Kaiji, Season 2, Episodes 11: Last Gamble; Episode 12: Sigh With Delight
So the pachinko machine is the next thing Kaiji has to face, except this time around he's not facing it on his own. Interestingly, in these two episodes Kaiji's more of an assistant to Sakazaki's attempt to cheat the system and not gambling himself, which honestly just kind of makes certain that Sakazaki's going to lose. And lose badly. And lose badly he does.
It does help to demonstrate this particularly unique pachinko machine, though, and the chance to get a ball into the final hole is around 1 in... 5400 or some shit? There are three ordeals the balls must face, in any case -- a forest of pins (which are loose thanks to the maintenance), swinging flippers, and finally the spinning plates with holes, which Sakazaki knows is rigged so that the ball can never get past the third plate due to the centrifugal physics and stuff. With the maintenance, Sakazaki gets around one in every 30 balls to the third plate, far higher odds than what people normally get.
And Sakazaki pretends to be frustrated, demanding for a beer and then handing said beer to Kaiji, masquerading as just any other interested patron of the casino. It's a simple but ingenuous plan, in any case, hiding ball magnets under Kaiji's own beer bottle that he hands off to Sakazaki, which he uses to attempt to pull the balls into the hole. But as Kaiji snoops around the place he realizes that the 'suits' running the casino are actually far more informed than they let on, noting that Sakazaki has more money than he should, and that they're planning to bleed him dry before activating the 'block'. Kaiji quickly notes to Sakazaki during their break after Sakazaki loses his 20 million that, hey, maybe his 'inside man' is a traitor after all, and that they should probably call it quits.
But Sakazaki then goes into this huge sobbing rant about how the 20 million he has is basically all the money he had, and this is the only way for him to recoup his losses in any meaningful way, and... yeah, Kaiji's not hypocritical enough to deny the old man the chance to gamble and win big. Episode 12 starts off with Sakazuki's continued spiral as Kaiji cheers him on, and the NARRATOR! KEEPS! HAMMING! THINGS! UP! It's pretty glorious, and the 'block' is apparently a sensor placed within part of the Bog that automatically makes the flippers swing shut immediately whenever a ball comes near. But, of course, Sakazuki absolutely fails even with the final 20 million he stole from his boss, and the magnet plan doesn't work.
And as Sakazuki faints and falls backwards, the casino manager Ichijou (who we briefly see recognizing Kaiji from a recording) comes up to very subtly mock Sakazaki's valiant efforts, while also noting that, hey, sometimes the casino uses non-magnetic brass balls like today!
Actually, I'm not even mad. It's hard to be mad when someone who tries to cheat really fails, honestly, and the way that Sakazaki fails is just so bizarrely hilarious -- the casino uses two types of balls, nullifying his whole magnet scheme! Man, poor Sakazaki. Sakazaki's just broken, while Kaiji is intent on finding a way to win the game.
Yoshishiro meets up with Ichijou and actually ends up fanning the flames from Ichijou's side, leading to a meeting between the two as Kaiji walks up to the casino and just stares at the Bog and has a brief conversation with Ichijou in front of the Bog, and later on in the staff room where Ichijou proves to be more than knowledgeable about Kaiji's current plight and attempt to win big, suggesting that, hey, maybe try and struggle elsewhere that isn't guaranteed to fail? Kaiji rips up Ichijou's card while apparently doing so in order to look for something, and the final shot has Kaiji walking up to an apartment, intent on 'breaking the first hurdle, the forest of pins'. Just what does an apartment has to do with cheating on a pachinko machine? And is it folly for Kaiji to spend his precious time outside of the prison trying to beat an unwinnable machine? Interesting stuff, even if this arc admittedly feels a lot more mellow. Maybe because it's not Kaiji himself on the line for the past couple of episodes.
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