Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor, Episode 10: Messenger; Episode 11: Revelry
We're back with Kaiji, and with episode 10 we kick-start the next arc and the next set of games, which isn't just Restricted Jan-Ken-Pon. I did think episode 10 is a truly slow-paced episode, showing Kaiji as he acclimatizes his role in working in retail. He has eliminated the debts outside the ship, but now owes the organizers of the Espoir tournament 6 million yen.
And it's just, well, showing Kaiji's status as someone trying to make an honest living (while hoping the Espoir dudes don't show up) but he gets suspected of stealing, and his old gambling addiction shows up when he indignantly tells his manager that 'hey, let's bet 100 yen that the money's not here' or some stuff. It's a neat little analysis of Kaiji's character after the events of Espoir, although it does make for a very slow-paced -- not boring, mind you -- 20 minutes. A good chunk of the episode also surrounds the introduction of Sahara, the blonde jackass who actually stole the money, and plants it in Kaiji's bag to get it out of the store.
Sahara's a douche that Kaiji somehow ends up being kind of his friend, and of course Sahara shows up just as Endo returns to offer Kaiji another chance to join in these huge-scale gambling events. Sahara, not realizing the extent of new-debt-accumulation and soul-crushing things that surrounded Espoir, enthusiastically asks for a place, while Kaiji's situation ends up being reiterated to him. Essentially... he has a fuck-ton of debts, and it does feel very similar to Kaiji's recruitment in the first episode. So yeah, Episode 10 isn't actually very eventful.
So let's move to episode 11. Kaiji shows up at Starside Hotel, the new location of the gambling tournament, and there he meets Sahara and Ishida, and Kaiji makes a huge, huge point to go "I HAVE NO FRIENDS, FUCK OFF THE LOT OF YOU" because he doesn't want to be attached and burned the way he was by Ando and Furuhata. None of the other supporting cast from the first arc -- Funai, Kitami, Ando, Furuhata, Sakai, Okabayashi etc -- actually show up, making this a bit of a fresh soft-reboot.
And, boy, what a soft reboot it is, because this time they don't just swap games, but they're actually put through something similar to one of those game shows. The competitors are split up into multiple groups, and after being stuck into coffins and a long explanation of just how claustrophobic Kaiji feels as he's moved around with no real idea what the fuck is going on, he and the other competitors are told to walk through these thin railings 8 meters above the ground (falling would mean broken bones and possibly death). But unlike Espoir arc where it's more of a free-range do anything you want competition, here they're the entertainment for a gigantic group of rich bastards who treat this kind of like a horse-racing competition. "BUREIBUUU MENN RODDOOOOOO", as the enthusiastic MC screams at the top of his lungs, and there's a significant emphasis placed on how the competitors are all garbage and scum of society. There's a lot of descriptions how they're basically shits who should appreciate that they're being given the chance to get a huge windfall of money by just gambling and not working hard.
Of course, some random jackass drops and breaks his bones almost immediately, and as everyone starts to try to walk through the thin railings, Kaiji and company realizes the brutality of the game. It's a push-or-be-pushed thing, and the episode stops there as the audience screams at Kaiji to PUSH HIM PUSH HIM. A combination of the cheering, the increasingly thin bar and another competitor coming up at Kaiji's back makes this far more tense than the gambling arc on the boat, a completely different type of tension. I'm unsure how I feel about changing the games into something more akin to a Hunger Games/Battle Royale style scenario, although I trust in the storytelling enough to not dislike it outright.
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