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. 

Kaiji S02E25 Review: Jackpot

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. 

Kaiji S02E24 Review: Jet Stream Attack

Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 24: Meandering Silver Balls

Apparently, it's an air vent that surrounds the final hole, which is... interesting, for sure! I'm not sure just why Ichijou is just such a moron to misplace the remote, but I guess they've truly gone complacent. And no matter how many balls Kaiji's shot into the third plate, the jet streams keep knocking them away and the only hope is to hope that the balls bounce onto each other with enough force to knock them over the jet stream... and even when that happens, it doesn't actually get the ball in.

Teiai enforcers show up and basically get ready to arrest not only Kaiji, but Endou as well... and Kaiji panics. After some obviously brusque comments, he utterly breaks down, wanting to just call it a draw, buy back the remaining balls that he hasn't used, and buy at least him and Endou out of debt from the Teiai companies. Kaiji is utterly desperate, defeated by the jet stream, but Ichijou refuses to entertain the thought, and Kaiji just... just breaks.

And it's clearly Kaiji's lowest point, as he's just so utterly defeated, with no real way to come back, no final observation, and most importantly -- no more money. It's a great showing from him. He's dead broke, and this series have shown that it's very much willing to punish Kaiji even when he does well, since this is a gambling show after all. After all, the first season did end in a downer ending of sorts. And this could lead to a final set of two episodes of either a final gamble against Hyodou, or simply a downer ending and Kaiji has to claw his way back out... maybe? It's definitely not a good look for Kaiji. Endou is desperate for Kaiji to find some ridiculous way to get out, but he can't even do so, at least not at this time. And to see the gambler absolutely broken and disheartened, after his utter confidence these past few episodes... it's certainly a great cliffhanger. 

Kaiji S02E23 Review: Blockage

Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 23: On Thin Ice

Kaiji gets utterly freaked out, as the Bog's personification get into a huge 'fight' with Kaiji in his imaginary mind. Kaiji realizes that all of the balls that he's sending on that trajectory upwards by tilting the building backwards isn't actually a perfect shot. They stacked the water piles on one room, meaning that the building isn't just tilted south -- it's tilted southwest, and in this high-stakes, high-precision game, it means that the balls that Kaiji are sending from the bottom ends up swerving to the left and falling into a hole.

There is an alternate way, as Kaiji tells Endou, by moving the ball between "holes 2 and 3" instead of "3 and 4", which makes sense only with visuals. But Ichijou's tilt is starting to take hold, and the balls are starting to drain out of the chute and will soon restore the first two plates... and we get a huge "GO GO GO" "STOP STOP STOP" montage which ran for a bit too long...  and apparently, the building leaning forwards sort of retains the goddamn balls anyway. Ah, physics, you truly are a cruel mistress. Interesting, huh, how a Pachinko game ends up being a fight over leaning the building forwards and backwards?

But Kaiji's final plan hinges on having balls hit each other while in the third plate... and everything seems to go Kaiji's way, as the balls are clogging up the third plate's holes due to some insane coincidence (that the narrator lampshades),  and Kaiji has two balls left. Is this the episode where he beats the Bog? I mean, he's gotten such an insane streak of luck, so it might be, right? Unfortunately, as the two balls shoot towards the jackpot hole... they get repelled.

Ah, Ichijou's secret weapon, then, I guess? I've been waiting for it to make an appearance. Repelling magnets, perhaps, lining the final jackpot hole? It is a clever thing to do, honestly, for a rigged machine -- to have the final hole be rigged so that even if by some miracle all of the unfair stuff ends up not panning out, there's a surefire way to prevent the customer from winning. What this is, though, is going to be interesting, and we'll see if Kaiji is actually prepared for it next time.

Kaiji S02E22 Review: Money Tape

Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 22: Power of Money

The episode starts off with Kaiji's second attempt at the Bog, with a fun bit where Ichijou leans in to Kaiji and the two of them engage in a bit of "I know that you know" regarding the double tilt segment of the Bog. And after a bit of posturing, Kaiji ends up doing a fun bit of a show, taping up money in front of the Bog to cover up the three plates. Ichijou ends up ripping them off for a while...

To reveal multiple balls are just spinning around in the first two plates. And Kaiji shows that his secret plan is the observation that neither Kaiji nor Ichijou accounted for -- when Ichijou moved the Bog backwards to counter-act Kaiji tilting the building, they had caused a clog-up in the pipes that 'drain' the first two plates, meaning that any ball that made it into the plates will always stay there until they fall to the next level... provided they bump to each other. Great job on the narrator in describing this, too, and god bless Kaiji for making the reveal so epic with those bills.

Ichijou is absolutely fucked up and he's fallen into utter depression as he realizes that even his remote can't re-tilt the Bog back in time for the drains to unclog, since it moves slowly to not reveal its true nature to the other patrons. We get this hilaious, fun bit of Kaiji and Ichijou's battle represented by a fighter jet bombing an aircraft carrier.

