Mahjong Soul 17+

This was my first Mahjong experience, and it has been awesome. I went from knowing absolutely nothing about the rules and gameplay and feeling totally lost, to now holding my own and feeling like I have a real chance to win with each game; and I do win surprisingly more than I thought at this point. It took playing a lot and studying the various Yaku but this app makes it all fun.
The visuals and flow of the game are top notch. And the cute anime angle is, well, cute. Every now and you run into some wildly different character than the standard two, with cute voices and some cool effects for various game plays, and I think someone must have forked over some real cash, because I’ve played almost daily for months now, and have over 50,000 coins, but zero jade, which are apparently the real currency on the app to get real upgrades. Coins can buy a tiny teddy bear or a lollipop or a little manga book for your character, which it says helps her bond with you, but whatever, I don’t see the point, since those items aren’t visible during game play. Maybe these things are meaningful to someone. I often wish you could cash in some coins for jade, say 1000 coins for one jade, I don’t know, and put that toward gatcha, but in the end none of that matters or helps, the game play is the same and is really great.

This is a really good japanese mahjong game, with helpful tutorials and explanations of the yaku it’s fairly easy for beginners to learn how to play. My only gripe is that the gacha system of micro transactions and rolls to get items and characters is extremely restrictive. It doesn’t affect gameplay whatsoever, but it’s virtually impossible to unlock any characters without either paying real money or playing countless hours. I still enjoy this game a lot, but I think their monetization model could use a little tweaking to make some basic cosmetics available to F2P players.
The introduction of alternate game modes, collaboration and seasonal events adds a fresh layer to Mahjong Soul vs other mahjong games. If you want to get into Riichi mahjong, this is a fantastic way to do it.

Lacks some necessary tutorials. Like what is Furiken and No Yaku? I have figured out that no Yaku means I threw away a tile that could have been a win, but then I draw that same tile and I have no win pop up. So that's confusing. Then I find myself in No Yaku a lot!! I have no idea what that means or how to fix it so I can win.
I was checking stuff out in the store and there is a 30 day thing for $4.99 but no explanation for what it does.
My other complaint is why doesn't the game ask my gender so I can choose to receive a guy character? Do I really need to have a half naked girl up in my face when I'm female and don't swing that way? I mean I'm not saying that other girls wouldn't like it but I would rather look at a guy. However there is only 2 options for the free character and both are girls.
With all that said, I must say that I do love this game. I get to play ranked matches anytime I want and the wait is minimal. So I will keep playing even if I don't understand exactly how some things work.