Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 25: Tears of Resentment
It's not a given that Kaiji is going to win this arc, mind you. The whole point of the series is that gambling is a thing, and last season's willingness to have Kaiji lose at the end of the season's overarching story and get absolutely trounced because he didn't cheat as well ends up making the audience believe that, yes, it is definitely possible for Kaiji to fail and lose in this fight against the Bog. Which is why the previous episode's scene of Kaiji being utterly broken was so effective -- the audience does believe that, yes, maybe this is how Kaiji loses, and he's going to claw his way back up into the real world somehow next season.
And Kaiji's broken. Whatever money he has left isn't even enough to pay for the smallest pay card in the casino, and Ichijou is just gloating over the loser that is Kaiji... and then Sakazaki shows up! He's been missing for the past few episodes. He makes this grand speech that's... okay, I guess. It's not quite as inspiring as the show thinks it is, and Sakazaki's absence. Sakazaki talks about how the Bog and Ichijou have been eating people up... which I don't think is particularly fair. Sakazaki is an asshole, but you don't really play in a casino without the implicit understanding that the machines are rigged. But okay, sure, whatever. Sakazaki's "borrowed" 20 more million from his boss's safe, and I really feel that the Teiai company goons have really bad hearing in that scene because they don't even really try to hide the fact that they've stolen the money, whether they give it back later or not.
We at least get a fun little image of Ichijou's imagination of the battle, of him being this dude with a machinegun defending a castle, and the soldiers just refuse to die. It's a fun imagery, if nothing else.
The events of this episode and the previous episode basically has Kaiji stack a huge ton of balls in the final plate, that honestly the slightest bit of pressure is going to push the balls against the air vents, and it does. And it's... it's cathartic, honestly, because the battle against the Bog has been going on and on for a while this time. The Bog has a deathrattle, the final ball victory as the Bog's victory celebrations... as Kaiji finally wins against the Bog.
It's a victory of sorts against Hyodou as well, who utterly and hilariously loses his shit and demands that Ichijou be imprisoned for 150 years or something along those lines. And I know that I'm supposed to feel sorry for Ichijou, but the manga's done such a remarkable job at making the dude an unlikable asshole that I kinda don't. Overall, a neat little victory, if one that is more like a sigh of relief instead of the huge "WHOA THIS IS NUTSO" reaction to Kaiji tilting the building earlier on.
One thing I found hilarious is that Ichijou was uncousciously being the worst cassino manager ever in the eyes of any viewer there. He was humiliating and beating the shit out of a losing player, and not everyone was even aware there was some shady cheating from both parts going on there.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, Ichijou definitely looks like a gigantic ass in front of everyone not in the know of the intricacies of the two-way cheating. I mean, even if Kaiji actually doesn't have any more money to play with, there really is no excuse for Ichijou to basically do everything but piss on the poor man's face.
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