And as one of Kaiji's balls fall into the third plate, and then do the insane swerve upwards that will bypass the bump and Kaiji's end goal in the first place... it swerves left and fails. Is this the observation that Ichijou's minion makes? Poor Ichijou is way too freaked out to remember whatever this is, apparently. Definitely a pretty interesting bit -- halfway around watching this episode and seeing the clogged-up drains, I thought that this was going to be the end of the Bog, and maybe we'll have that Hyodou showdown after all, but no. The Bog seems to be the endgame of this season. Good stuff, in any case.

Kaiji S02E21 Review: Negotiations

Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 21: Victory Secured

It's a bit of an interesting episode, where Kaiji is on a losing streak, if such a term is applicable in a game like pachinko. He's got everything figured out, sabotaged all three 'hurdles', but in the final stage it's still a gamble, and none of the balls he's sending through ends up even making it into the jackpot. And in Kaiji's utter desperation, he ends up running out of balls right at the moment that he sees one final glimpse of light.

It's interesting, as Kaiji walks into the bathroom and tries to negotiate -- albeit a bit too desperately -- with Endou. Kaiji knows that Endou and his nameless bodyguard is carrying some extra emergency funds for him to quickly escape should the need arise, and a good chunk of the episode is just Kaiji trying his best to convince Endou that he sees one final 'light' that is going to allow him to beat the odds one more time, and that even if Endou runs away right now, he's going to spend the rest of his life running away from debt collectors.

And the episode does take its time in trying to get Kaiji and Endou to convince each other, and Endou... actually prepared a contract for Kaiji to sign, showing that, yeah, Endou was fully prepared for Kaiji to actually need an extra boost of money. Faith, or just good business practices? A little of both? A wee bit too convenient, perhaps, but it's not like we haven't seen Endou be paranoid and duplicitous before.

And as Kaiji returns with a whole ton of money, Ichijou actually goes and tries and buy some time and starts actually counting the bills one by one, trying to buy time for whoever it is to find his "secret weapon",  a switch... but Kaiji (who's on the clock too) ends up demanding that he be allowed to play now. But then, one of Ichijou's nameless goons notes an observation that Ichijou picks up as another final weapon. It's neat that it's Kaiji's secret, undetermined weapon against Ichijou's own. Who knew a game of fucking Pachinko could be so complex?

Kaiji S02E19-20 Review: To Move the Earth

Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 19: Road to a Miracle; Episode 20: Destiny's Gap

We start off this episode with Kaiji finally getting into the final obstacle of the pachinko machine, the three plates. Kaiji notes that statistically, he has around six shots at the third plate, after calculating how he's cheated the first two obstacles, and now only has the three plates to contend with. We get a fun little imaginary J-RPG fight between Kaiji and the Bog, which is funny.

Meanwhile, Ichijou himself has a couple of failsafes built into the Bog's final plates. In addition to the positioning of the holes (the two holes in the top two plates are in the front, and the one in the final one is in the back), Ichijou's put a small bump at the back of the final hole. Thanks to how Physics work and how the ball will enter the third plate, it has to enter the final hole from behind... and the bump will send it careening away into one of the failure holes. And in addition to that, Ichijou's made sure that the balls will always tilt forwards, making it even more impossible to reach the final hole -- there are three tilts, the floor, the machine and the plate.

And Kaiji? Kaiji's figured it out, first by observing Sakazaki play (so there is a point in having him suffer beyond making him sympathetic for the audience to root for) and then when Sakazaki drops his balls on the floor and Ichijou picks them up, Kaiji notes how the balls on the floor around the Bog roll to one side, but not the balls scattered elsewhere.

So Kaiji decides that the only way he can do that is... well, by tilting the entire goddamn building, which is just so absurdly insane, but it's this insanity that kind of makes sense. We do have scenes of Kaiji investigating the places around the casino around the episodes building up to this, and Kaiji only makes it clear that he is confident that he can beat the Bog when he has a solution for everything. It's actually not that much of an ass-pull like the silly "glass stairs" from the first season, as everything's sort of foreshadowed, and the information is only really revealed when it's relevant, but the buildup, and Kaiji's initial reluctance, is shown early in the beginning of the Bog arc.

And Kaiji has apparently found a pretty fun way to tilt the entire building, making use of the information that the dirt around the building is pretty soft from a bunch of construction workers. With the aid of a couple of collapsible water containers, Kaiji just fills them up, making a couple of tonnes of weight on the opposite end of the building to make the building shift ever so slightly. It's insane, and I'm not sure my rusty physics skills are good enough to confirm if this is an unworkable idea or if it actually works providing the conditions are met... but I don't care. It's entertaining.

Ichijou figures this out and panics throughout the final part of the 19th episode, and the beginning of the 20th. He has one "final weapon" which we don't see in episode 20, but, again, really makes it clear that the Bog isn't just going to be beaten in this episode or the next, making it clear that Kaiji and Hyodou isn't going to have one last game like the first season... which is fine, I suppose. The manga apparently has three more parts for the anime to follow up on, so it's not like this season is the final outing.

