Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 3: Piece of Luck
Kind of the sort of episode you expect from the beginning of a game in a Kaiji story, really. We get Kaiji starting to get in the grove of things, "infusing the dice with excitement" and shit like that. But then the stakes get higher as Foreman Otsukiand his minion (Iwasa?) suddenly bet 40K of their currency, which would totally bankrupt Kaiji if he loses, and, in regular Kaiji fashion, would put the man in debt hell, with him losing half of his salary if he loses this.
Kaiji quickly figures out that everyone in the group other than the fellow newcomer and dude-drawn-with-a-nice-face Miyoshi are all against him, and as all the zawa-zawa builds up, Kaiji decides to throw in big, getting a huge clean sweep during his first round that he plays as dealer, getting back from the brink. During the second round, Otsuki and Isawa bet the maximum amount of 20K once more, which, of course, honestly feels fishy -- it's a bit silly that Kaiji doesn't at least suspect the foreman of trying to rig the game (regardless of whether he does or not), but eh, we wouldn't have a story otherwise.
We get a pretty tense sequence of events where Kaiji straight-up fails to get a valid roll, with statistics showing that there's a 87.5% of getting a valid roll (two or more equals, plus the special ones) in three rolls... and then Kaiji ends up getting a six, with Kaiji absolutely jubilant and mocking Otsuki as he gives a speech about willpower. (It's a bit hypocritical on Kaiji's part considering he's saying things which are more or less in the same vein a while ago.) But then both Otsuki and Isawa get triple on their respective dice rolls, beating Kaiji and turning him back into bankrupcy and even negative.
A bit of a fun buildup to knock Kaiji down, and sets up Otsuki as the villain of the arc. Is the game rigged? Is he cheating? Overall, a nice bit of buildup.
Kaiji quickly figures out that everyone in the group other than the fellow newcomer and dude-drawn-with-a-nice-face Miyoshi are all against him, and as all the zawa-zawa builds up, Kaiji decides to throw in big, getting a huge clean sweep during his first round that he plays as dealer, getting back from the brink. During the second round, Otsuki and Isawa bet the maximum amount of 20K once more, which, of course, honestly feels fishy -- it's a bit silly that Kaiji doesn't at least suspect the foreman of trying to rig the game (regardless of whether he does or not), but eh, we wouldn't have a story otherwise.
We get a pretty tense sequence of events where Kaiji straight-up fails to get a valid roll, with statistics showing that there's a 87.5% of getting a valid roll (two or more equals, plus the special ones) in three rolls... and then Kaiji ends up getting a six, with Kaiji absolutely jubilant and mocking Otsuki as he gives a speech about willpower. (It's a bit hypocritical on Kaiji's part considering he's saying things which are more or less in the same vein a while ago.) But then both Otsuki and Isawa get triple on their respective dice rolls, beating Kaiji and turning him back into bankrupcy and even negative.
A bit of a fun buildup to knock Kaiji down, and sets up Otsuki as the villain of the arc. Is the game rigged? Is he cheating? Overall, a nice bit of buildup.
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