Fifth episode

He's not taking part in one of those Saw games.

Kaiji's group has assembled a good 5 stars.Although they have 4 more to go to accomplish their mission, Kaiji and his trustworthy partners know they're on a roll after their last triumph. The tide has turned in their favour and they totally want in on that!

Antagonists aren't impervious to za-wa za-was either.

It has been established that Kaiji won't blindly hurl himself into a gamble that will lead to an unknown outcome. He's realised that things aren't to be left for luck alone and so he needs a strategy to assemble more star pendants with minimal risk. You'll always see Kaiji plotting strategy after strategy. It almost drives home the point that Kaiji's purpose in life is to think up the ultimate killer strategy to win in life.

That'd make for a cool versus screen.

Slamming money on a table is one of this series' choice staples.

However, things don't always go so smoothly. Kaiji needs to go through rough times before realising that his objectives are harder than it looks. So what does he do?

You'll lose a life, I mean star, if you fall down there.

It seems that he saw through the folly of going head-to-head at the gamble of restricted rock paper scissors. What if someone used their war funds to buy a large number of gesture cards, to the point that it became possible to predict in a more accurate manner their opponents' cards? That's what Kaiji does and soon a card buy-out ensues. The struggling threesome sets out to buy all the rocks, so they can challenge opponents in possession of scissors.

I've seen something like this in a Castlevania game.

However, something is amiss. Nervous glances at the scoreboard reveals that the scissors are being depleted much more quickly than the remaining suits. At one point they bandy among themselves the fact that scissors are being depleted two at a time!

Kaiji's partners become a little edgy about the whole situation and rush off in despair. The unwelcome emotion's ugly clutches are laid on Kaiji for a moment and he ponders about blindly challenging someone randomly in an attempt to get an extra star in utter disregard to his own carefully thought out plan. Reason knocks at the last moment though, and he settles down.

Just because you're a suffering pariah, it doesn't mean you can't taunt others

Andou and Furuhata don't come to their senses and are challenged by suspicious-looking henchmen of another card-buying group. They lose their respective battles, then realise they had been marked out as sitting ducks by the other group's leader: Kitami.

Kaiji has a plan to help them and Andou dissents. Now that's new.

What did he do? Buy out all the papers. Simple as that. Now it's up to Kaiji to take stock of the situation and mount a counterattack. Since time is unforgivable in this context, he should do it most quickly and on his own, as his comrades continually prove time and time again to be more of a burden than a useful addition to his cunning skills. They even threaten to stall him by refusing to challenge Kitami over the remainder of their stars, even though that a win would mean they would move closer than ever to their 9 star goal. It's not until Kaiji slams his 10 million wad on the table in an offer for Kitami to take it should he fail to convince his own spineless comrades that the plot gets a kick in the rear to get moving. Everything draws to a climatic bout between the two quick-witted leaders and Kaiji does come up the winner again. To boot, he outsmarts Kitami yet again by having him pay Kaiji to accept his remaining cards, else he would disclose to everyone that Kitami's cards were all papers, eventually condemning him to an earlier defeat in the gambling hall. Kitami takes stock of his dire situation and coughs up the required amount of money, then move one. No more Ken Masters-lookalikes to entertain us fighting games fans.

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