Ichijou's desperation is pretty well-displayed, as he uses his remote to tilt everything backwards in a futile attempt to prevent Kaiji from getting his balls down -- at least he won't be able to get the balls through the first two plates, but that would have the effect of making the third plate even more susceptible.

Ichijou also gets this huge, huge motive rant, which I felt was shoehorned a little, but not by that much. Hyodou apparently is building this huge, underground kingdom, because power isn't just money -- it's the power to dictate who survives in case of a nuclear war. It's crazy and paranoid, but Hyodou is the example of being utterly batshit crazy. Ichijou's motive rant is a bit more mundane. In addition to wanting to inherit a lot of money, he apparently also wants to show up his old friends, who mock him for running a casino? And he eavesdrops on his friends talking on him behind his back in the cafe? Weird, but okay.

But it's not just Ichijou that's breaking down, but Kaiji too, as he's approaching the final 10 million funds that he has, and all of his gambles aren't even paying off as despite getting past the first two hurdles, his balls aren't making it to the third plate. It's definitely tense as Kaiji has been nothing but confident since he started challenging the bog, and to see him starting to lose it is actually jarring and well done as a huge moment to end the episode on. 

Kaiji S02E17-18 Review: Candyman

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!

Kaiji S02E16 Review: Kaiji versus the Bog

Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 16: The Curtain Rises

We pick up right where we left off in episode 15, with Kaiji challenging the Bog, and interestingly, Ichijou has a chance to shut this all down. Force Kaiji to play baccarat or something, but he's extremely confident that the Bog will not be defeated, and that he's made sure that it wouldn't be. But then he gets a call from Kurosaki, telling Ichijou to not be careless because there's no way for Kaiji to be so adamant about challenging the Bog if he doesn't have some sort of a trick to get past it. Ichijou's pride ends up being his downfall, of course, as he lets Kaiji play... even with the warning that "your fate will be worse than Kaiji if you lose".


And then Kaiji continues to play, but the balls are getting through the first obstacle, the 'forest of pins', and everyone's just confused. Ichijou initially didn't want to turn on the block for the flippers, because he wants to at least make the Bog seem fair to the other patrons, but then he thinks that he figures out Kaiji's trick -- using slightly smaller balls. Which would make a whole lot of sense, but upon inspection with the casino's tray, it's, of course, proven false. It's actually quite neat, especially since we know that whatever Kaiji does to get past the first hurdle has something to do with the room he's snuck into at the end of episode 12.

Ichijou would later realize as he runs back to his office that Kaiji's snuck into the room above his, figured out where the tools to calibrate the Bog are at, and tinkered with them enough, swapping out the settings for "C" and "A" by sneaking in an electromagnet from the room above, so that Ichijou has been accidentally callibrating the Bog for A all along, making it so much easier for Kaiji's balls to get through. It's actually neat, and reveals that Kaiji wasn't staring at the Bog for nothing, but rather just waiting for Ichijou to perform maintenance there.

And then Ichijou activates the block, and reveals that the bouncer that Sakazaki used to bounce the balls in his attempt has been modified and tightened, meaning that it's going to be a challenge between just how much of Kaiji's preparations are  going to match up against Ichijou's reactions towards Kaiji.

Kaiji S02E15 Review: Gratuitous Fingorn

Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 15:  All An Act

This episode has Kaiji and his team basically put up the first stage of their plan, and at no point in the episode did I believe that Kaiji's screwed up. Mind you, the episode title does help to telegraph the whole "it's an act" thing. We first get to see Sakazaki show up in a Buddhist monk regalia (like we saw in the anime opening) and just look desperate as he seemingly sinks his last funds into the Bog, losing horribly and using the prayer figurine to quite literally smash the Bog Pachinko machine apart. but Ichijou quickly sees through the act, even when Sakazaki pulls out a fake dynamite.

Ichijou quickly realizes that something is wrong, and returns back to the staff room to find Kaiji snooping around. And to Ichijou's credit,  at least he realizes that there's something wrong even though he isn't 100% just what is wrong. He thinks Kaiji is looking for the safe of the huge amount of funds the casino has, and then obliges, showing the huge amount of money, and then, to make it clear to the audience that Ichijou is someone we must hate and not just some dude running a casino, he has Sakazaki beaten, and we have this uncomfortably long scene of Kaiji's  fingers being tortured with this "bloody manicure" thing that injects a needle through the flesh between the fingernails. God damn, that's brutal.

Kaiji and Sakazaki are thrown out and they're weeping in defeat,  but it's clear from the way the episode is set up that this is all part of their plan.

And then we have a brief time-skip to the Bog being fixed, and to the final day that Kaiji is free, and Ichijou thinks about how Kaiji's going to try and buy his freedom by playing baccarat or something. After a brief face-off, Kaiji declares that, of course, he's going to challenge the Bog. It is interesting to think just where and how Kaiji's plans are taking place, and how all the foreshadowings to Kaiji's methods to cheat the Bog is going to take place. Overall, not the most exciting episode, but a fun in-between one to show the events happening and to build Ichijou up as a villain. 

