Kaiji - Ultimate Survivor S01E06-07 Review: Card Advantage

Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor, Episode 6: Rise and Fall; Episode 7: Proclamation

(A brief apology on the slowness of the superhero TV shows -- I've not had a chance to watch any of this week's shows at all due to personal problems)

We continue with a pretty thrilling two episodes of Kaiji, and we continue the game of Restricted Rock-Paper-Scissors. These two episodes continue the tension of the anime, and that's definitely the biggest draw of the anime -- the rules of the game is pretty neatly complex and explained, and the combination of great, emotional voice-acting on the part of Kaiji as well as consistently flowery descriptions of scenes and feelings make you really buy into what's going on even when it's something that's indubitably a dumbass decision.

Episode 6 basically has Team Kaiji on a pretty cool winning streak. They decide to double-hoard rock and paper, because that way all their enemies will be likely to have scissors, making them able to win with their rocks, and draw with the papers. They then pay Kitami's buddies for their cards, sending them out, whereas they walk up to Kitami and basically force him to give them money so they'll buy his deck off him. There's an amazing bit where Kaiji just tells Kitami that taking his deal is literally the only way out, because to refuse would be suicide since unlike Team Kaiji, his deck is all paper instead of mostly rock.

It's then the great return of Funai! He's got like 12 stars or some shit, but has no more cards. He wants to buy cards off of Kaiji in exchange for a star and... and honestly, I can understand that Funai has completely fucked over Kaiji in the second episode. But the deal is way too sweet, and Funai was even ready to give a star hands-down. Kaiji's more experienced now, and surely having him double-cross Funai isn't out of the question... but Kaiji just absolutely refuses to make deals with him and help him screw over other people on principle, and gets absolutely angry then Funai tells Kaiji to cut off Furuhata and Ando, because they're trash. I really feel this part could probably make use with some of those flowery imaginary description things, but it's still okay.

There's also a bunch of people introduced that have 2 stars or whatever, and no cards, and are waiting to buy stars from the likes of Funai during a 'buy-back' event at the end. It's yet another monkey wrench thrown into this whole thing.

And Kaiji's decision to hoard cards ends up backfiring twice -- first, when no one refuses to play, because it's so tense and the impulse-gamblers are probably either weeded out or turned paranoid -- and Funai tells everyone to 'reset everything to zero'. He reveals the cards of some of the players on the field, and simply tells them how instead of living in doubt over stalkers, it's better to reset everything to zero. And when the stipulation to only play amongst themselves pops up, Team Kaiji is forced to join.

Episode 7 is basically a huge big introdump about Funai's reshuffling. In addition to showing that Kaiji's team is hoarding 69 cards, Funai gathers all the cards in existence and counts up the amount -- and he notes that there are three missing cards -- held by an unknown 'X' (god, the way Funai's voice actor pronounces the letter X is amazing) that's probably amongst those that have stars and no cards. He divides everything out, and throws Kaiji'a 69 cards into the air because he's a dick. Team Kaiji makes a quick calculation that since all the papers is accounted for, the floor has 2 rocks, 2 scissors, plus 3 cards in X.

Funai quickly crushes two people, and there's a neat bit of Kaiji breaking down and crying in desperation at how fucking horribly bad their condition has became now. And Kaiji's emotional breakdown and actual physical assault of Funai is pretty well-delivered... and then Kaiji apparently has a breakthrough. He opens up Funai's own plans of cheating, describing the many, many little tricks Funai does while under an illusion of fairness. Marking the cards, counting the cards, shuffling the cards on the ground after everyone else has cut the deck, dealing cards to himself before tossing cards to those with only one card... Funai has basically engineered himself to have only rocks, and to deal scissors to those with one card.

And it's pretty damn amazing. It's pretty clever and not too complicated, and seeing Kaiji absolutely crush Funai while still being in a bind himself is amazing. But due to everyone's cards being known, no one wants to play each other... so Kaiji formulates a plan. He puts a card of each type in front of the remaining three people, so they'll have a chance to actually win and actually want to play. Kaiji net-loses a star, I think, and loses 3 cards, but he ends up getting rid of everyone else on the floor, revealing his big plan to set up a huge gamble against Funai -- bet for 5 stars, or Funai can't get rid of his card.

It's pretty fun and great. I really kind of wish that Kaiji and especially Furuhata and Ando get their characters fleshed out a little more, but the tension going on in the manga and the bombastic voice acting by Kaiji, Funai, Kitami and the narrator work in the anime's favour. The tension in the anime is certainly well done and that really sucks me in.