black suits) with a Lalah Sune quote: "The white one will win."
      • Skorzeny debuted with a Char quote: "As you can see, I'm a soldier."
    • "Honey Bunny" and "Pumpkin" make an appearance in a car outside Area 51.
    • The pirate king in chapter 49 is wearing a very recognizable straw hat.
  • Strawman Political: Yukio Hatoyama, the insane puppet of Chinese interests. It's a safe bet that Oowada votes LDP.
    • Even more obvious in the manga, where he appears to be the new Big Bad in his first appearance, and he's still controlled by aliens.
  • Sympathy for the Devil: Even though he rebelled against Hitler, after Rommel is killed, Hitler and his followers can clearly be seen crying over his death.
  • Thanatos Gambit: Pope Benedict XVI
  • The Chew Toy: Taizo wavers between this and Butt Monkeydom.
  • The Final Temptation: Hitler tries to pull this on the Pope, only to get blasted by SAINTE TRINITE!!! and an incredibly lame pon.
    • And then the Pope turns around and does some sort of reverse-temptation to him. Wait, huh?
  • Those Wacky Nazis: They have a secret base on the moon, and travel to Earth in classic UFOs.
    • Stupid Jetpack Hitler: Somehow, the top Nazi leadership escaped to the Moon (beating America there, natch) and returns as the Fourth Reich. And Hitler himself is still alive. (Maybe.)
    • They also have Mengele and WAGNER of all people on their side. These are about the wackiest Nazis that you'll find anywhere.
    • To sum it up, the Nazis have perfected human cloning, DNA-based resurrection, functional immortality, orbital bombardment, short-range space travel and antigravity. No occult-based powers... YET. (At least, not until Hitler's ability to read the future comes into play...)
  • Token Evil Teammate: Yulia. Putin calls her "a gas witch" FOR A REASON.

Skorzeny: Even though you made a promise, you didn't hesitate for a moment...you've certainly surpassed Mengele in villainy.

  1. ↑ 'Pan' is the Japanese word for bread
  2. ↑ There certainly is no question as to who "wears the pants", however, which is especially hilarious as Eleonora's Mildly Military outfit does include pants.
  3. ↑ 2-8, three 1s, three 9s, and any other tile, all from the same suit
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