Kaiji 2nd 03

Back in 2007 there was an underdog amongst the anime midst. Kaiji. An anime about gambling and manly tears and guts. At the end of the first season, titular character Kaiji sunk into more debt. But he’s back for some more gambling. Laying low for a while, he sees his loanshark by accident and begs him to get him into more gambling games, he accepts his request. Kaiji gets chloroformed and is put into some kind of workcamp where he has to work underground digging tunnels paying off his debt. By working hard enough, the people get their pay in perica, some kind of other valuta than yen. They can save up their money and buy a 1 day free pass, which you get back to the world of the normal living people. This is his ticket, Kaiji strifes for this. But there are temptations scattered about. I mean, I couldn’t pass off a beer like any other man. Still, he tries to save up enough cash but he can’t surpress his urges.

This is where the gambling comes into play. Twice a month, the personnel are allowed to play a dice gambling game called Chichinrorin. Obviously Kaiji participates and shows them what he’s made off.  Halfway through the third episode he makes a big comeback, but immediately loses his winnings. Of course, as a viewer, you would always know when to stop. I like this about Kaiji a lot. He’s addicted to gambling, it’s the drive of this series, but also what makes Kaiji sink more and more into the deep abyss of despair.

The pace is phenominal, they’re racing through the first gamble. With a tempo like this, and the ending theme showing a character first appearing the third part of the manga, I really really hope they’re putting the third part of the manga in the anime as well. It’s okay if they don’t, there are always scanlations of the manga to be found. But still, the anime of Kaiji is so unique that they just have to pump more out of this stuff.

Nichijou 03

Surprisingly spring season has some pretty decent shows. Nichijou, so far, is one of them. Made by the infamous Kyoto Animation studios, I didn’t have many high hopes because most stuff they make isn’t that good. Typical moe stuff, cute girls doing cute things. And while Nichijou might look like the same moe cute girls doing cute things anime, it’s something entirely on it’s own.

Nichijou is based off it’s manga counter-part and can be compared with the likes of Azumanga Daioh and Cromartie High School. Both have a sketch based format, similiar humour and involve high schoolers. Though Nichijou takes it a step further with it’s absurdness. A kid arriving to school by goat, a gunslinging girl, an 8 year old professor with a robot servant just to name a few. The sketches are divided into 3 parts; the girls and their school life, life with the 8 year old professor and her robot servant and Helvetica Standard; a short gag reel. It’s this that makes it fun to watch, the situations are somewhat unpredictable.

Production wise it’s top notch, expect nothing less from Kyoto Animation. It looks fresh, despite being nothing new, it does feel fresh. I like how colourful it is, yet there are some over the top scenes where they just spill budget like mad lines everywhere and Gurren Lagann quality animations. The interludes between each sketch is a nice pause, usually it depicts a whole day and shows stuff happening in the background.

I do think a 26 episode slot for this anime is way too much, I believe 13 would have been enough but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this will be a great show. We’ll see.

SKET Dance 01

Somehow I’m reminded by Gintama and that isn’t a good thing. I’ve tried the manga of Gintama and I could barely finish one volume. SKET Dance has the same premise in which a couple of teenagers set up a club where they help people with problems. While this certainly isn’t a new concept, it’s not something that gets over used. In Gintama’s defense, Gintama’s setting is a lot more unique than this series. Though the humour of SKET Dance and Gintama are quite similiar, I like the humour of SKET Dance more since it’s a lot more subtle than Gintama. The thing with the concept it’s exploring is that it’s easily going to very episodic where the crew will solve the mystery of the week. The main characters are surprisingly less interesting than the supporting cast, hell, even the crook of the week had more character development than the main characters. Which makes them look like cardboard cutouts; the weird leader, tough chick and nerdy freak.

Animation production is okay, the anime is done by Tatsunoko, which glory days are long past gone since the 70′s. So the animations are sub-par. They’re colourful but don’t stand out a lot. It’s all so normal and bland. That’s just it, nothing special. Just another shonen jump anime filling some other saturday morning cartoon slot. I’m almost positively sure I’m going to drop this one but I will hold on to a couple of more episodes.

Minami-ke: I AM BOSS!

I AM BOSS!

Delicious?

This is just one of those slice of life series that makes you want to keep watching. The humour is really dry and sudden and not as repeative as goddamn Lucky Star. And of course, Kana and Chiaki steal the show with their double act, though everybody has something that makes him/her funny and special.

To compare this series, I would have to compare it to Azumanga Daioh. Kana is a mixture of Tomo and Osaka. Chiaki is Chiyo-chan, but way more evil and Haruka is a mixture of Yomi and Sakaki. These three girls’ lives are far from normal and their adventures are very amusing. Wheter they go to school, cook or have fun at the beach, it always turns out not exactly as planned. It’s not as hilarious as Azumanga Daioh, but it really has its moments.

Peak-a-boo!

Animation is solid and the art style is fresh. One thing that made me kind of frown were the sudden Bible Black faces that would appear. When there were facial or eye close ups, you would see their faces in Bible Black style, not that I’m complaing or anything, the Bible Black art style is simply gorgeous. I didn’t really pay attention to the music, but some tunes did fit the scenes.

Bible Black-ke.

Maybe it’s the art style, characters or the anything really, this made me keep watching and saying to myself ‘one more and I’ll call it a day.’ Hah, I finished this is one in 4 days. Says something about it doesn’t it? It’s probably because the characters are pretty silly, it makes you chuckle nonetheless and seeing them being silly, or stupid in Kana’s case, is pretty fun.

