Category: Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji

Holy flipping heck! I know I’ve been complaining about Kaiji for the past few episodes… but seriously… this episode was just plain crazy, and I mean that in a good way! If there was anything this series needed, it was betrayal, and this episode features lots of it. I love episodes like these, where everything comes together like that. So in the end, there was no Mr. X. I should have guessed this: the guy who flushed his cards down the toilet threw away three scissors. He probably ended up with a wrong hand and fell in despair. The matter is, though, that these cards weren’t counted off the scoreboard. Because of assuming this, Funai ended up being the final person with a card, along with Kaiji and the others. Because of that, he just had to throw away five of his nine stars just to survive. The thing is that because he’s a repeater, he needed to have four stars to survive. Because of this, he still has a debt of 4 million yen after this, because he was stupid enough to borrow the maximum limit and he can’t sell any of his stars. The second half of the episode is dedicated to another problem: because said three cards have been flushed, there is no way for Kaiji and the others to cancel out each other’s cards. Kaiji then sacrifices himself to the other room, where the final pieces of the puzzle come together. The old man indeed has been tricked by a repeater, and now he’s been abandoned while said repeater is celebrating happily in the winner’s room. Then there’s another character (Okabayashi) who gets introduced, and I really like this guy for his realistic view on life. Both the old man and Okabayashi have been working for their partners. Which makes me wonder, where did Okabayashi’s partner go? I recall that Furuhata and Andou were the only ones with more than two stars left. Which brings me to the next point: Andou is about to betray Kaiji! It is logical if you look at it one way. There’s a huge trust between Kaiji and Furuhata: they knew each other before going on the ship, Furuhata feels extremely guilty for what he did to Kaiji and Kaiji has been way too moralistic to doubt him. Andou is a different case, however. He was basically saved by Kaiji because he happened to have two stars. Kaiji made a temporarily impression on him, though apart from that, he doesn’t know anything about the guy. There are people who trust easily and there are people who are always afraid to make friends and always keep an emotional distance from people. Apparently, Andou belongs to the later part. Again on a side-note: if the screenshots don’t show up: let me know]]>

Now this is more what I’m talking about. The pacing of this episode was quite a bit faster than the previous episodes and the amount of times where this series kept repeating itself has greatly decreased. On the other hand, though, the creators have somehow managed to stretch turn 8 minutes into twenty of them, but it’s not like we couldn’t expect this. I also liked the arrival of Mr. X. I’ve got a faint idea of who he is: the guy who tricked the old man in the beginning, though why the heck he didn’t do anything with his three scissors is beyond me. Was he perhaps hoping for when only three other cards are left? It indeed seems like this arc will be over in two episodes. If I had to guess, then the first half of the next episode takes care of Funai, while there still is an episode and a half left for the mysterious Mr. X. And I really liked Funai in this episode. He really developed, and we got to see another side of his now that his plans have failed. I really wonder how Kaiji is going to come up with a sure-fire way to win. Surely he can’t rely just on the 50/50 chance, can’t he? Then there’s also the matter that he and his companions need to end with an even amount of cards. And I do wonder… if Kaiji wins he should have the right amount of stars left. How will Mr. X fit into this picture?]]>

Hmm, I’m feeling myself to more and more inclined to agree with Kacpy… Sure, Kaiji is intriguing and exciting. This episode again showed some pretty interesting plot-twists and clever plans. But I’m noticing more and more about how slow this series actually is. I remember watching the first arc of Akagi, which took up just three episodes, which was perfect in length to delve into the character’s minds and not drag on, though Kaiji may be going a bit too far in this. Episode five and six could have easily been combined into one episode, and it would have been quite an interesting roller-coaster ride to watch, though it perhaps would have been rushed a bit. One thing tat I can imagine that would have gone wrong is the transition from manga to anime. I haven’t read the manga myself, but I can imagine how the chapters don’t divide well into anime-episodes. Because of this, the creators of the anime end up repeating the same scenes about teamwork and the narrator’s reports over and over. It’s a common problem with manga-transition, unfortunately. I’ve also finally looked up the name of the director of this series, and indeed, he did the storyboard for Death Note and Claymore. This really shows. Both series had some amazing moments, but were plagued with a few weaknesses, and it seems that Kaiji will be going down the same path: it’s a great series, but the slow pacing prevents it from becoming a classic. It’s strange… usually I don’t mind slow pacing, for example El Cazador. Still, El Cazador made sure that there was enough interesting stuff going on. Kaiji keeps repeating itself, which… isn’t really that interesting. Anyway, regarding the episode, it seems that we’ve got two major antagonists left in the final fifteen minutes of the game: Funai and the guy who seduced the older man, in the beginning of the series. I knew that the latter was going to reappear at some point, because otherwise the creators wouldn’t have spent so much attention on the guy. If I had to guess, then this means that there are at least going to be two more episodes in this arc: one more to take care of Funai, and one (perhaps even two) to conclude the old man’s story. One thing that Kaiji could have done in this episode was to start playing with Funai. The guy actually offered him a star for a bunch of cards. If Kaiji could have gotten the guy to offer another star, then they would have made it out of the ship. If Kaiji indeed has five or six million yet left, al they needed to do next is use this money to buy up another star, and they’d have nine. One thing that also fell to my attention was how Funai reacted when his stars fell off his chest. Well, it’s only natural of course, but something tells me that the creators are going to use that scene later on.]]>

