Kaiji S02E06 Review: Pretending to Lose

Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 6: The Storm Arrives

Another simple, fast-paced episode that shows the actual game between Kaiji and Otsuki, and while you could dismiss is as the expected "Kaiji feigns confusion and defeat to fake out his enemy", it's still done pretty damn well. Again, it's a pretty fun usage of the loud, hammy narrator combined with the general expressiveness of the artwork that makes this work as well as it does.

And for all his huge talk about having revenge against Otsuki, the man is deathly calm and quiet, as the narrator himself notes. Kaiji notes that only Otsuki and his crony Isawa ever deals when the stakes are high, and when Kaiji attempts to get one of the others to deal, they panic and leave the game, making it a simple Kaiji-vs-Otsuki match. Oh, and Otsuki's two cronies are there too. And after working up the crowd... Kaiji passes the chance of being a dealer, in a way to goad the crowd.


But then after all the huge speech about how he's going to bet huge amounts of money, Kaiji bets a mere 20K, which was even part of the old limit, causing widespread confusion. Isawa deals a 4/5/6, and Kaiji loses double of that money. Kaiji then wagers 1K, and wins that round, but at this point the tension and the showmanship is basically gone and people are dispersing, with Otsuki and his cronies baffled and mocking Kaiji for pussying out after all the huge talk he's made.

But then we get a flashback of Kaiji telling the Forty Fivers that he plans on losing pretty badly -- losing 20K to 40K, because that's what the Foreman will try to do, to crush him. Kaiji wants to pretend to go deep into the hole, and it's at that point that his buddies should join in. And it's interesting that while in-universe the silent, dumbstruck Kaiji does look like a desperate, numb man, we don't have the flowery descriptions of "THIS IS LIKE A QUICKSAND, DRAGGING HIM IN, INTO AN ABYSS OF DESPAIR" which really clues the audience that, no, Kaiji dicking around with small change is just a ruse.

Otsuki then tells Kaiji to fuck off because he's ruined the mood, prompting Kaiji to bet all of his money in, the full 52K. This piques Otsuki and the rest of the room's interest... and especially when Kaiji's team suddenly shuffle in and everyone bets their full wage, rising the total bet against Otsuki to be 507K. Time for the turnaround play next episode!

I think I may have to start doing two-episode reviews so I can actually talk about events that happen and not just make these a recap. Kaiji is a great show to watch episode-by-episode, being pretty tense and such, but not an easy one to review.