Kaiji S02E13 Review: Gather Your Party [also, episode 14]

Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 13: Clue [also, episode 14: All-in Bluff]

Bit of a simpler episode,  this time around. We basically have Kaiji gathering his party for his mission to defeat the Bog. We get this whole scene of Sakazaki 'risking' everything to be reborn, which is nearly betting his entire stolen fortune on a horse-race just because the horse has the same name as his daughter. We get a whole scene of Kaiji breaking Sakazaki out from his clear desperate funk, and then utters a plan that we, the audience, don't get to hear. Apparently, last episode's look at an apartment door allows Kaiji to bypass the first obstacle, the pins, and seeing the smashed-up Bog replica in Sakazaki's house allows Kaiji to get an idea to bypass the bumpers.

It's interesting, but the rest of the episode basically has Kaiji thinking of how to re-obtain funds, and this time around he recruits a former antagonist, Endou,  who himself is in debt to the Teiai company. Endou isn't going to work with Kaiji without a huge conversation, though, and while there's really nothing too groundbreaking here, it's also pretty neat to see the two of them trade barbs, and Endou himself charging a pretty extraorbitant sum for his services (he rescinds it to a huge but still reasonable sum).

Overall, an okay episode, although not one that leaves me much to talk about. The final episode has Sakazaki's first big role, which apparently has him wander around in a monk outfit? Okay...?

(I'd review episode 14, but it's just a whole-sale recap episode. Just pretend I talked a bit about how this is entirely unnecessary and the anime industry is worse for having recap episodes, and move on.)

Kaiji S02E11-12 Review: Brass Balls

Kaiji, Season 2, Episodes 11: Last Gamble; Episode 12: Sigh With Delight

So the pachinko machine is the next thing Kaiji has to face, except this time around he's not facing it on his own. Interestingly, in these two episodes Kaiji's more of an assistant to Sakazaki's attempt to cheat the system and not gambling himself, which honestly just kind of makes certain that Sakazaki's going to lose. And lose badly. And lose badly he does.

It does help to demonstrate this particularly unique pachinko machine, though, and the chance to get a ball into the final hole is around 1 in... 5400 or some shit? There are three ordeals the balls must face, in any case -- a forest of pins (which are loose thanks to the maintenance), swinging flippers, and finally the spinning plates with holes, which Sakazaki knows is rigged so that the ball can never get past the third plate due to the centrifugal physics and stuff. With the maintenance, Sakazaki gets around one in every 30 balls to the third plate, far higher odds than what people normally get.

And Sakazaki pretends to be frustrated, demanding for a beer and then handing said beer to Kaiji, masquerading as just any other interested patron of the casino. It's a simple but ingenuous plan, in any case, hiding ball magnets under Kaiji's own beer bottle that he hands off to Sakazaki, which he uses to attempt to pull the balls into the hole. But as Kaiji snoops around the place he realizes that the 'suits' running the casino are actually far more informed than they let on, noting that Sakazaki has more money than he should, and that they're planning to bleed him dry before activating the 'block'. Kaiji quickly notes to Sakazaki during their break after Sakazaki loses his 20 million that, hey, maybe his 'inside man' is a traitor after all, and that they should probably call it quits.

But Sakazaki then goes into this huge sobbing rant about how the 20 million he has is basically all the money he had, and this is the only way for him to recoup his losses in any meaningful way, and... yeah, Kaiji's not hypocritical enough to deny the old man the chance to gamble and win big. Episode 12 starts off with Sakazuki's continued spiral as Kaiji cheers him on, and the NARRATOR! KEEPS! HAMMING! THINGS! UP! It's pretty glorious, and the 'block' is apparently a sensor placed within part of the Bog that automatically makes the flippers swing shut immediately whenever a ball comes near. But, of course, Sakazuki absolutely fails even with the final 20 million he stole from his boss, and the magnet plan doesn't work.

And as Sakazuki faints and falls backwards, the casino manager Ichijou (who we briefly see recognizing Kaiji from a recording) comes up to very subtly mock Sakazaki's valiant efforts, while also noting that, hey, sometimes the casino uses non-magnetic brass balls like today!

Actually, I'm not even mad. It's hard to be mad when someone who tries to cheat really fails, honestly, and the way that Sakazaki fails is just so bizarrely hilarious -- the casino uses two types of balls, nullifying his whole magnet scheme! Man, poor Sakazaki. Sakazaki's just broken, while Kaiji is intent on finding a way to win the game.

