It’s been two days since quite possibly the most hectic weekend of my life, and I think I’ve finally shaken off all the sleep deprivation and worn off that tasty mix of adrenaline and insanity, that anime conventions tend to impart upon an otherwise normal person.

As such it’s time to immortalize my first Fanime (do note that the phrase “my first time” has been beaten to death at the convention already) in literary form by going over some of the more entertaining events that made my weekend and my $55 worth it.

Additionally, in the next few days I plan to make a broader coverage of the convention as a whole with more general info and more griping, but until then I’ll stick with the starry-eyed wonder that makes all the seasoned, hardened anibloggers jealous.

It might be perhaps a bit self-indulging in a sense to brag about all the cool stuff that happened, but on the other hand, I hope I can inspire and encourage future entertaining events like this in the future.

OK, yeah, it’s just wankery. But it’s entertaining and hilarious wankery. Trust me. It’s apparently not just a coincidence I was wearing a Cirno shirt around. I make a lot of idiotically awesome stories.

A lot of the entertainment at anime conventions is provided not by the events and things to do, but rather by the people themselves. As negative a stereotype as the reclusive, escapist anime fan (or wildly, disturbing outgoing popular shonen show-tard) can appear at times, there’s still an undoubtable sense of belonging at these gatherings.

I’ve always believed that it’s kind of silly to try to distance yourself from society with the excuse “you’re not like us”, but I’ve got nothing against embracing those that share your particular brand of insanity, and so I had quite a bit of fun at Fanime just seeing the crowds of fans, from the shonen fans to the gamer half-breeds to the truly obscure.

Granted, I admitted myself that I was going to run around being all “cool and elitist” mentally sneering at all the orange jumpsuits and giant swords, but really I was overall impressed with the attitude of the fans there (although I can’t help but question some of their fashion). Perhaps that’s because I’m rather passive, or because while there were annoying people, they were far apart, but most people were really civilized, or, at least, wild in ways that entertained me.

I’m still amused by the little things, like random 30-people breakouts of Caramelldansen, or people sitting around holding signs that read “informative sign is informative”, and most of all I get a little kick of when I see something vaguely obscure that I recognize. Or, of course, the converse where people recognize my obscure shirts. (Thank you, the one person who figured out I was sporting a silhouette of Chihiro from ef for Monday.)

Specific cosplays I’ll discuss next time, while I’ll focus on two meetings here. First of course would be the one that I planned – albeit very poorly – and that would be the animeblogger meetup. It was supposed to be three or four people – me, lolikitsune of not dotq, Author from Ani-Nouto, and perhaps Mei of Jiii~.

Predictably though I did what I do best, and got horribly lost, meeting up with lk but entirely missing Author. (I think if there is one thing that’s bad about moe characters, it’s that I’m slowly absorbing their traits, becoming clumsy, dense, and spacey. Or maybe that’s why I like moe.)

Still, it was interesting and perhaps a bit scary meeting the face behind the flames. What strikes me is that lk is very lax – the fact that he doesn’t have green skin kind of disappointed me. Really it goes to show how people can have very different faces, and it was entertaining talking with him for a little bit, especially when I got a few glasses-orientated jokes fired back at me.

Apparently I met up with Mei twice as well and didn’t even know it, thanks to the fact that she was the one Clannad cosplayer I caught and a Kyonko (presumably the only one) that was hanging out with some Touhou characters.

Segueing into that there was a Touhou meetup on Saturday, which I attended with my real-life friend and his two Touhou internet friends. It was a fairly strong turnout, with two Kaguya / Eirin pairs, most of the popular characters, and even a Prismriver sister and PC-98 character. I was personally impressed with both the diversity and the quality of the cosplay, since about half of them were guys, a fact that took me a while to discern (a good thing). Remember, this is Touhou – there’s about as many guys as there are Tsukihime animes.

(One. The Tsukihime anime is (not) a lie. How many references is that?)

The photoshoot lasted for about half an hour and included all sorts of entertaining poses, including a parody of pretty much every IOSYS flash with dancing, some psuedo-yuri stuff, and more.

I guess the reason I brought this up was for the same reason as the lk meetup, that it surprised me how sane anime fans can be and how insane they can be. I met up with my friend’s two friends again on Monday and spent a good five minutes double-taking how they look in plainclothes. You would never guess.

That’s what I like about anime conventions, is that all of a sudden I’m tempted to pull a cheesy analogy to violent videogames and say “they give you a chance to release your crazy side”. Not that it’s good to be all conformist and ashamed of your nerdy side (if you remember the Otaku Girl rant), but we’ll just say that there are certain times and places for carrying around dakimakura.

