Mega Megane Moé

Actually, looking back on the 20th episode of Kaiji about a week later, I’ve found that said ‘perfect vision’ seems to be blurring. But undoubtedly, explaining – or, rather, finding out – why will be just as interesting an experience, so here we go.

I think the best way to put it is that Kaiji, the show, has done a good job in putting us, the viewer, in the shoes of Kaiji, the character.

I say this simply because my thoughts regarding the show have mirrored Kaiji’s state of mind as well. When I first saw this episode, I was absolutely, out and out left breathless at Kaiji’s adrenaline-packed mix of fearlessness and insanity. Ten-odd straight posts of “HOLY MOTHER OF~” (paraphrased) over at the AnimeSuki forums seemed to conclude the same.

But now, I’m just wondering where they can go from here, and about the implications of such a shocking event, and how, really, it is sort of a change from what made Kaiji great in the beginning. What always endeared itself to me in the beginning was how it was a show that rode the edge of disbelief masterfully – it was patently ridiculous the way Kaiji got shoved to the wall and promptly came back with all the cutting-edge analytical power of a humanoid interface, but it was great because 1) we liked Kaiji, 2) we hated his enemies, and 3) the kind of mind-manipulation that happened in the early gambles was plausible, especially between two less-than-sound minds.

But episode 20… is it jumping that line of no return? That line between creeping realism and, as wildarmsheero bluntly puts it, shock value?

(Spoilers, spoilers, the magical fruit, the more you read them, the more you…)

If you may recall I do like to trash on the series I enjoy the most, in a style that I might have absorbed from watching one too many tsunderes, so let this by no means be a sudden turning up of the nose at Kaiji; or at least, only a temporary one.

I just find the fact that HE CUT OFF HIS FREAKING EAR – is it too early to fire the spoiler gun? – a bit, well, surprising, in a strange way. I’ve found that the natural reaction to change, in the American way, is to complain, so here it is. Maybe later I’ll be able to see the fact that HE CUT OFF HIS FREAKING EAR as something less than shock value, but right now it’s just stretching the disbelief a little.

Probably the best argument for why having him CUT OFF HIS FREAKING EAR is good is that it depicts just how far gone Kaiji is after taking six losses in a row and a lot of piercing drill whirrs to the ear. Certainly he said it himself that the only way to defeat the devil, Tonegawa, is to be weird, to be insane, and to go beyond the impossible and kick – oh, I haven’t even watched episode 2 of that, for crying out loud.

And admittedly I do enjoy seeing the sort of insane-gar flavor of Kaiji. It’s a contrast from the moral-gar and the analytical-gar that he sports, and I suppose this gives him both a more realistic and a more otherworldly presence. That would make him the kind of person I imagine a lot of people would look up to (well, sometime) in that he’s decidedly “like us”, and yet he has that extra edge, that little something, that makes him more. That edge being, based on your perspective, courage, or a lack of common sense, but either way an ability to sacrifice his better interests, monetary and otherwise, for what he believes in.

And hell, if CUTTING OFF HIS FREAKING EAR will let him achieve an emotional victory backed by the ghosts of Ishida and Sahara over the cheating regime of Tonegawa, all the better. But it’s the little details that irk me.

It’s not only the insanity of Kaiji cutting off his ear, but the insanity for Kaiji to figure out that Tonegawa was cheating and be right. I was fully hoping to write Kaiji off as a paranoid conspiracy theorist, but instead his notes that 1) having an earcup on is strange + 2) Tonegawa was wearing his watch backwards = hax were annoyingly apt. It all rang with an air of “Just as Planned” that seemed too much even for Kaiji to figure out. Especially after the whole ’six losses and a drill thing’ that left him a little distraught, if not off in the head.

Maybe it’s also the worrying thought that CUTTING OFF REATTACHING HIS FREAKING EAR to his head will cost a pretty sum of money, like, say, 11.1 million. What would be the odds of that? Maybe I’m a little bitter that they keep coming up with new ways to keep Kaiji broke and the story coming, but this is something he brought on himself here. It wasn’t clever like Tonegawa’s “Oh, you said you quit” on Brave Men Road, it was just lacking foresight. Maybe he’ll realize this before he passes out in a pool of his own blood.

Perhaps the other thing irking me about Kaiji getting into death situations and surviving is that it is logistically impossible for him to lose in such a situation, given the circumstances. Will Kaiji survive the 23-story-high beam walk, or will he fall to his death and end the show at 15 episode? Find out next!

Perhaps the point is moot because he was technically not at any risk during the last game – it would have been interesting to see the drill pierce 18 mm into the guy’s hand instead and leave everyone confused (and undoubtedly, dissapointed) – but that’s not something known beforehand.

Kaiji is at its best, like mentioned earlier, when it’s riding the razor’s edge, something that I suppose is inherently hard. There has to be a fair amount of danger to keep the viewers interested, but not enough to make the outcome obvious. Kaiji has to be up against tough odds to make the mindgames entertaining, but if it’s too hard, either it will end up in an impossible win for Kaiji or an inevitable loss. (Occasionally, the show and the narrator tip their hand too much, but I’ve been burned by thinking the wrong way on E-Card before, so it’s not overly prevalent.)

This is what I liked about the Boat of Hope arc, in that while the danger, being thrown into ‘the other room’, was omnipresent and undoubtedly Very Bad, it wasn’t a game-ending situation. There was no reason to think that Kaiji couldn’t be thrown into the ‘other room’ (eventually, he did) and come back alive. In Brave Men Road, the focus could be turned to Sahara and Ishida, whether the side characters were ‘important enough’ to live or not. Here, there’s not a lot of escaping a brain skewering.

Sure, there’s still the element of ‘how is he going to get out of this?’, but with Kaiji figuring out the bulk of the plan last episode, and taking a lot of time executing his own here, the impact, beyond the whole CUTTING OFF HIS FREAKING EAR fear-factor stuff, was lessened, I think. And that’s just something that rubs me the wrong way about Kaiji 20, in that, like an over-the-top action movie, it’s cool watching it the first time around, and then, later on, when looking back at it, there’s not a lot to say other than “That was cool, because stuff blew up!”.

Well, this was cool, because Kaiji CUT HIS EAR OFF, but not really a piece that I can take to, well, pieces, unlike other Kaiji episodes.

About this time you should be ready to beat me over the head with counterpoints, and let me take the first attack by noting that this editorial is written very much in the ‘now’ sense. It doesn’t take into account a lot of the big picture. Arguably, a lot of these things I whinge about could be very well solved in the next episode. Kaiji looks like he has some big mastermind plan to kick Tonegawa while he’s down, but is Kaiji about to get the rug pulled out from under him, just like he did to Tonegawa? Or will the adrenaline rush of CUTTING AN EAR OFF finally break down and leave him wondering what he just did?

And what will the final game of Kaiji – slated for 24-26 episode, I’m guessing – be? E-Card is done within 2 episodes, for sure. Will Kaiji make one more impossible gamble possible? Or will we see yet another side of him – the side that’s willing to step down, the side that knows when to quit?

We’ll see if those prescriptions for rose-colored glasses are needed, soon enough.

-CCY

(A little bit different posting style today, we’ll see how entertaining it is.)

(Despite all this I am still tripping over myself waiting for subs of episode 21.)

Tagged as Kaiji + Categorized as Kaiji