Kaiji S02E26 Review: Victory...?

Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 26: The Future Is In Our Hands...

The final episode of Kaiji's second season is a fun enough conclusion. We get a scene of the Teiai company goons taking in Ichijou instead, and Kaiji, I guess, is a more decent person than I am because he tells Ichijou to "claw back up" and fight him again, Shonen-style, because he sees Ichijou as a rival and enough of a conniving asshole to survive the Teiai underground. Does this mean that Ichijou's going to be an Endou-style ally some time in the future? Eh.

The rest of the episode is the huge celebration of the 729 million yen that Kaiji, Endou and Sakazaki won, and a brief bit of accounting as we tick off all the hideously large amounts of debt that the three of them have. Kaiji pays his debt, Endou's loan and interest are paid back, and the money that Sakazaki took from the safe. I'm not quite sure why Kaiji doesn't immediately pay for the Forty-Fivers right then and there, though. I know why from a narrative standpoint, because we need it for the huge revelation and emotional moment at the end, but I felt like that was a weird sequence of events and it really clues me in that the story will sucker-punch me somehow.

Each of the three co-conspirators basically take back 189 million, and Kaiji gives this speech about how after he uses his share to pay for the rest of his friends in the underground, he plans to split the rest of his winnings equally because he's betting with all of his friends' money. Okay, then? Endou notes that Kaiji is too soft, Sakazaki goes through this whole drunken talk about telling Kaiji to take his daughter (like the season ending hallucination-sequence)...  and then Endou betrays them both, knocking them out with a sedative.

Surprisingly, though, Endou doesn't steal all the money,  because he's not that much of an asshole. He's enough of an asshole, though, to put in a stipulation in the deal that he had Kaiji sign in the bathroom a while back that entitles Endou to a huge chunk of Kaiji's money. Well... okay? As Endou notes in his letter, there really isn't much Kaiji can do to really complain about that, because they did sign an agreement and as douchey as it is, it is kind of something that Kaiji can't really complain about. Sakazaki just sort of backs away with his money to "return what he took" from his boss, but it's clear that Sakazaki doesn't want anything to do with Kaiji begging him for more money.

It's a nice enough plot twist to kick Kaiji and make this not a all sunshines ending while also not being too mean to him. Kaiji then goes on a "I have faith in humanity" bit, and tells the Teiai people to, of course, free the other Forty-Fivers... and then uses the rest of his meager money as well as the ones that the other Forty-Fivers have -- and only if they all agree -- to free Ishida Junior.

And then Kaiji loses the 100K yen he got to regular pachinko machines, which is just hilarious... and we get a fun little heartwarming moment as one of the random Teiai men in black gives Kaiji a brief loan so he can celebrate and eat some good food with freed friends. It's a nice way to end, and an optimistic enough and clean enough ending to close out this story, whether or not Kaiji gets a third season.

Overall, it's been a huge blast of a show, and I really enjoyed going through it. It's certainly a show that's outside of my normal comfort zone of tending to just watch fantasy and sci-fi shows and not really ever getting into "harder", pulpy fiction. This one's a fun series to watch! I'm not 100% sure how things will go for me, anime-wise. I've been watching a lot of Gundam but I don't think I have enough energy to review each episode of Iron-Blooded Orphans because there tends to be a bit too much to analyze in each episode. Maybe I'll do Overlord? Eh, we'll see.