Moving on to the second event that stuck in my head, the Shira Oka panel was just as enjoyable as I had hoped for a fan of this English-made visual novel in the works. So let me put on my advertising cap and get to work here …

Shira Oka, as mentioned, intrigues me because it’s a professionally made English visual-novel by Okashi Studios, a start-up that’s local to where I live. It’s a cross-breed between a Tokimeki Memorial stats-driven game and a Tsukihime plot-driven game, kind of a mix of lighthearted and dramatic elements.

It sounds to be pretty powerful stuff, mainly because the developers started talking about endings and how some of them are bittersweet, right in the middle of the panel. When they started counting off exactly how many we started plugging our ears and shouting ’spoilers!’.

That’s what made the Shira Oka panel so great was the casual aspect about it, how everyone was very lighthearted, joking around and having a good time yet really being able to have a meaningful conversation as well. At some points we’d be joking about all sorts of alternate endings (harem or boat), and then the next having a candid discussion about the game’s content, the focus and the layout.

It really was a great atmosphere that was both informative and really enjoyable and I really came out of the panel in a energetic mood and impressed with the game. They actually demonstrated the beginning portions of the game live for us (complete with ’shout out which choice’ interaction where we made the lead guy into a total jerk), which seemed pretty solid and professional.

Shira Oka is the story of some generic male (we actually did mention how he had “eroge face”, that is, lack therof) who is a complete loser, and one day, is sent back in time, or something, to redo his four years of high school, except better. The intro struck a bit of a sour note with me personally for being so “I’m a loser, life sucks, I have no life, etc.” that feels like it’s trying to reach out to certain members of the anime fanbase, but the writing itself once the characters are introduced (such as the angel who acts as both your guardian and embedded tutorial character) was more palatable and occasionally quite amusing.

Points that make Shira Oka stand out are the fact that the characters are relatively animated, changing postures in numerous frames (i.e. not just fading from ’standing up’ to ‘bending over’) and with full lip-synching. Maybe this is something common to newer visual novels, but it contributed a lot to the experience for me. Additionally, as mentioned, there is a focus on stats a la Tokimeki Memorial, albeit with promise of serious plot, backed up by the fact that apparently the game has cutscenes that are animated (fully, if I recall right). The developers actually offered to show us – how friendly is that? – but we decided to keep our minds unspoiled.

It was really one of my favorite panels of the convention (although I only went to a few others), because of that real sense of community interaction, as well as a real casual atmosphere as well. To end this on a note that deserves some royalties, check out the Shira Oka website and forums if you’re interested more about this visual novel which should hopefully be coming down the pipe soon.

The third, final, and best event I’ll be discussing today is an event ripped straight from Kaiji, the Restricted Rock-Paper-Scissors competition on Sunday. I was told about this the day before by my friend, and being a huge Kaiji fan (at one point, I considered holding a competition like this at Fanime as well) I was there faster than you could scream “ISHIDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

ISHI – uh, anyway, there was a group of about five people running the RRPS event, which had a capacity of 50 people but only pulled in about 40, of which probably a quarter actually recgonized the origins of the event.

For the greenhorns to Kaiji in the crowd, RRPS is basically a game of survival, for people in debt. You’re handed three stars and twelve cards; the former represent your life, and the latter your hand in rock-paper-scissors, with four cards of each sign. You face off with others, playing these cards from your hand and betting stars, with the ultimate goal being to have three stars or more at the end after having played all your cards. It’s a simple game that can have some very intense psychological action as the fate of a person lies on the turn of a single card.

Luckily the runners of RRPS created a rather faithful representation of the event, with a realistically pretentious and lengthy speech from the Tonegawa-alike, and threats of people sent to the ‘loser corner’ and promises of prizes to the ‘winners’. Additionally, tissue boxes from the final gamble of Kaiji made a guest appearance as the card collecting boxes. They did make sure to keep count of the cards, like the real show.

They started by forcing us all to play one match against a random opponent, something that confused me, until I found out later that this was to prevent people from using the strategy of ‘just tie 12 times to win’. It’s a smart move, although I wonder how many people would think of that.

After all it seemed like many people were either not very bright or not very serious, depending wholly on luck to win the game (or at least, it seemed that way to me). My friend and I tried more to pull off some conniving tricks, which led to a lot of the fun we had.

I devised a strategy myself which I am hoping was in the bounds (or else the internet might come to my house and take away my winner’s prize) of the rules … unfortunately, it was a strategy so dumb that even Kaiji would break out laughing (so hard that he would cry manly tears, naturally). I don’t think he ever laughed once in the anime.

The strategy was, I hide most of my cards on my person somewhere, leaving just one card out visible in my hand. I then tilt that card at a low angle so that it could be easily seen by prying eyes, who would then challenge me to a duel. I would accept the battle, play that card, and beat them. Easy stars.

It took me two battles – one of which, somehow, I still won – to realize that I was missing a key part of the strategy, and that was to actually play a card that would win, instead of just tossing down the card that my opponent saw.

