Chuukan Kanriroku Tonegawa Episode 24

I first learned about the chairman's obsessions with unusual forms of entertainment when he assigned Tonegawa the task of coming up with Restricted Rock-Paper-Scissors. This time, the chairman makes things more simple by outright telling Tonegawa to get on with implementing "Human Derby", a new gamble involving debtors, prepared only for the moneyed leader's amusement. The actual gamble isn't shown so as not to rob the show of its light-hearted feel, but anyone acquainted with Kaiji already knows what it is. One of the gambles of Kaiji season 1, it takes place at night in front of a huge bourgeois crowd, but Yamazaki is off enjoying an evening reserved all for himself. When he first received updates of this mysterious event, he immediately thought, "I have got to see this." I mean, how can you go wrong with a gamble specifically thought up by the chairman? Well, in some respects, his ideas sometimes fall short of sensible expectations. Yamazaki eventually does come close to finding out what it is, but his cell phone runs out of battery millisecond before his coworkers can tell him and the suspense continues.

A group of black suits has gathered for one of their peer's wedding. Tonegawa is present as well, but it's soon revealed that predictabe wedding parties are the bane of his wits. The guests do as they please, including showing a short movie about the groom's past, revealing unknown information about his origins, much to Tonegawa's surprise. He sets out to stick around longer, until the wedding photo shoot starts. In a fateful turn of events, two unpredicatble things happen. One is that the black suits elicit some coordenated action with their arms and legs, suggesting that they had planned in advance to form a flash mob. The other is Tonegawa's misjudging the effect of their efforts after noticing that the remainder of the crowd is warming up to it. Tonegawa acts defeated at first, but soon resigns to the overall cheerful mood and surprises everyone by walking away as if to retreat from the scene, only to moonwalk back to join the fun.

The very act of trying to relate an otherwise somber series like Kaiji with the upbeat tone of Chuukan Kanriroku Tonegawa would normally be taken as an exercise in futility. When Nobuyuki Fukumotto decided to do it anyway, i knew that i was in for some treat. All that was left was to check to see what he would come up with. At first I couldn't imagine how this could ever be reconciled with the bitter and tragic tone permeating all over Kaiji season 1. And it still can't, that's what season 2 was for, to smoothen out the edges and make the series more relatable by giving it a more human side. Chuukan Kanriroku Tonegawa is just the perfect touch to connect some loose ends about Tonegawa's background with the main story featured in the series. The end result is an artful production, which will have me coming back to rewatch it time and again. Just like the first two seasons of Kaiji.

Chuukan Kanriroku Tonegawa Episode 23

I thought that this episode was going to be about Tonegawa just attending a high school reunion, getting some insights from his encounter with his former class mates, and rushing back home to implement the ideas that he concocted in his head after being inspired by the event. Well, it's not. This episode delves into Tonegawa's past, where he used to be mildly tormented by a couple of silly kids out to have fun. Turns out that they haven't changed much, which causes Tonegawa to become frustrated. He honestly expected grown-up people to behave quietly and demure. Instead, the same boisterous bunch prove themselves to still have it in them to be loud and playful. Tonegawa chalks it up to successful people being usually quiet while people who didn't make it big tend to still be immature, as if they still have something to prove. In a way, this has kind of been my observation as well. When you're in your late thirties and with a family, you don't feel the need to be overly extroverted and expansive as when you were twenty five. Our hero suddenly has a realisation, taking time off to reminisce about a girl making advances towards him and how he just jilted her in a way that most people wouldn't like to disclose. In the end, all is well though. The school reunion ends with the students taking part in a choir, with Tonegawa deftly tickling the ivories as his contribution to the nostalgic evening.

