Eighth episode

Andou's descent into greedy madness. Understandably, Kaiji is none too pleased with this grotesque change.

The eighth episode is so packed full of memorable moments that it becomes an exercise in futility trying to
describe them through a review drawn up by a simple mortal person. 

So you're talking back at me?

How to tame people with itchy fingers.

Andou backstabs the group for a second time.

Somehow, I can commiserate deeply with anyone bounding around for joy

With a heart full of the hatred which drove Kaiji's decision to step up and let everyone know that he was in possession of a buttload of cards, Kaiji exposes Funai's true intentions. That is, after Funai publicly dressed down a man nicknamed "four eyes" for listening to Kaiji's request to play. Turns out Funai had rigged the whole reshuffling act and was biding his time to gather even more stars. First he put a mark on scissors cards before handing them back to their rightful owner. Of course, he just gave scissors to people who had one card left, so Funai had booked himself a string of guaranteed wins. All he had to do is collect the spoils of his cunning sleight of hand. Lucky for the honest folks (if there was any) that Kaiji was quick enough to realise his rival's bamboozling move and point out to everyone that the reshuffling was a ruse for Funai to use up his remaining rocks by picking off opponents with one card left: invariably,a scissors card. Funai is unable to play anyone now out of distrust, so Kaiji demands they play one final death match with 5 stars at stake. Both Kaiji and Funai know who is to win since Funai had one rock remaining and Kaiji has all of the other cards which are still playable. Funai is reluctant to play (who wouldn't) and recalls that there is someone hiding somewhere, with three scissors cards, according to the scoreboard. He even wrenches out one of his own star pendant and offer to give it away if this certain someone was to show up and fight his remaining cards off with Funai. However, Kaiji is not in the least afraid of raining down on a despicable foe's parade and assures him that his attempts will bear no fruit as there was an earlier incident in which one of the black suits warned everyone of someone who tried to flush his remaining cards down a toilet. Since they weren't doffed the usual way, they didn't get tallied on the scoreboard's system.

The scene of this picture is both haunting and heart wrenching

Proper disposal of personal attire

A very few moments more and Funai slowly ambles forth to take on Kaiji's challenge. Turns out Kaiji made up his mind about being sent off to the dreaded other room for having an even number of cards. His group will hold an odd number of cards after they play Funai, so they can't finish their remaining cards off by playing themselves. Kaiji, as usual, offers to be sacrificed for the sake of his "friends". Yet, he places an astoundingly simple quest on their whiny shoulders before heading off to the gloomy compartment: they are supposed to use three star pendants to free him (they have 10 now). Simple as it seems, something happens to render the ties of true friendship asunder...

Kaiji seventh episode

Funai deftly dodges Kaiji's swivelling point blank  strike?!

We are approaching Kaiji's final standoff. The trio of struggling commoners is running out of options to

This quote has stayed with me for years.

acquire the remaining necessary star pendants to finish their ordeal and start over and Funai, the second main culprit for Kaiji's despondency is calling the shots now by drawing everyone's attention to himself with a decided speech. This he addresses to the candidates still on the main deck, those whose fate is hinging upon their will to fight, to risk being sent to the other room confined to a life of everlasting hard labour.

Funai, at long last, earns others' distrust after all his "suspicious antics"

Unforgiving zawa zawas.

That's it. They're afraid because the stakes are overwhelmingly cruel now. With few people left, they're unable to make the decisive move and challenge. They're not sure whether they'd rather wait for the contest to come to an end and bet their remaining hope on the supposedly easier star buyout, or risk losing it all by challenging an equally desperate opponent. They've become mobilised in a crippling way that is not for anyone involved, including Funai. So much so that he makes a life-saving proposal to all: re-shuffling their cards and starting over! Needless to say, this does not bode well with Kaiji, because doing so will reveal to all that Kaiji and his two comrades are holding the bulk of the cards. At any rate, Kaiji buys into Funai's scheme and pleads to take part in it. It was soon explained that they will reshuffle their cards and have them handed back according to the number

Kaiji discloses Funai's ruse. Notice Andou's look of justice meted out.

of cards that each had prior to the set-up. Funai casts Kaiji's deck into the air and stands up to finish his business. Kaiji is unable to settle up with him because he has to pick his cards, and quickly, before they finish it off among themselves and leave Kaiji and his comrades stranded aground on the rocks of life.

Angry men.

Blued-out scenes build up dramatic effects.

Kaiji eyes up potential prey items.

Furuhata sure does a good job at looking all fretted out

Kaiji sixth episode

Who can down high-flying Kaiji? No-one, it seems. But with that little thing called time looming over them all, they need to make haste and collect the necessary number of stars to make their getaway from the vessel cruising the waters of hell.