Yoshishiro meets up with Ichijou and actually ends up fanning the flames from Ichijou's side, leading to a meeting between the two as Kaiji walks up to the casino and just stares at the Bog and has a brief conversation with Ichijou in front of the Bog, and later on in the staff room where Ichijou proves to be more than knowledgeable about Kaiji's current plight and attempt to win big, suggesting that, hey, maybe try and struggle elsewhere that isn't guaranteed to fail? Kaiji rips up Ichijou's card while apparently doing so in order to look for something, and the final shot has Kaiji walking up to an apartment, intent on 'breaking the first hurdle, the forest of pins'. Just what does an apartment has to do with cheating on a pachinko machine? And is it folly for Kaiji to spend his precious time outside of the prison trying to beat an unwinnable machine? Interesting stuff, even if this arc admittedly feels a lot more mellow. Maybe because it's not Kaiji himself on the line for the past couple of episodes. 

Kaiji S02E10 Review: Ultimate Pachinko

Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 10: Applause, and then...

Episode 10 basically has Sakazaki give this huge, huge introdump about how the Ultimate Pachinko machine is going to give a fuck-ton of payout, but it's near impossible and the balls cost extremely expensive. And the only two people to have gotten a payout out of the Bog in the last ten years are Tonegawa and Hyoudou himself, which makes Kaiji sort of note the sheer insanity of fate for putting him in another Teiai Group gambling corner.

And, credit where credit's due, Kaiji immediately dismisses the idea of winning a rigged machine outright. But Sakazaki brings Kaiji to his home, gives his motivation (a generic 'I need my family back' motivation, but it's there) and apparently the man's pretty obsessed with the Bog, having spent a couple of million yens just to get a replica of the Bog as well as a pin maintenance schedule from an inside man. Suspiciously, though, despite all his talk about having a man on the inside, he wants Kaiji to act as his accomplice, quickly hinting that something's not quite right. Either Sakazaki himself's not on the up-and-up, or he himself is being duped.

It does mean that Kaiji doesn't actually have to risk his money, which is interesting -- Kaiji asks for a 10% of the potential winnings to help clear out the rest of the Forty Fivers' debts. Sakazaki himself goes half-crazy through the night, because he apparently figured out the combination to his boss's safe, and has 'borrowed' 20 million yen in order to act as additional funds in their little event. The episode ends with Kaiji and Sakazaki entering the casino, and it's... interesting, for sure. It's a different setup where Kaiji fully attempts to gamble a pre-established system. We've seen Kaiji plan to cheat before in the final arc where he fights Hyoudou, but that felt more spontaneous than anything. This is them straight-up deciding to fuck with the system. Not a bad setup for sure.

Kaiji S02E09 Review: Man-Eating Machine

Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 9: Retribution; Episode 10: Applause, and then...

Episode 9 is just a little tie-up of Otsuki's fall and utter despair as he is completely cleaned out of all the money he's made from cheating people in the gambling nights. Tonegawa's replacement, Yoshishiro, who we briefly saw earlier this season, shows up to enforce the rules and noting that, yes, Kaiji is the one in the right. We also get the explanation as to where Kaiji got that die -- he carved them out of the remnants of the T-Bone steaks that Otsuki eats, and painted the dots with his own blood. Otsuki is forced to roll, with the pretty cruel talk about how if he uses normal dice, at least  he gets the chance of drawing the triple snake-eyes. And we get a pretty satisfying montage of the Forty-Fivers rolling the snake eyes and absolutely win.

We get a scene of Kaiji talking to Yoshishiro, basically being upfront with asking if he's going to nullify all their blood and sweat by annulling the pass. Yoshishiro finds it kinda funny and makes an exception for 'leaving in the first year' for Kaiji. Interestingly, the Forty-fivers decide to pool all their winnings with Kaiji because they recognize Kaiji as a good man for refusing to take a bigger cut, and knows that he's going to find a way to get them their money back.

And then Kaiji's back in the real world for a while, although apparently the Teiai Group has enough resources to have men in black shadow these debtors. Man, the Teiai Group are really sadists, huh? I wouldn't think that it's particularly cost-effective for them to actually spend so much resources to keep track of manual labourers. We get a scene where Kaiji scares a bunch of thieves with his rejoined fingers... and that's a bit of a "what" moment from me. The scars aren't even that visible! Is this censored in some way from the manga that Kaiji is adapted from? Did Kaiji actually have finger stumps or something?

Whatever the case, though, after realizing that none of the casinos around are going to have the big jackpot payout he wants, Kaiji ends up meeting a random old man, Sakazaki Koutarou (a.k.a. the monk dude from the opening), who brings him into an illegal gambling den. A bit too convenient, but hey, video game logic! And episode 9 ends with a huge shot of the "Man-Eating Bog", the ultimate pachinko machine.

Kaiji S02E07-08 Review: Fixed Dice

Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 7: Magic Dice;  Episode 8: Retribution

I'm covering two episodes in one go because of how closely-knit these two are. No real idea how I'm going to do subsequent episodes of Kaiji. I'll alternate between the two-episode and one-episode format as is more convenient, in any case.

