Otakuan

Kaiji Episode 3

This particular episode of Kaiji starts off where all good ideas do, at the men’s urinal. Yup, anything from marriage plans to raising abortion fund start at the urinal. But not this time, Kaiji and Furuhata are just taking a piss.

Turns out silly Furuhata gave one of his cards to Andou. You see, Andou goes and challenges someone to try to get a star for himself and screw over Kaiji and Furuhata. It doesn’t work. He loses and now they are down one card and a star.

But it’s fine. Kaiji has a plan. A relitively wise plan considering Kaiji doesn’t strike me as the educated type. He sends Furuhata and Andou to go find a guy with 8 cards while Kaiji goes to find stars to buy.

Kaiji’s star hunt goes poorly because it is far to early for people to begin selling, but the other two men complete their job successfully. A man with 5 stars has 8 cards. Now is where I feel I should explain Kaiji’s brilliant tactic.

This man follows the balance theory. He thrives on it. Which means that he has one card missing from rock and paper. So naturally he’s going to want to even it out by getting rid of one scissors too, you see?

Kaiji challenges him. Kaiji wins. Kaiji tries again. Kaiji loses. The man has now fallen into Kaiji’s trap. Since Kaiji has played the same card over and over again the man challenges him once more. You see, since Kaiji and Furuhata combined decks they have lots of paper.

Kaiji beats the man twice, earning him two more stars. Here is where I’m confused, Kaiji is out of cards…so…What can he do? Yes, buy some stars. But…This doesn’t leave much of a plot for the anime. Seriously. They buy some stars and then what? It’s over. Even if they lose stars there’s no way they can play to get them back either.

Tobaku Mokushiroku Kaiji Episode 2

Oh yeah, Kaiji just keeps getting better and better. I really am quite fond of the opening as well. If anyone knows where to find it, give up the link man. I’m a collector of good asian music and the opening definitely has that feeling of rebellion I’m so fond of.

Anyway, the episode starts by having the poor indebted smucks open envelope B. Inside said envelope s 3 stars. Now…I’m not sure which arc in Yugioh this reminds me of, but I’m totally getting a Yugioh vibe off this. I’m fairly certain it was like the Battle City tournament or something like that. Anyway, this old Yakuza fellow begins to explain the rules.

To get off the ship you need to use up all your cards and have three stars. He says he’s not going to answer anymore questions, not even to say what the money they borrowed is for. Then he gives this whole angry spiel about them being losers and they need to win…with great emphasis on ‘win’

Right, so, Kaiji wastes about then minutes sitting around when he’s approached by Funai. You know, the guy who borrowed 10 million right before Kaiji? Yeah, that guy. I call him fish lips for the rest of the episode. Dog face would also work, but anyway…

He convinces Kaiji that all he has to do it get a partner and rig it so that they use up all their cards but it’s a tie each time. He also explains that the war fund are used to buy stars off of people with more than three.

Kaiji, being the dumb trusting young fellow, that he is agrees to Funai ‘Fish lips’ plan. Not-so-lomg story short, Funai fucks Kaiji over and takes two of his stars. =/

Kaiji cries for at least a half an hour before he spots someone as desperate looking as him. It’s Furuhata, the guy that Kaiji co-signed for and the man who got him here in the first place. Kaiji runs after him. He ends up in a bathroom where all the losers hang out to cry. Pfft, at least Kaiji was a man and cried in public.

He drags Furuhata out of there and concocts a plan for them to work together. They need stars though. So they go into the bathroom and find a man with two stars and no cards. His name is Andou. So the episode ends with the threesome concocting a plan to collect nine stars and leave this boat with their lives.

Tobaku Mokushiroku Kaiji Episode 1

This is one of the animes in the Fall 2007 line-up I wasn’t intending on watching. Mainly because…Well, Kaiji’s chin could gut a man. Seriously, that is one of the pointiest anime chin’s I’ve ever seen. On a man at least. =/

But things never go as planned. I ended up watching it, and I stayed because it has a catchy opening song (“Mirai wa Bokura no Te no Naka” by Kaiji with Redbourn Cherries) and you know…giving things a try is worth it.

The art style is very unique, the thick lines used on the characters makes them look a lot more cartoony, but it definitely gives them emphasis.

The episode starts off by introducing Kaiji, a low-life with no job and that likes to play cards (much like myself). He gets his kicks out of vandalizing BMW’s and stealing the hood ornament as a treasure. However, one day a big brother sort of fellow shows up at his door and wishes to talk to Kaiji. Not wanting him to come in and see his pilfered hood ornament collection, Kaiji manages to talk the man into going out to talk. However…The BMW he vandalized earlier that day belonged to said big brother man.

OWN’D.

Anyway, this is where we learn a very valuable lesson you can apply to life. You see, Kaiji co-signed a loan for a past co-worker. Hopefully, you’re all smart enough to NOT do this. The co-worker disappeared, leaving Kaiji with the debt as his co-signer.

OWN’D.

Now the 300,000 that he borrowed had a 20% interest rate, and after 14 monthes of no payment that comes to 3.8 million yen.

(Kaiji is just having a crappy day.) OWN’D.

But there is hope. The man offers Kaiji a way to pay back this debt in one night. To board a ship and gamble it off. After some thinking Kaiji gets on the ship. Yet again, his war funds come with a fat interest fee (1.5% every 10 minutes). Finally, after picking the highest amount of 10 million yen, Kaiji learns exactly what sort of game he’s playing.

HIGH STAKES EXTREME ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS!

Not only was this pretty damn entertaining to watch, this was perhaps the funniest anime I’ve reviewed yet. I’m definitely waiting for episode 2.