Now we are into the Otsuki part. He's again on another 1-day furlough with his trusted companion -Numakawa. It seems like that they will just go about their carefully planned day without anything in the way. But then it happens. Our foreman came down with a cold, advising Numakawa to go on without him and he needs to take care of his status ailment. He puts into action a curious plan: first he gathers a bunch of ingredients at a nearby food mart, rents a furnished flat and gets down to prepare a meal specifically deisgned to help him get over. The repast is enough to send him into mirthful fits, and he proceeds to eat more than originally planned. To wrap up such a successful meal, he goes to bed with some sort of comfort blanket, employing his own special technique to make the most of it and send the agents of his illness packing: The Otsuki Roll. This consists of him grabbing both edges of the blanket and slowly rolling from side to side to wrap himself in. Thus suitably rolled up, he finally allows himself to drift into sleep, the comfort and preparations for his night's rest taking care of the rest. Nobody, not even a petty strain of virus, is going to stop Otsuki from enjoying his 1-day excursions, which means that he still manages to catch up with Numakawa and spend time with him as promised.

Otsuki may be a bit too concerned about his health, but it's understandable once you understand the nature of his 1-day furloughs: to enjoy to the max the brief reprieve from work that he obtained from all his hard work (and profits from his side business and underground chinchirorin). Being ill at a time like this is akin to coming down with a serious illness on your holidays. Otsuki manages to successfully handle this mishap while simulataneously have a ball of a time thanks to his culinary skills and homemaking skills. Now i have to try the Otsuki roll technique to get more cosy and warm on cold nights.

Chuukan Kanriroku Tonegawa Episode 22

This episode picks up where the previous one left off, though it features first Otsuki. This may be on account of people being more curious about the honcho than Tonegawa overall (though we're just as much enthusiastic about our charismatic executive). Otsuki tries to strike a deal with Odagiri, but the latter is suspicious of his plump peer's ulterior motivations. Seems that Odagiri is onto Otsuki trying to pry into his movie exhibition business, but Otsuki's intentions aren't so obvious at this point. He tries to win Odagiri over with a dinner complete with alcoholic beverages to allay his suspicions and make him more cooperative to his proposal. It's never revealed what it actually, but the audience can gather that it's related to a part of the profits yielded from Odagiri's sideways undertaking. Either that or outright deception. The money-hungry foreman is on the brink of cementing the deal, even getting their black-suited overseer as the witness to their joint partnership, but falls just short when it comes to light that he had never watched "Once upon a time in America". His unsuspecting partner insists that he watch this NOW, conveniently showing that on his tablet computer. The only problem is that the feature is longer than their remaining time on the surface. The future of their deal is left uncertain as both are driven back to their old familiar world.

As for Tonegawa, he manages to get ahold of a crucial piece of evidence when one of his trusted men notices a picture of a cell phone on one of the past posts. Using photoshop cs6, the brightnness of the image is increased until the reflection on the mobile screen is clear enough to be discerned by all onlookers. Turns out it has been Ebitani all along, and Tonegawa conveniently happens to spot him just outside their headquarters. Tonegawa and his team quickly descend to where the lone wolf is standing, and proceed to confront him about his spiteful actions. In true Phoenix Wright fashion, Ebitami confesses his misdeed along with his motivation in an effusion of perceived slights. This is all for nought though as Tonegawa has him sedated right away and locked up. However, he isn't taken to a regular cell, it's more like a studio apartment outfitted with all the wonders of modern technology: a plasm tv set, a blu-ray player, a computer etc. All part of Tonegawa's design to allow for the stray sheep to amend his ways and start tweeting for Teiai instead of his selfish purposes, the condition for his parole being the threshold of 100000 followers. In the end, we see him exiting his comfort prison, presumably successful in his duty.

Chuukan Kanriroku Tonegawa Episode 21

Tonegawa and one of his trusted companions find out that a hate twitter account has been taking jabs at Teiai and garnering a great deal of followers as a bonus. They get lost trying to understand the pattern of the passive aggressive posts and why they command such a huge amount of followers while the Teiai official twitter account has trouble drawing any attention from the outside public. Tonegawa tries his hand at this, but it turns out that people hooked on social media are only after silly and inane stuff. Tonegawa eventually happens upon a solution that hadn't been on any of his previous mind maps: after noticing how the troll account makes heavy use of anime characters and gifs of cute felines, he sets out to watch real anime episodes, making notes of their effectiveness and appeal to draw in people from a variety of backgrounds.