My friend and I were doubled over laughing for a minute after my discovery of how my strategy truly worked … or didn’t. I think it was a plan that required a double-switch, which I obviously forgot. That’s living up to my Cirno shirt right there.

It turned out that we didn’t really get to use any strategies, because most of them required a level of cockiness that nobody really had at RRPS. Either they were too casual to notice our double-crossing strategy, or familiar enough with Kaiji to not fall for our conniving plans.

So we sat around for a few minutes, waiting for the cards to unbalance themselves. Five minutes later, we were the only ones holding cards on the floor.

Obviously the game progressed a bit quicker than I expected, taking less than half an hour to get to its final stage. I was in peril after a messy bunch of random battles and failed strategies, having five cards and two stars, while my friend had one card and seven stars.

The gears began turning in my head again, which told me that I had all the power here. I knew what his card was, and I had him in the palm of my hand, since if I didn’t play him, he would lose. As such, I could give him two of my cards so that I could play all my cards and win, theoretically. And holding most of the cards, I could rig his hand to be as poor as possible.

Unfortunately, neither of us were friendly enough to arrange any sort of deal where he would lose two matches and win one, so that both of us would win. He wanted eight stars, oh yes.

So there it was, the epic final showdown, me with two rocks and one paper versus his evenly split hand (one card of each). I had to figure out how to win two matches and lose one, and to do this, I decided to figure out when he would play his rock, and beat it with my paper. I would then lose rock versus his paper and tie rock versus rock, for a net gain of one.

But the question is, when?

I’m not sure if he was thinking quite as hard but I chose the first match to play the paper, to lower the tension. This way, the fate would be set on one match.

Set.

Check.

Open!

I turn over the paper, and he turns over…

ROCK. Mentally I am screaming YATTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA as I take his star. The other two matches go just as planned, so after all the planning and all the stupidity, this roller coaster was going to settle on three stars, just enough to pass by. I look down at my star holder and see…

TWO STARS. This is where it cuts to any one of the numerous scenes where Kaiji screams ANDOUUUUUUUUUUUUUU while a close-up of his eyes goes through a funny wavy Photoshop effect.

Impossible. How? Why? What was going to happen now that I was relegated to the loser’s corner?

As I was beginning to accept my fate and playfully punch out vending machines after making sure there was no buy-out, my friend comes up to me. “Hey, is that your star on the floor over there?”

…

… hey, there is a star where I was standing. “If I find a star on the floor and think it’s mine, can I have three stars then?”

“Yeah, sure.”

YATTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

At this point I was getting into it far too much (although I did not scream as you might infer), but I didn’t care, because it was exhilarating amounts of fun and I was a winner.

The punishment came before the prizes, and was a suitably mad endcap to the event: the losers, headed by the event organizers, would have to do the Motteke! Seerafuku (Lucky Star OP) dance.

What’s great about an anime convention is that nobody has any shame anyway, so while the very talented dancers in front led, all the ‘losers’ in back still danced with enthusiasm and pride, unlike a school event where everybody would sit in the back and mime moves. (Although, I’ve never seen anyone dance to this song at school.) I have a lot of respect to them for being so into it and letting loose, and so I danced along a bit as well in the winner’s corner.

After that, the winners were invited to pick their prizes from a box of stuff the organizers brought, from wallscrolls to figurines to magazines and more. The ones with the most stars got first crack (I think the big winner had 12 stars), all the way down to little me at the end with 3 stars (barely). As a result I picked up a random pencilboard from some show I don’t know on the basis that it looked like something I would watch. It’s apparently from a visual novel, not an anime, so I guess I was right.

Graciously, the organizers allowed the losers to pick a prize as well, which I thought was a good move. Really, although the gameplay might not have been the best for everyone, the event was run very well by the group of Kaiji cosplayers (replete with pointy noses) who made it possible, and I wouldn’t hesitate to attend this event again or help hold it next year. If there was one event of Fanime deserving of internet-phrase praise, then the Restricted Rock-Paper-Scissors event was truly epic win, full of win and awesome, and had a awesome level of over nine thousand.

More from Fanime when the next post comes down the pipe.

-CCY

(P.S. If you’re reading my blog and saw a guy in a “quiet unsociable person”, nine-ball (a.k.a Cirno), or Chihiro (ef) silhouette shirt at Fanime, congratulations! You ran into me without knowing! Let’s talk sometime.)

So what happened?

I posted numerous times on the show, shoved it to the top of the viewing list over and over, gave it a nine – the highest ranking possible – on the ever-important Scale of Condensing A Complex Anime Into A Single Digit Number (aka MyAnimeList). And yet, it takes until a month later for it to finally push its way out of the review queue, where shows I don’t have much to talk about go to die.

