First review on MAL, apologies for the quality or lack thereof. I heard of Saki through a friend I've met on here, and decided to check out the series. I know absolutely nothing about the game of mahjong, but that didn't detract me from giving this series a shot. I watched all components of the series in release order and while some were quite good, others faltered in certain areas. Story: 7 Saki Zenkoku-hen focuses on the main cast's ascension towards the highly coveted high school national mahjong championship. The premise is solid. A high school club team's wish to succeed in a popular game. If you've watched the mainseason of Saki (which you definitely should before touching this), then you'd be well versed in the main cast's characters. While I really enjoyed the main season, however, this season took the focus away from our beloved main cast and spread the attention around to all the competing high schools on this side of the bracket pretty much evenly, leaving the Kiyosumi high school team little to no room for any sort of growth.
While I did find enjoyment in watching the intensity of some of the mahjong rounds, the series detracted from what made the first season so fun for me, and that was the in-between shenanigans the team were up to (including the loud-mouthed but adorable Yuuki the taco loving girl). Overall, I thought some of the other teams had relatively interesting characters as well but I sure would've liked more attention on the main girls than was given here. Towards the very end we get some more of that nostalgia from the first season back but it's pretty short lived.

Art: 8
The art features nice vivid colors and pretty realistic environments and backgrounds. The arenas they compete in are well lit and believable. The characters are portrayed very cute of course and everything is pretty run of the mill CGDCT/ moe style with an emphasis on certain aspects more than others. Some of the hair styles are wacky and always fun in this series, so I enjoyed seeing more of those. I will say I sort of preferred the art style of the first season when it came to the main girls, especially the eyes. Switching studios from Gonzo to Gokumi might have affected that. The emphasis on so-called supernatural powers used in the mahjong games by some of these girls is still ridiculous but nevertheless enjoyable and features pretty decent animation.

Sound: 7
The sound effects for the battle-type moments in the series were good in the previous iteration, but fell a bit short here. The soundtrack was also not as memorable to me. You do get a moment of the previous season's OP at one point used for an ED, which was the highlight of the good vibes from the series for me. As a whole, the series doesn't feature the greatest tracks ever made in an anime, but they do well enough to capture the essence of the show. The intro/outro videos are usually pretty fun though, especially the EDs, featuring chibi versions of some of the characters doing random goofy things. Voice acting in the series is very solid as well.

Characters: 6
The main characters were the shining beacon of the first season. It felt further emphasized after watching the side story of Achiga high school, where the cast was simply not compelling enough to the point it was harder to care about their success. Sadly, the main cast of Saki does not get much screen time in this season no more than any of the other supporting cast save for a few moments, giving them not much of any room for character growth. While some of the other schools' teams were alright, I didn't feel like any of them really stole the show, with the possible exception of the eccentric shrine priestess school cast.

Enjoyment: 7
With all things above considered, it is fair to say that I did find a decent amount of enjoyment from binging this season a bit more than Achiga-hen and possibly around the same amount as the middle of the first season. The focus here was definitely more on the mahjong and giving a bit of screen time to each school to flesh them out a bit, but due to the lack of focus on the main cast, detracted from the essence of what made the first season much more memorable to me. I mean, the show is named Saki after all, yet she barely gets screen time here and what I'm sure many people wanted to know is more backstory about her. You won't find much, just a smidge here.

Overall: 7
I covered most of the wrapping up of this review in the Enjoyment section, but I'll just say in closing that if you enjoyed the main Saki series for the mahjong, you'll at least get more of that here, but the soul of the series lies in the first season. The side story of Achiga school is probably worth checking out beforehand to see what you're missing out on when away from the main Saki cast, because you won't get too much of them here either. However, when all is said and done, this season gets us closer to the final goal. Now let's hope that even though 7 years have passed, maybe there's still a semblance of hope that we'll get another season, but don't hold your breath.