Reminds me of my times playing Super Mario Bros. 3 at that card stage.

The narrator's voice acquires a poignant tone at this point

Funai is a natural-born chieftain

Soulless people might want to take a swipe at Kaiji too.

In the final throes of the troubling night, Funai happily sallies by before Kaiji, before casually taking a seat beside him as though nothing had happened. The very man responsible for Kaiji's despondency is right alongside him and he does nothing! I thought had been fuming at Funai's going back on his word. But Kaiji does lash out at him as expected. Funai repeats the same behaviour as in their first encounter: he spews  more clues to Kaiji about the current state of affairs on the ship. He tells Kaiji to heed to his knowledge of the scarce number of cards remaining on the floor, before waving a cocked finger to a static set of downcast people at the other side of the hall. They are those who had quit earlier than expected, and won't play any longer. Rather, they are just waiting until time's up and then they'll try to buy stars from those who have spares. This means the number of potential contenders are all the more reduced. This crippling side of reality plays on Kaiji's mind and Funai tries to cash in on it by urging him to trade some of his cards for an extra star pendant. The scene is kind of hilarious for this gloomy context. Funai attempts to kindly talk Kaiji into accepting the deal by waving a star in front of him as Kaiji puckers his face in an effort to keep his self control! He grinds his teeth and shuts his eyelids furiously while Funai sings the praises of stuffing the star into his pocket and ditching his wimpy teammates. All this is too much for Kaiji and he abruptly shoves Funai off, knocking him butt-first on the floor and scattering his stars. Funai gets to his feet and fitfully picks up his precious stars, all the while telling Kaiji what a bitch of a man he is and that he will never win in life due to his soft attitude regarding loyalty and faithfulness to remaining part of a team.

In quick succession Kaiji assembles the other two members and entrusts them with all the money he had on him. From what I could tell, he fears falling prey to some temptation suggesting he should leave his friends stranded. Both parties agree that Kaiji should not be left with monetary resources so Andou and Furuhata pocket the damning bills without further ado. Kaiji is still the appointed leader, but now he can't afford to make decisions on his own without consulting with the other members.

What Kaiji just did couldn't be described as something short of noble. He had just got away from disaster by the skin of his teeth and now his neverending faith in his homies compells him to leave them with the remainder of his funds. Since the only way to succeed is for them to work and act as a team, it might be reasonable for Kaiji to treat possesssions not as his own, but as belonging to the whole group. As long as this leads to victory, it's fine. But I'd have mighty reservations about placing valuables in other people's trust, let alone if I hadly knew them.

The black suit's all seeing eye didn't catch anyone cheating, so it never happened.

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.

Wir sind Weltmeister!

Kaiji- Fourth Episode

Ladies and gentlemen: this is Andou's only useful contribution to the group.

Kaiji is the worse for wear with this gamble. He might as well do something else

Shoot him, you say?

Kaiji makes an amazing comeback by putting a brilliant plan to work. How can someone hatch such a cunning plan in place like this, you ask? What just happened is that Kaiji just had one of those flashes of enlightenment, which allowed him to devise a plan to gamble his way out his bind. While staring at his set of gesture cards, he noticed that it would be convenient to maintain some sort of balance with the remaining cards in order to not end up deprived of any choice to make in the final rounds. Next he realised that more people would be playing by the same reasoning. So it was a short jump from his figuring out that he needs to detect this trend in someone else first to engage them armed with this powerful knowledge. It happens with someone they nicknamed "hyena", which can be traced to the way that he seems to prey on the weak and derive enjoyment from doing so. According to what I read from the caption, "he was unusually happy after having beat someone". It was also important for the struggling threesome to catch notice of the way that someone might play a run of some matches. If their wanted man happened to use an alternate game, then he was the one to fit their description of someone who relied on balance to win.

Looks like Ken Master has a debt-ridden cousin.

They wound up wracking up two more stars. It also bears mentioning that Kaiji is the brains of the group, but Furuhata occasionally contributes with some welcome nuggets of knowledge. His intervening comments often prevent Kaiji doing something hasty, which would otherwise ruin his whole scheme. Andou is of no help at all. An unaware viewer could even think that he's just in for the free ride. Oh well....

Behold the mighty Hiodo- the man behind the system Kaiji has been put through.

Kaiji's third episode

Walking away on a victim is fine and not even unheard-of  in serious competitions.