Anyway, we start off episode seven with a huge,  huge focus on Otsuki, who basically thinks that whatever the case is regarding whether Kaiji caught on to his game, he's just trying to become a legend. We get the bit of an introdump to the creation of Otsuki's magic custom job dice, which are three dice with only 4, 5 and 6 painted on them. Otsuki's going to use them only when they really need it, guaranteeing at least anything from a 4 and above with the off-chance of getting a 4/5/6 and triples, while Otsuki's goons will be responsible for swiping away the magic dice whenever they win. It's actually not a bad way to cheat, with the justification of three sides being visible at any point, and the fact that the dice doesn't actually guarantee a win.

And the entirety of the seventh episode is just mind-games with Otsuki trying to roll with regular dice, afraid that Kaiji has deduced how he cheats, and it's glorious to see him self-destruct as he keeps second-guessing and second-guessing himself. Does Kaiji know? If he does, why doesn't he make a move? Or is he just trying to psych him out? Is he oblivious? Does he not know the exact methods of the cheating? We get a hilarious bit where Otsuki ham-handedly tells Kaiji that he's going to get a 4-5-6 combo, and Kaiji refuses to break his poker face, whereas the 'ghost' or the 'spirit' of Otsuki suddenly pops out screaming bloody murder. And then Otsuki basically realizes that Kaiji's plan might be to use the sheer amount of money on the line to make it look like he's on to Otsuki's cheating methods, and that fact would deter Otsuki from actually cheating.

So for the final roll, Otsuki uses the cheating dice... at which point Kaiji suddenly reacts not when the dice have stopped moving, but the very moment before -- leaving episode 7 at a cliffhanger.

Episode 8 starts off with a logical segment of Otsuki and his goons beating the shit out of Kaiji, but he refuses to budge, shouting about how the foreman uses loaded dice. At this point, a different foreman comes in (wand the reason Kaiji raises so much fuss to gather people around is apparently to bank on this?) and checks... to find out that, yes, Otsuki's dice are actually modified. Otsuki stammers out some bullshit justification about how if he had the fixed dice to cheat,  he would've used them all the time... but then Kaiji explains to the huge crowd about the mechanics of the magic dice, as well as how he realizes just when Otsuki is going to use the loaded dice -- it's to see if he is watching the dice or watching Kaiji's eyes.

Otsuki also realizes that he was pushed over the edge to ensure a win due to Kaiji himself causing the foreman to really hate him with stuff like throwing a beer in his face, and all the abuse being given by Otsuki just causes him to want to give an extra heaping of said abuse onto Kaiji.

Otsuki then tries one desperate yell for a 'do-over', because it doesn't count, and then gets beer cans thrown in his face. Kaiji smirks and says about how "yeah, you can continue, but we'll also use our own special dice". Otsuki had assumed that, yeah, if everyone uses the 4-5-6 dice, they'll at least have a decent chance of winning fairly... but the way Kaiji words it, "using our own special dice", means that he's apparently prepared a dice with one painted on every face. And Otsuki just can't find any way out of this with him not really finding a leg to stand on or be 'fair'. The Forty-Fivers win the round... at which point Otsuki decides he's done for the day, but Kaiji, wanting him to feel ULTIMATE DESPAIR, says that his turn as dealer isn't done yet. Dealer deals twice, after all!

Pretty fun little story arc, for sure! I'm not sure if the honestly more lower-stakes of the dice arc makes it any worse than the first season's truly-high-stakes games, but I dunno -- the rivalry between Kaiji and Otsuki at least is really well-executed. And that's really where Kaiji shines. Not in the uniqueness of the story because this is basically the Espoir story with the specifics of the game and the victory swapped around, but in the execution. Good stuff.

Kaiji S02E06 Review: Pretending to Lose

Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 6: The Storm Arrives

Another simple, fast-paced episode that shows the actual game between Kaiji and Otsuki, and while you could dismiss is as the expected "Kaiji feigns confusion and defeat to fake out his enemy", it's still done pretty damn well. Again, it's a pretty fun usage of the loud, hammy narrator combined with the general expressiveness of the artwork that makes this work as well as it does.

And for all his huge talk about having revenge against Otsuki, the man is deathly calm and quiet, as the narrator himself notes. Kaiji notes that only Otsuki and his crony Isawa ever deals when the stakes are high, and when Kaiji attempts to get one of the others to deal, they panic and leave the game, making it a simple Kaiji-vs-Otsuki match. Oh, and Otsuki's two cronies are there too. And after working up the crowd... Kaiji passes the chance of being a dealer, in a way to goad the crowd.


But then after all the huge speech about how he's going to bet huge amounts of money, Kaiji bets a mere 20K, which was even part of the old limit, causing widespread confusion. Isawa deals a 4/5/6, and Kaiji loses double of that money. Kaiji then wagers 1K, and wins that round, but at this point the tension and the showmanship is basically gone and people are dispersing, with Otsuki and his cronies baffled and mocking Kaiji for pussying out after all the huge talk he's made.