   While our guy is busy implementing what he's learning from his heroic decision (it's rather discomfiting for a man like Tonegawa to watch animes and look up gifs of kitties on the internet), their mysterious rival's ever increasing gaggle of followers seems to be unending, always surpassing the Teiai account's by about a ratio of 3 to 1.


 However, the latest tweet by their nemesis comes with a surprising give-away: what appears to be some minor criticism of the cafeteria miso soup ends up associating the man behind the hate account with someone actually from inside the company.....
 
In the next segment of this episode, we cut back to Otsuki and his customary quest for money (perica, the legal tender of their underground labour camp) and delicacies. The foreman of group C, Odagiri, had been pestering him for a while after dabbing in entrepreneurship and setting up a snack and drinks stand, thus threatening Otsuki's monopoly. Now he's driving his marks customers away from his infernally addictive game of underground chinchororin. Otsuki's curiosiy leads him to a room held in darkness, where scads of labourers are arranged before a small bright screen positioned on a crate some way in front of them.


 Odagiri hovers over to where Otsuki is standing, proceeding to explain that he's providing a new form of entertainment in their otherwise drab work environment: showing downloaded films on his tablet! As there isn't much else to do on labour camp thousands of feet beneath the surface, the idea quickly finds a lot of purchase, and Odagiri is willing to bank on it. Otsuki decides to do something to regain the upper hand in the underground business arena, even going so far as taking a 1-day furlough at the same time as Odagiri. The episode ends on a cliff hanger, with the next episode hopefully expounding whatever came of Tonegawa's search for the traitorous insider...

Chuukan Kanriroku Tonegawa Episode 20

A mysterious car drives through dark city streets towards an underground casino. As it turns out, the onrushing vehicle contains our beloved title character while the casino is part of the Teiai conglomerate and in charge of its inner operations is Ichijou, who is also responsible for guarding the casino's major draw card: a pachinko machine named the Bog. It should probably be explained that this episode is a nod to Kaiji season 2, which I couldn't review for personal reasons, although i did watch all the episodes. I'm thinking of doing this again now as this series has an extremely high replay value. Ichijou and his enchanted casino were also in Kaiji season 2 and were a big part of it, with Kaiji having to take both of them on in an epic contest against the Bog. Here it is again, only this time is Tonegawa who is up against it. The odds aren't as stacked up against the Teiai's executive as they were against Kaiji. Tonegawa has a very easy time handling the forest of pins, the paddle flippers and the demonic triple trays (you'd have to know the Bog yourself to know what I mean), effortlessly pushing ball after ball to the desired destination. Ichijou puts up a façade of indignation mixed with frustration, but Tonegawa easily sees through the veneer of pretense. It doesn't matter in the end as Tonegawa predictably wins the mock battle and calmly picks his way out of the caisno with its coveted prize under his belt. At least everyone can safely sleep as no harm was brought upon anyone involved (the casino was a subsidiary of Teiai after all).

Chuukan Kanriroku Tonegawa Episode 19

A huge fateful event has just befallen all of Tonegawa's team and  befuddles the black suits with its distracting properties. With the departure of some of the group members, new slots are open for grabs on the team, and the positions are quickly filled up with Teiai's latest arrivals, one of which happens to be...a woman. The men in black are dazed with their female counterpart, and it just happens that she seems perfect in a number of ways, not the least of which is to provide a feminine touch to the drab work environment. Predictably, she isn't spared the romantic passes that her coworkers were bound to make, but nothing comes of it. She just wants to be left mostly alone and go back to being a young woman with something to prove to the Powers That Be. The plot shifts from her to the men's reactions, as her mobile starts ringing an uncomfortable number of times, strongly hinting at the presence of a male interloper to her affections. They start to come to grips with this distressing reality, until it's revealed that she had been talking to a female friend. This discovery served to rekindle the men's spirits again, giving them a measure of hope for what the future might unfold. When she pops back into the story again, it is to serve beverages for Tonegawa and the Chairman, who has a new admirer who makes no bones about making Tonegawa jealous. It takes some time before Tonegawa picks up on his rival's strategy, but he finally concedes that his post as the second-in-command at Teiai is at stake and the fight is on.