By now it's pretty easy for the average viewer to have some idea formed in their head about the main point to be driven home by this series. It has been established beyond the pint of doubt that Kaiji is a standard have-not of irrelevant background whose sole thoughts are wrapped about the idea of hitting it big some day, though he is clueless as to how. Some might have even got a bit prone to despise this protagonist because of his witnessed pranks on the first episode. Nevertheless, all of that was just a veneer for this series's major draw card: the suffering and pain born by the destitute of society, those who have grown so used to pecuniary binds that physical luxury in life has assumed an ethereal characters, out of reach for lower-tier people. Those very objects of pity and sorrow for not being part of the lavish taste of life also have dreams that they wish to see fulfilled some day. This alone is a strong reason for the viewer to identify with Kaiji (or any other character of similar social height for this matter). Chances are you have dreams that as of now are unfulfilled and you would like your endeavour bear fruit some day. Also, chances are that your dreams are nothing short of difficult, else they wouldn't be dreams, but simply objectives you have set for yourself which are entirely attainable without great stretches on your part.

But again, what makes Kaiji so likeable as a character? For one thing, it's the fact that he's someone not easy to define just by watching the anime series. One really needs to delve into this universe in order to have a better grasp of the complexity imbued in this character. In fact, Kaiji as a character is so complex for an animated entity that it might even be possible that his personality is made up of layers of complexity which could dwarf those part of the human constitution. His personality and inner nature warrant new dimensions of character definition, surpassing the symbolic three dimensional model used for the best developed personas in fiction.

What was Kaiji doing on a huge company sponsored ship? He's earned a hall ticket to compete against other debtors for a chance to start over in life, ridden of his previous debts. As it is, Kaiji procured his current debt thanks to his former senpai, Furuhata. It's all too easy now to state that Kaiji is just a dope, isn't it? The problem with Kaiji is that he still has hopes in mankind; he would practically trust just about anyone. Of course, getitng round Kaiji usually takes some bold cajoling, even if tears are to be shed in exchange of a favour on his part. That, or the doing of some excellent conman:

I tried to warn you men in yellow stripped brown jackets aren't reliable, but you wouldn't listen.

More novelty in Kaiji:cascading urinals are seldom seen in animes.

Turns out Kaiji is too easy a prey to be battling it out in a war zone. Kaiji has two of his star pendants scammed away from him with unbelievable ease. All this because he took Funai's word that both of them would be safely hauled out of the ship should they get twelve pushes (ties) in a row. Unsuspecting of the ulterior motives of his turncoat friend, Kaiji loses two in a row and resorts to random fits of anger, trying to take it out on Funai. Fortunately, one of the black suits interferes and lets Kaiji in on something which he should have realised long ago: backstabbing others and going on one's word is the norm when people are competing against each other with something huge at stake. Kaiji acquiesces and wanders off. He soon happens upon someone whom he would normally be willing to beat the living daylights of, but now there's no time for this.

It may not look like it, but this contented man was kaiji's bane in the past. And the reason of his current misery.

Somehow, the recipient of the goods owed to Kaiji's cosigned loan also ends up on the Espoir!

 

It's fine to talk while tinkling. Just don't make eye contact.

                     
 Whatever happened to contrive his ending up there is never disclosed in the course of the series. But his being there, glum-faced, is important for Kaiji to realise something can still be done to turn tables on these swindling goons surrounding them right now. Kaiji wants to join forces and decides they should combine their stars and cards.

Kaiji's innards are wriggling with disgust at the sight of another man being bamboozled so easily.

Nah, that was just a figment of his imagination. He doesn't look like a trickster at all....

They quickly realise that their resources aren't enough to scrape a joint victory, so they set off to find a third member to be admitted into their group: someone with no cards and two stars.
 

Another room packed with depressed people! However, here is where Kaiji will find some hope to charge ahead.

They wound up picking Ando, a fat bespeckled man. At first, all seems to be going well, but soon...

Hey, can't you see I'm busy stabbing you in the back?

Andou tried to backstab the group within minutes of its forming by making away with one of their combined cards and trying to beat some random opponent, which would render him the happiness of being off the hook, but he loses. Naturally Furuhata wants to punish him, but Kaiji has other plans for the stray sheep.

Resignation, misgivings and unbalance waft through the air.

He actually wants him to remain part of their joint effort to escape the ship. Now isn't it a perfect example of faith in humanity? The very man who had only his interests at heart despite being offered a chance to join a guild is now granted a second chance. Kaiji insists that "getting rid of the bad parts of a whole doesn't help matters.Andou quietly assents and off they go in their search to procure enough stars to survive, use up all of their gesture cards and realise by whatever means may be necessary that this world is ruled only by the wicked, and it's up to those who are just to somehow fit into this system.