This question seems to be popping up a lot recently, especially with the upcoming Washizu Mahjong Tournament in Holland, so if you want to get yourself a transparent tile set, read this!

First of all, there are several different versions of transparent sets out there. There is the official Akagi set which is the one I have here, and there are cheaper ones that you can find both in Japan and in Europe.

To start with, the official set has tiles that are identical to normal riichi mahjong sets, meaning that the white dragon, haku, is completely blank, there are no green pinzu (circles) and so on. This set is only available in Japan, and it costs around 12,000 JPY. I found mine on Rakuten here. You can also get yours from the Japanese Yahoo Auctions site here　or on Japanese Amazon here. Rakuten sometimes also offers the gloves and the extra case promotion, which I was lucky to get, and it seems to do so again at this time. Although the gloves aren’t that convenient, the case is great for carrying any type of set around. They are out of sets every now and then and they seem to have them in stock now so don’t miss your chance.

The problem is that these sites don’t support English that well, or don’t support it at all. Rakuten does have English support, and I found the set in English here. The ordering section is also translated, so you can order it if you don’t know Japanese. However, I couldn’t find one with the gloves and the extra set under the English search option. I had help from my teacher last year when I ordered the set, so I don’t remember the Japanese ordering section which means I won’t be able to help there.

The other problem with ordering from these sites is that as far as I know they won’t ship abroad (I am not positive about Yahoo and Amazon). That means you have to send your set to someone else in Japan and they will send it to you. Fortunately, there is a site that just does that here. It’s called Tenso, and after you register your name and address, they give you a special number and a “Tenso address”. You simply put this address down when ordering from Rakuten or Yahoo Auctions or any other site in Japan, and the item pops up in your profile page at Tenso when it arrives there. They price it according to its weight and size, and when you send them the money they send the item to your address outside Japan. And their site is in English.

The shipping from Tenso cost me about 7,000 JPY, so in total I had to spend close to 20,000 JPY. The shipping from Rakuten to Tenso was free (Thank god). That equates to about 150€ – 220$. Its the most expensive way to get a transparent tile set, and it all sounds a little complicated, but its worth the effort in my opinion.

If you think that the official set is too expensive, you can get sets for cheaper. There used to be sets out there last year that were as cheap as 2,000 – 3000 JPY, but I can’t seem to find any at the moment. I recently found this Canadian website, which seems to be a strong alternative. Its cheap and you can choose the proportion of the transparent tiles to the opaque ones! Another option is the Mahjong Mart set here. Lastly, you can search yourself on the net using “鷲頭麻雀牌” these search words and see what comes up. Be careful though, there are mini sets and sets with 100% transparent tiles out there – which I don’t think anyone would really want.

I hope that was helpful and that you easily get your own Washizu Mahjong set!