Chuukan Kanriroku Tonegawa Episode 18

My fancy for this episode was piqueted right at the start as Tonegawa gets the result f his physical. It's another of these episodes that deals with Tonegawa's inner troubles and how he goes about solving them, which usually results in hilarity. This time his quest for better health leads to a drastic change in his feeding and physical habits in an attempt to cut back on fatty acids, sugars and other vices common to the modern man. Sometimes it's episodes like this that turn out to have an extremely high replay value, mainly on account of its capacity to take the viewer on grand flights of fancy. It's one of those delightfully relatable episodes, easily one of the best.

Doushita soon learns of Tonegawa's intentions and sets out to support him by clinging to him like an old sibling afraid that his fraternal peer might get hurt. From a minor annoyance it soon developed into an unpleasant undercurrent of uncalled-for interventions, not the least of which is Tonegawa's sneaking into a toilet stall to savour a cutlet dish. Doushita pops by with the sole intention of helping his leader and stop him from going down the slippery road that is giving in to temptation. It eventually works out for the best though, as Tonegawa leaves the doctor's office a much healthier man after his second appointment. But his impressions of Doushita have taken a hit, and unlike his previous health status, the fix for this isn't medical attention.

The second part of the episode takes us back again to Otsuki and his exploits during his next one-day furlough. This time he notices someone he had never met before, but whose culinary tastes strangely align with his. In addition to the coincidental opinions, they also happen to visit the same eateries at the same time. In case you're wondering, that's abnormal. Chance encounters with an acquaintance are rare, but they seem to happen with comedic regularity. After taking one last trip to one of his favourite culinary haunts, Otsuki notices his mysterious friend again. Everything goes as expected except when he orders chilli sauce and quail eggs as topping. Our rotund protagonist is clearly taken aback from this unlikely combination and starts to wonder what sort of folly would drive one man to conduct such an experiment. His curiosity gets the better of him and he decides to add the novel combination to his repertoire. The result blows his mind, causing to him to drift into childlike feelings of whimsical wonder and awe. Back at work, he reflects on this sequence of events and thinks to himself who was his nameless friend might be.

Chuukan Kanriroku Tonegawa Episode 17

This episode takes place almost entirely within the confines of the mighty Teiai office building. That would involve the usual black suits and Tonegawa commanding them as expected. But things aren't going as peachy as usual; the winds of change have started blowing through the usually quiet corporate environment and most of the members down on the lower end of the hierarchy ladder are feeling uneasy about the potential changes. The practical upshot of this shift is that demotion is a  nigh possibility. No one is safe from the dreaded effects of labour reassignment. To be honest, it actually takes a long time into the episode to get wind of why the Teiai work transfers are so feared. Best i could gather is that if you don't fit in well wherever you're assigned, they try to stick you in a new slot so you won't make much of an impact if you screw up. Problem is, you're reassigned to a low-skilled post that no one else would normally want to take. Guess where is the job that no one wants to go? It's on the southernmost island of Japan, roughly on the same latitude as hawaii. that makes it a tropical paradise, and you're being shipped off there to actually earn a living. yes, i wish i could go in their place and bask in all of the wonderfulness that is life by the seaside. Too bad I don't work at Teiai. According to Tonegawa, he at one time caught something strange in his chest back when he was deployed at the same area. His report reveals the offending entity to be a coral sea snake, couched in a brief personal account so as to warn the departing employees of the dangers of being careless in those parts. This still does little to intimidate me. I wish I could be among the individuals chosen to be transferred, even if it meant a half-demotion and risk of coral sea snake bites.