It all leads up to this.
Note: I don’t think I have to remind everyone that there are MASSIVE GIANTASSFUCK SPOILERS ahead, do I?
Episode grade: 9.3 tissue boxes out of 10.
Overall series grade: 8.7 out of 10.
The epic conclusion of Tissue Box Raffle has arrived. Kaiji and Mr. Chairman have both drawn blank lots. It is now the Chairman’s turn. As always, he is very deliberate with how he draws.
Then the unthinkable happens for Kaiji: the Chairman draws the winning lot.
Kaiji: YOU LOSE
Kaiji cries out the most manliest tears to date as he realizes his left hand will soon comprise of only one finger. The Chairman (possibly as a form of mock sympathy…watching this show RAW with little knowledge of Japanese is a challenge) places the winning lot in Kaiji’s coat pocket. He also reveals his name finally: Shodo Hyodo Kazutaka (it sounded like Shodo at first…whatevers).
Say goodbye to your fingers
Kaiji is now 20 million+ yen, one ear, and four fingers short by sunrise. He and his buddies realize something: the winning lot drawn by the Chairman was folded when it previously wasn’t! Oh snape, he cheated! He also found the lot he planted inside the box except it was all crumpled up. The Chairman knew?
Kaiji remains beside himself as he is driven to a hospital to have his severed parts reattached. He replays the game in his mind, thinking about what everything could have been if he won.
Final thoughts: I suspected the Chairman was going to use some foul play and I was right. Then again, Kaiji shouldn’t feel too bad since he tried to cheat as well (I guess things evened out). Then again, I was surprised he didn’t say anything when the winning lot was drawn. I knew right away that the thing was folded when it shouldn’t have been but I guess Kaiji didn’t think of that at the time.
This was an entertaining ride (JUST LIKE YOUR—don’t go there) and I’m glad to have watched this. The first few episodes did move pretty slowly, and the voice acting at times came off as dull, but the suspense factor was consistent and things picked up towards the end. Production was very good as well, with good art and character designs that made what was an oddly-drawn manga into something visually pleasing. The art from the manga can look ugly but credit should be given to character designer Takada Haruhito and the rest of the artists at Madhouse for making it look a lot better. The storyline was good, as well, as this series explored the aspects of not just gambling, but also how humans act and behave. This series went deeper than Akagi; Akagi was mainly just mahjong but Kaiji was about games, human nature, and perseverance when everything seems to fall apart. Kaiji had a lot of balls with his gambles (especially during Restricted Rock, Paper Scissors and during E-Card).
As for the ending, I was expecting more. I was hoping Kaiji was going to win and be able to unleash whoop-ass on the Chairman but that doesn’t look like it will happen.
Some good news: there WILL be a second season of Kaiji, based off of the second Kaiji manga. There is still no date for the second season but expect to see it in at least one year.
Other notes: I didn’t realize there was a Tissue Box Raffle reference during the end of the ED, where you see Kaiji smoking his cigarette amidst a background of Furuhata, ANDOUUUUUU, Sahara, Endou, others…notice the piece of paper with the circle on it?
Also, don’t fucking plagiarize; if you’re going to post my reviews from here word-for-word on places like youtube (you know who you are), fucking ask me first.
But whatever, hope you enjoyed.
April 1, 2008 at 8:31 pm |
Great review. Thanks for your effort and thoughts on this series.
I hate to say this, but anything put up on a blog is scooped up by hundreds of “spam blog” scrapers and spiders and reposted … many times, word-for-word. There’s a site out there that takes my blog posts about the Stock Markets, strips my name out of it and reposts it with a different authors name.
Kinda the way it is I suppose. Butt hay, I suppose the anime companies would say that about us who watch fan-subs. (~.^)
Ja neh!
=^.^=
April 1, 2008 at 8:43 pm |
^^ Thanks for the praise.
And interesting note about that site; there was one that was linking to one of my earlier reviews.
April 1, 2008 at 9:34 pm |
Kaiji would have been found a fraud too if he called the big boss. All things considered, he is still ok (as in not dead). Await for him to get back on his feet (all parts attached) and ‘move forward’.
*btw, Who’s scanlating the manga? I think I remember them doing the first volume of kaiji, but no more. Does anyone know?
April 2, 2008 at 2:48 am |
I struck again! How can someone who watches copyright violating bootleg videos, ie. felony crime, complain that he’s being plagiarized? Check out the word for word post on Youtube . . . No asking first either . . . Call me Chairman Shodo Kazutaka . . . heh heh heh . . . No one is scanlating the manga, the project was abandoned, and hopefully the last two episodes of the anime will be translated by Triad soon enough . . . also are you not plagiarizing the episodes by just posting about what happened within them? You are hardly reviewing the episodes, these are more episode summaries with extensive screenshooting . . . keep blogging away anyways . . .
April 2, 2008 at 10:08 am |
IIRC, the scanlator stopped after the first chapter.
Raws of all volumes so far (up to 12 of the current series, number 3) are available on torrent sites and such, it just takes a little searching.
Not a spoiler, but don’t expect any retribution against the chairman anytime soon; it’s pretty much blueballs all the way.
April 2, 2008 at 12:58 pm |
lolz, u do have a point
P, I tried summarizing and reviewing at the same time in the past but I could never figure out a way to summarize things concisely. I am not going to ignore your point, but I’m not really posting these shots and saying “look at this anime that I did all by myself,” while passing it off as my own work. The source material is not my own work, yes, but the thoughts I have about it are my own work.
If anything, the stuff I mentioned about the plagiarism should really just be taken in jest. I only brought it up since plagiarism serios business in the field of journalism (which I’m studying in school).
Thank you for your input.
April 2, 2008 at 7:15 pm |
I am pretty sure that people, who cannot get ahold of the anime especially with English subtitling, come here to get the first extensive description of what happened. This is the first site to post always. Maybe that says something about the status of your social life, either that or how good Kaiji is . . .
Ahh, journalism . . . plagiarism is hardly the biggest ethical concern that there should be. I think David Simon’s recent criticisms are pretty condemning. (Where you studying? Columbia, NYU, USC Annenberg, UF, Cal Berkeley, etceteras . . .) As is this indictment of bloggers . . . http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Blog
April 2, 2008 at 8:23 pm |
Well, more because of how I felt about the show…
There weren’t many blogs about this show so I figured there was *some* demand from those who wanted to know what happened and such.
And plagiarism isn’t so big a concern, now that I realize. Fraudulent reporting is much more of a concern; look up stuff Jayson Blair, Janet Cooke, and Stephen Glass for instances of journalists writing out of their asses. It can work in college for that five-page paper, but not so much in real life…