But then we get a flashback of Kaiji telling the Forty Fivers that he plans on losing pretty badly -- losing 20K to 40K, because that's what the Foreman will try to do, to crush him. Kaiji wants to pretend to go deep into the hole, and it's at that point that his buddies should join in. And it's interesting that while in-universe the silent, dumbstruck Kaiji does look like a desperate, numb man, we don't have the flowery descriptions of "THIS IS LIKE A QUICKSAND, DRAGGING HIM IN, INTO AN ABYSS OF DESPAIR" which really clues the audience that, no, Kaiji dicking around with small change is just a ruse.

Otsuki then tells Kaiji to fuck off because he's ruined the mood, prompting Kaiji to bet all of his money in, the full 52K. This piques Otsuki and the rest of the room's interest... and especially when Kaiji's team suddenly shuffle in and everyone bets their full wage, rising the total bet against Otsuki to be 507K. Time for the turnaround play next episode!

I think I may have to start doing two-episode reviews so I can actually talk about events that happen and not just make these a recap. Kaiji is a great show to watch episode-by-episode, being pretty tense and such, but not an easy one to review.

Kaiji S02E05 Review: Preparations

Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 5: Abuse & Perseverance

I accidentally uploaded the review for episode 22 (which I completed individually) before episode 5! Whoops, working while sleep deprived -- not a good thing!

So a good chunk of this episode is just Kaiji and the Forty-Fivers sort of just forming a group together and preparing for their eventual reprisal against Otsuki, which includes them fasting, and rationing the meager peanuts that they have. I guess it's a lot easier to fast and ignore all the tempting yakitori and beer when you have friends that suffer alongside you? It's not actually stated by the narration, but I feel that this time around it's conveyed nicely by them going "hmm!" with each other.

There's a brief subplot in the first half of the story where Kaiji meets Ishida's son -- which you might remember from the first season as the old man from the Espoir who died in the building game, and we get a brief recap. Also, Ishida Junior is a pampered little shit who was the cause of Ishida Senior going into the building game in the first place, and he totally deserves to be punched in the face by Kaiji! Kaiji tells Ishida Jr. that he's the exact polar opposite of his father. His father knew he was a loser, but tried his best anyway, whereas Ishida Jr blames everyone except for himself. And he apparently fakes being sick to spend as much time in the infirmary and skip out on work. He ends up spending the rest of this episode sort of being the doubter, observing Kaiji's team from a distance and going "the fools!" all the time.

Otsuki, meanwhile, begins to bully around the Forty Fivers, giving them extra chores, and at one point trying to goad Kaiji into eating the fancy food that he and his cronies are eating in the guise of apologizing, when it's actually to tempt them into failing. Kaiji splashes Otsuki in the face with beer, which is hilarious -- and then we get the ABUSE montage where the Forty Fivers' life are turned into extra hell. Nothing physical other than that near-accident with the construction equipment, but their already shitty life being even more contemptible is actually pretty well-shown.

We also briefly see a short scene with one Kurosaki Yoshihiro, who's apparently Tonegawa's replacement in the Teiai group, and he's watching Kaiji intently, presumably to set up the next game.

We then flash-forwards to three months later, where Ishida Junior and Otsuki are all surprised that the Forty-Fivers manage to make their meager funds last until they've paid their debts to Otsuki, and have achieved their full salary -- with a hilarious bit of all of them counting the money in front of Otsuki's face. And with these funds, Kaiji basically plans to strike now, where there are more spectators than usual (necessary for his eventual plan to expose Otsuki's cheating), as well as eventually goading Otsuki to lift the gambling limit. We don't actually see the gambling just yet, but it's definitely a well-done buildup episode.

Kaiji S02E04 Review: The Cheating Game

Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 4: Strike Clues

So after Kaiji's big loss in the previous episode, we get a bit of an unexpected timeskip to one month later, which I suppose ties into the whole bit about how the system of this place revolves all around monthly paydays. Kaiji finds himself as part of the "Forty-Fivers", people who are so in debt that they only get 45k of the currency there due to having half of their payday paid towards the foreman.

And this episode makes some really great usage of the narrator, who says in his usual bombast and describes how Kaiji's mental state at this point is basically "fuck it", as he thinks about how getting out of this place is an unachievable dream and trying to think up of justifications about how trying to get the one-day pass is kind of pointless in the first place. Great narration there! We also learn about the sick bay, where everyone who gets sick tended to get so sick that they die  because medicine is also something they need money to pay for -- a bit of a neat bit of worldbuilding and just how fucked-up this little quasi-Illuminati organization is.

Meanwhile, Kaiji reads up on Miyoshi's little dice statistics, and realizes one thing -- Otsuki always hits it big on specific points in the game where it's the most tense, and always when he's in-between two of his cronies. Kaiji quickly figures that Otsuki is cheating in one way or another, but also notes that the cheating is just 'hit big', and not always the triple or the 4/5/6 combo that he used to beat Kaiji. Now Kaiji knows that Otsuki is cheating, but it's not just enough for Kaiji to expose Otsuki. He wants to utterly destroy him (and profit, preferably -- still a gambling anime, after all), and to this end he makes up a team out of the Forty-Fivers. I don't think this is going to be quite as tense as the Espoir group, since we don't even really get the names of anyone other than Miyoshi. Great speech to rile up these losers by Kaiji -- something that's similar to what we've seen in the first season, but a neat little scene nonetheless.

