Kaiji S02E01 Review: Beer and Chips

Kaiji: Against All Rules, Episode 1: Hell on Earth

Welcome to my coverage of the second season of Kaiji! I did enjoy the first season quite a fair bit, but for one reason or the other I didn't really get the chance to watch the second season until recently. And it's still as beautifully animated as always, with the ever-excited narrator describing things in typical boisterous manner.  

Episode one of the second season is basically just setup, though. And in a sense, poor Kaiji ends up losing all of the determination and character development he had in the first season, which I thought was an odd decision. After that recap of the first season, we kind of get a soft reboot. Kaiji's back to being a sloth and a bum, and apparently he even got his fingers and ears reattached by a random black market doctor off-screen? That's honestly kind of silly and sort of negates the actual sobering loss he had for his overconfidence in the first season. And when he meets up with Endou again and just goes "ahahaha I just need another chance" it's really kind of bizarre to see him back again.

But Endou just kidnaps Kaiji and forces him to work in an underground labour camp, upon which the whole concept of this second season -- or at least the first arc, anyway -- is revealed. The labour camp has its own currency, and Kaiji's goal is initially to save up for a pass to get out for just one day... and then gamble his money to pay off the 9 million yen debt he has. But during the paydays, Kaiji ends up getting tempted by all the fancy beer, yakitori and potato chips that are available for sale, and, of course, the seemingly-kindly foreman, Otsuki, turns out to be wanting to use Kaiji. It's a bit of a long-winded setup that leads to the final shot -- a dice game -- but it's still done pretty well, really selling the desperation Kaiji needs while he's trapped in the underground slave-work facility. It's a bit slow-paced, but Kaiji is always about the atmosphere more than anything else. 

Not much to say about this first episode, honestly, but if there's one thing that's clear, this episode makes drinking a can of cold beer pretty goddamn appetizing.