Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 17: Pointless Pounding; Episode 18:
The 17th episode feels particularly simpler, although, again, it still does have Kaiji's characteristic storytelling style of hyping and describing everything in a boisterous manner. We've got Kaiji, in his last four hours as a free man, still dealing with the second hurdle, and this episode sort of acts as a bit of a tension-riser where nothing much happens, and we just focus on Kaiji's panic, Ichijou's panic, and Hyodou being a gigantic dick and ranting about how he loves to see hope fade away from the peasants' eyes, all the while allowing the people trapped by Teiai undergound to watch Kaiji's struggle on television.
It's not a bad episode or anything, I just don't really feel that there's a lot to talk about here -- it's a bit of a scene-setting one, and it's one that just basically re-establishes Hyodou as a sadistic bastard, while heightening the tension of Kaiji playing against the Bog.
Episode 18 starts off with Kaiji continuing to play against the Bog and trying to get past the second hurdle, the rigged flippers, and episode 17's length does really help out to make sure that Kaiji's struggles to "break down the door" end up feeling like it does take some time. And apparently Kaiji's pounding on the door, this time around, isn't just fancy-sounding hyperbole, but just straight-up literal, as Kaiji's constant pounding on the doors ends up causing the bars to actually break down.
We get to see Ichijou's confusion, and we also get to see the flashback. Endou's men, masquerading as the workers that replace the Bog parts, clearly are up to something nasty, but the actual sabotage ends up being pretty subtle, as Endou's people replace the rods's interior with little candy bars with spikes that move back and forth and basically break down after some time of playing and constant pressure -- things that Kaiji ensures will not come up on a more casual inspection by the casino staff. Having Sakazaki distract everyone by smashing the bog and shouting about how it's cursed and rigged also ensures that no one other than the staff would really try and play the Bog too much. Kaiji's whole "trying to steal money from the safe", of course, turns out to be a distraction, a false goal to let Ichijou to drop his guard and make him think that he's figured Kaiji's plans out.
And then, of course, Ichijou figures out that the bars are tampered, and demands that Kaiji stop... and then Kaiji points at the "patrons can play as long as they don't cheat", and Kaiji also notes that Ichijou's baseless accusations are about as valid as Kaiji himself noting that the flippers are rigged with the little laser sight thing, because, well, it's obvious to all that Kaiji's balls aren't falling in as much as the normal rate, which is as much "evidence" as the notion that Kaiji is cheating by sabotaging the flippers beforehand.
And as Kaiji is allowed to continue to play, Hyodou actually calls Ichijou and basically tells him that "your methods are dumb", noting that Ichijou's neck is on the line, and if Ichijou is ever-so-confident about the design of his three plates, then he should man up and let those plates decide his fate. Two hurdles down, the final one to go! It's very interesting, honestly, because I've assumed that the Bog would take up the second arc, with the final arc being a confrontation against Hyodou, but the way this sub-arc seems to be paced, that might not be the case at all!
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