And the episode basically just closes with Kaiji, having his allies, gathering what meager funds they have and planning to eventually take down their enemy, the Foreman Otsuki. Overall, again, definitely a well-executed episode and one that really makes great usage of Kaiji's speeches and the narrator to really build up the anticipation. That's what makes Kaiji really fun to watch, honestly -- the story is unbelievably simple, and this particular dice game arc is even formulaic. But the way it's executed hypes the simple story up so much that it transcends what it otherwise would've been. 

Kaiji S02E03 Review: The Cycle of Winning and Losing

Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 3: Piece of Luck

Kind of the sort of episode you expect from the beginning of a game in a Kaiji story, really. We get Kaiji starting to get in the grove of things, "infusing the dice with excitement" and shit like that. But then the stakes get higher as Foreman Otsukiand his minion (Iwasa?) suddenly bet 40K of their currency, which would totally bankrupt Kaiji if he loses, and, in regular Kaiji fashion, would put the man in debt hell, with him losing half of his salary if he loses this.

Kaiji quickly figures out that everyone in the group other than the fellow newcomer and dude-drawn-with-a-nice-face Miyoshi are all against him, and as all the zawa-zawa builds up, Kaiji decides to throw in big, getting a huge clean sweep during his first round that he plays as dealer, getting back from the brink. During the second round, Otsuki and Isawa bet the maximum amount of 20K once more, which, of course, honestly feels fishy -- it's a bit silly that Kaiji doesn't at least suspect the foreman of trying to rig the game (regardless of whether he does or not), but eh, we wouldn't have a story otherwise.

We get a pretty tense sequence of events where Kaiji straight-up fails to get a valid roll, with statistics showing that there's a 87.5% of getting a valid roll (two or more equals, plus the special ones) in three rolls... and then Kaiji ends up getting a six, with Kaiji absolutely jubilant and mocking Otsuki as he gives a speech about willpower. (It's a bit hypocritical on Kaiji's part considering he's saying things which are more or less in the same vein a while ago.) But then both Otsuki and Isawa get triple on their respective dice rolls, beating Kaiji and turning him back into bankrupcy and even negative.

A bit of a fun buildup to knock Kaiji down, and sets up Otsuki as the villain of the arc. Is the game rigged? Is he cheating? Overall, a nice bit of buildup. 

Kaiji S02E02 Review: Getting the Groove

Kaiji, Season 2, Episode 2: Rules of the Game

We finally get the gambling segment open, with a brief little exposition about the rules of the gambling nights of this workplace. The game this time around is Chinchirorin, otherwise known as Cee-lo, a classic Chinese/Japanese gambling game with three dice. As with most Kaiji games, we do get a fair bit of explanation and exposition in regards to the game -- Otsuki explains the rules, where players roll three dices, and two of them must be the same for the roll to count, with the odd die out being the 'score' taken. Three mismatched dice are counted as a loss (up to a maximum of three), with several special rolls -- 4/5/6 doubles your win, 1/2/3 doubles your loss, having all three dice with the same number triples the bet, with triple 1 giving you five times. Oh, and you can't have your dice fall out. Otsuki also notes the three special rules of "underground Chinchirorin", where the dealer's advantage is eliminated, anyone can pass being a dealer, and a dealer can only deal for two rounds. Again, all of these are nice to know, but aren't exactly relevant yet. 

It's a fun little setup, with Kaiji musing to himself that these people are likely to be "nobodies" compared to the bigwigs he's taken down in the first season. The first couple of rounds are basically shown to just be basic dice-rolling and pretty much nothing, with Kaiji getting some easy wins -- but the episode actually shows off just how bland the low-stakes gambling is, with the money being moved around not really being super exciting, with Kaiji himself acknowledging that the only real way to win big is to be the dealer. 

And, well, the stakes are basically too small for Kaiji, who ends up being numbed to all this. And as a gambling addict, it's pretty damn interesting to see this being explored, with the small 100-currency deals being more boring than anything. We get a fun well-animated bit with Kaiji describing winning big and losing big as being equivalent to burning with flames or freezing, which is actually pretty neatly animated, whereas at the moment Kaiji's just sort of numb to everything. Hell, he even passes as a dealer...

But when the dealer position passes to the nice-looking-man Miyoshi, Kaiji ends up throwing in a huge chunk of his funds, just to get the 'groove' of gambling. And, of course, despite Miyoshi rolling a one, Kaiji ends up rolling one of the worst possible rolls in the game, a set of 1, 2 and 3, meaning he loses double. This, of course, leads to Kaiji suddenly being quite literally electrified back to life, because, well, this is the thrill of gambling and all that. Overall, it's a very expositionary episode, but it does what it does well -- explore the mindset of someone that's truly addicted to gambling and just the sort of thrills he's searching for.