SOOOIYAH!

All in all, this is a really solid comedy that leans on it’s excentric characters and silly situations. I really enjoyed it and when I saw the preview of the next season, I just almost wanted to hang myself. I mean, look at this. 13 episodes short, though there is a second season, but from what I’ve heard and seen, it’s just not the same. Complete art style change and the jokes aren’t funny, plus it leans on the ecchi side too.

Kaiji 24: Finger lickin’ good

Kaiji sorted out the way to defeat the chairman and confronts him with another gambling game.

SUTARSAIDO HOTERU

The chairman is tired, he said that it’s getting far too late for him and he needs his rest. Kaiji immediately grabs his arm and insists to play one more game with him. His henchman grab in, trying to talk Kaiji out of it. But Kaiji won’t listen to them and doesn’t give ‘a shit.’ He will not leave nor will he release the chairman’s arm until he has accepted his challenge. The chairman gets annoyed and slashes his walking stick on Kaiji’s arm. He won’t flinch.

The power of friendship.

The chairman accepted his challenge and suggests another game. But Kaiji won’t accept that, he will not be fooled again by one of their own games. Kaiji suggests a game of his own, but he needs time to think. Now, he needs to carefully plan every moment out, he can’t hesitate now, otherwise they will think he planned the game before hand. After a while, he asks for a ruler and paper blankets. He divides them up in little square pieces. There is one problem left though, he still hasn’t told about the box. If they will bring the smaller box, Kaiji will set the wager lower. And if Kaiji would have already told the chairman what kind of game they were doing, they would have prepared notebooks or any other kind of material to keep track, meaning the trick of the extra winning ticket fails.

Carefully measuring how to rip off a piece of paper, what perfectionist.

Now that Kaiji has prepared enough lots, he draws circles on several lots, but it seems that he doesn’t like the outcome. He throws them on the floor. After several more are thrown on the floor, he says that preparations are done. He did this because after he draws the winning lot, he will pick up the box and shake every lot out of it, thus they cannot see if he was cheating. Kaiji asks for something to put the lots in, they bring out a bag and a leather suitcase, but Kaiji wants something that is still sealed and not something of their own. They suggest a tissue box, all there is left is to have hope. Nervously, they wait for the man in Black Suit to return with the right box!

I used these for fapping, I hope you don’t mind guys. D:

Kaiji asks if he can check the box for anything suspicious. They object, but the chairman says it’s alright. After that, Kaiji gives the box to the old man to check for himself, so there won’t be any suspicion towards him. Kaiji explains what they have to do in this game, after that, the chairman asks for 3 request.

1. If the winning lot is rolled up, folded etc. the one who draws it won’t win, because you can easily put a small, rolled up piece of paper under your fingernails. Also, when they draw, they need to spread out their fingers and roll up their sleeve.
2. The old man wants to draw first.
3. The wager is 100 million yen.

As for the wager… Kaiji only has 20 million yen. He comes 80 million short. Because the chairman finds the game a bit dull, he makes Kaiji gamble his fingers too, each worth 20 million yen, meaning that if he would lose, he will have 6 fingers left. Kaiji, who is now seriously starting to get in doubt, tells himself not to stop now. He must move onward, with the money he wins, he can redo his live and thus, he accepts the conditions.

Delicious fish fingers.

With only 2 episodes left, I feel that Madhouse is going to pull an Akagi on this one, too. Letting it end open, but hopefully they will continue next year or so. With this episode, they are seriously building up for a climax, I predict that the next episode is going to be tense. All in all, I’m going to miss this even more then Akagi. Akagi felt pretty empty, but that’s what made it so good. Kaiji, on the other hand, feels different. It has a lot of different feelings to it. Something indescribable. Unique, to say the least. It simply fascinates me when Kaiji has a plan in his little skull and how he works it out from scratch. He truly is the ultimate survivor.

Kaiji 23: This box is awesome!

The end is coming near for this series as Kaiji comes up with the last gambling game. Brilliant at first, but the problems immediately arise.

Tissue Box Raffle, a game based on luck. It’s like the lottery. Take an empty tissue box, cut up paper to about 50 to 60 small squares and mark one with a circle. Put those in the tissue box and the first one to draw the correct ‘ticket’ wins the game. Though Kaiji seems to have a plan in his head.

Claiming that the boxes are awesome, he found a way to cheat. While he was explaining how to certainly win, problems were already beginning to develop. Kaiji found out that he can easily stick another winning ticket in the box. Since the sides of the boxes aren’t glued properly, there is a gap where paper can be pushed through inside the box, but the sides of the boxes are the same, so whenever the Man in Black bring a box, he wouldn’t know which side has the other winning ticket. Luckily for him, the bottom side of the box isn’t glued that properly either! While this will give him a better succes of winning, other problems lay ahead. What if the chairman draws the ticket first? Or what if they find out that Kaiji cheated? Such problems are worth a risk in his eyes, after all, they were screwing around with him too.

The episode itself was alright, just the generic explanation episode before the storm. Hopefully Madhouse makes good use of the last 3 episodes or so. I’ll be damned if there won’t be a second season after this.

When spring season starts, I’ll probably pick up 2 shows. Soul Eater and The Tower of Druaga: the Aegis of URUK. Until then, I will write about Clannad, Kaiji and Rosario + Vampire and the series I randomly watch/read.

Until then. :3