It’s strange… usually I can think of witty introductions for my posts, but for this one… I can’t. This episode was really good, and I love how Kaiji came out of it, but it’s hard to explain why. The best part was the part about the title of this episode, though: desperation. Kitami and his friends are probably the only ones on the floor left with more than three stars and the only ones where Kaiji knows something about their amount of cards, and Kaiji had to do everything to keep them interested in playing, especially when Furuhata and Andou kept clinging to their final star. That latter part is quite interesting, and quite in-line with human nature. Humans aren’t inclined to put their lives on the line, despite what other anime-series might make you believe. Even though they were destined to lose in long-term, and the best chance of winning comes from challenging Kitami, they refuse to let go of their safeties for as long as possible. Now about the next episode, the problem is that Kaiji still needs to win himself 3 more stars in order for all three of them to survive. For that, he plans to buy out all of the papers from Kitami as well, though the question now remains: how is that going to get him three more stars when everyone else has just scissors? The thing also is that now that the cards are running out, everyone’s getting more and more desperate, so the overall atmosphere is going to look grimmer and grimmer. Then there’s also that little matter that Kaiji and the others still have a huge amount of debt on their hands.]]>

Wow… just wow… I was already under the impression that the previous episode showed a worst-case scenario. And then this episode comes along…. seriously, Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei has some serious competition! Basically, Kaiji gets the idea to buy up all of the Rocks, because the papers were lowest of all. It then seems that others were attempting the same thing, though they realized first that they weren’t the only ones with that plan. Now they have bought up all of the papters, and Kaiji is in despair. Still, I wonder… that isn’t necessarily a as bad thing as this episode made it out to be. I mean, the other group has only paper… how the heck are they going to lose it, when nearly everyone else possesses scissors? Basically, Kaiji holds most of the rocks now, and they basically need his rocks to get rid of their paper and keep winning. Also, if Kaiji wasn’t so caught in despair, he would have noticed that the situation he ran in was actually quite favourable. All he needed to do was find people himself, instead of being picked out. In that case, his chances of winning increased dramatically. That again brings me to the question of why these people bought up all of the papers. It just doesn’t make any sense. But then again, I think that that’s the true meaning behind the thing that the organizer of the tournament said: it’s all just one big illusion. Kaiji and his group and the other group of people will basically ruin themselves by trying to beat the system. One explanation of their action I have is that they also felt despair when they found out that they weren’t the only one who planned to buy up all the rocks, and went with something that they didn’t think that much through. Otherwise, why else would he show himself to Kaiji if it wasn’t out of jealousy? By the way, could it be that the same animation-team as Death Note is behind this series? This episode clearly gave me Death-Note vibes.]]>

As if the end of the previous episode didn’t look hopeless enough, Kaiji, Furuhata and Andou get into even more trouble when the latter runs off on his own and throws away the last paper-card and one of the precious stars. It was interesting how the guy tried to talk himself out of things by using a fake story about wanting to bring back the total amount of stars to five, when it was clear that he was going to abandon the team if he won three stars. It’s been a while since an anime featured an in-depth look into betrayal (probably the first season of Higurashi was the last one), which is why I like this series so much: it really delves deep into human nature. You can also really see that in the match that this episode focuses on, when Kaiji manages to gather two stars with only four paper-cards. The opponent was someone who has been praying on the weak. It’s a nice, but very fragile strategy: he’s screwed when he runs into an opponent that knows what he’s doing. Because he only goes after down-hearted people, he doesn’t expect much of a strategy. Because of this, he only has a counter for the most basic strategies, and doesn’t think about the whole picture, which is why he lost. Still, something tells me that the real fun hasn’t even begun. At the moment, Kaiji has five stars, and he still needs to buy four more of them if he wants the entire group to survive. After all the matches are played, the people with more than three stars will turn into ruthless hyenas, and try to make as much money as possible. Even with 14 million yen, it’s going to be hard, and how on earth is Kaiji going to pay off such a debt if he actually does manage to pull it off?]]>

For me, Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji has turned out into the best series of the season so far. There are other good series this season, but they all have their weakness: Mokke could have had better writing, the characters in Blue Drop are a tad too adolescent, Shugo Chara is too cheesy at times and Labyrinth has a few too many maids and strangely clothed females for its setting. Kaiji, however, is perfect so far, and it’s looking really interesting. I’m seriously going to check out Akagi as soon as the series is over. I may have said it before, but I really like anime where the main characters aren’t the only ones who are special, and this is really emphasized here in this series: every single person in the game is in a worst situation possible. Everyone is a loser who somehow ended up with debt. This really is a survival of the fittest. And the thing I love about Kaiji is how he learns of his mistakes. There are indeed a few people who look at the game in a smart way, and try to trick others into believing them, and Kaiji is one of these victims. The plan is quite simple: – Find someone who is stupid enough to be tricked, and Kaiji fitted that role perfectly. After all, after everyone requested one million, and he was the first one to request the maximum of ten million, Kaiji was the first one to follow him. That shows that he quickly goes along with others, and that incidentally fits Kaiji’s personality perfectly. It also helps if you make this guy think that he’s smart. – Then you just need to explain how the plan works: just keep cancelling each other out, and nobody loses any of the stars you need to win. – Go along with the plan for nine rounds, until both parties have just three cards left out of the original twelve. Then claim your victory when the victim thinks that everything is going according to plan by placing down the paper-card instead of the rock-one. Repeat this, and you’ve got five stars, while the other has just one. The beautiful thing is that if Kaiji used his brains, he wouldn’t have fallen for it, and it really seems like he’s got a plan to get out of everything: working actually together. The nasty thing about the rock-paper-scissors game is that it’s easy to win, but it’s just as easy to lose, and because of this, people will underestimate the potential of it. Because of this, the yakuza ends up with quite a few stupid slaves who won’t be smart enough to betray them. I really wonder how he’s going to pull it off, though. Basically, he has three people, one with relatively many stars, one with relatively many cards, and one with relatively much money. Together, there are four stars, five cards and 14 million yen. How the heck is he going to get to nine stars, 0 cards and 19,6 million yen?]]>