It’s not like I was collecting my thoughts on the show.
It’s not like I was rewatching it.
It just simply passed out of mind for a very long time, and that’s something that worries me, because I really did think I enjoyed this show much more than the average show.

This is because, for the uninitiated, this is nowhere near your average show.

This is a show that goes beyond the forces of moe that some claim poison (or at least, run rampant in) today’s anime. There is no moe to speak of, hell, I could probably count on one hand – probably one finger – how many girls even appeared in the show total.

Rather, what Kaiji is, is a ruthless adrenaline rush, both physical and mental. A show all about a sometimes naive, sometimes genius, sometimes emotional delinquent (named Kaiji) who gets himself in all sorts of shady financial debt, and is forced into a series of increasingly implausible, incredible, and intriguing gambles in order to pay it off.

These gambles are great to watch because most of the time they are at least thrill rides which will leave you guessing as to the outcome – don’t take winning for granted in this show – with incredible moments of raw emotion along every twist and turn. On a good day, they are great introspectives as well, as Kaiji ponders the viciousness of human life while getting whipped in a human-vs-human battle of mind and body.

It’s very much a complete package, one that I think deserves a watch by anyone, just because you’re unlikely to see a show like this often amidst more common show archetypes. It drags a bit at times and the noses are awfully pointy, but Kaiji is an injection straight to the heart, which feeds blood to the brain and the masculine regions of the body.

(Manly spoilers ensue after the jump.)

If you’ve paid attention so far, you probably have noted I’ve already ratcheted up one point on the tsundere-o-meter for first saying that I didn’t really have much to say about Kaiji and then promptly reccomending it to everybody.

This, for me, chalks up mostly to the gut feeling that Kaiji is a mostly action-orientated show, more than it is a profound show.

Yes, ‘action-orientated’ is a bit of a silly thing to call a show which spent an entire 25-minute episode drawing two slips of paper from a box, but the majority of the content tilts towards the ‘manly fluff’ side, the kind of stuff that gets you fired up and ready to go put on your pointy sunglasses and kick people into holes, but wears off a short time later.

That’s not to say that’s entirely bad. A lot of shows are fluffy, but good. Many visual novels are good ‘dramatic fluff’ – Myself;Yourself had a story that got increasingly ridiculous and out-there, but it was still a gripping watch for the time being. ‘Slice-of-life / comedy fluff’ is common too; Lucky Star had some brilliant moments from all walks of life, from the story of Kanata to Tsukasa’s comic clumsiness to Miyuki being Miyuki, but they weren’t legendary earth-shakers in the long term (unless you’re a Malaysian dictator-slash-trap who tries to write longer posts than me).

Fluff is almost kind of natural. The human mind moves on after time, and that applies to anime too. There’s only so much room for really great, legendary moments or shows, and everything else gets condensed into little clips, one-liners, and stored away in a corner somewhere, much like trying to scrounge for hard drive space by burning fansubs onto DVDs. The anime aren’t gone … they’re just harder to access.

And so, I don’t have a huge problem with calling Kaiji ‘manly fluff’, in that there were only a few things I took away from it in the long-term. I think a better simile would be something like a first love – you always look back on it fondly, but more often than not it’s peanuts in the grand scheme of life – or in this case, anime.

Kaiji had one main message to get across, one mantra, and it was a sort of individualist concept. It did this pretty well, hammering it home in many different ways through many of the different gambles.

The way I see it, Kaiji is all about advocating one’s inner strength and relying only on oneself. It’s kind of like what you always hear the rappers going on about; there’s no one else who’s going to really look out for you, so protect your back and invest your faith in yourself.

Granted, Kaiji did have followers, did have ‘friends’ like Ishida, but these weren’t people who really could help him in his time of need, perhaps because Kaiji was the one playing the benefactor most of the time, or perhaps because their interaction mainly took place 25 stories above the ground on a balance beam.

Sahara comes closer, if you remember the somewhat touching, somewhat amusing dialogue of them shouting “I’m here!” at each other during Brave Men Road’s climax, but perhaps this is just a exception to the norm, a bringing of the individualist theory down to reality.

That’d be closer to my personal belief, anyway, that while the most important person is still yourself, and that your strength should come from within and not from relying on others, it’s still silly to try to distance yourself from the everyone else just because you’re afraid of becoming weak (or: less nerdy, more of a sell-out, poor, etc).

But the review isn’t about me (that would make a good joke post somewhere down the line) but rather about the show, and about this social viewpoint with regards to Kaiji, it’s done pretty well. For some reason, it didn’t feel heavyhanded, despite being the pervasive tone underscoring most of the show.

Perhaps it’s because it was demonstrated in many different ways. First Kaiji learns about it the hard way, when he depends too much, is perhaps too naive (or alternatively, gets screwed over) regarding Andou and Furuhata on the Nice Cruise Restricted Rock-Paper-Scissors. He then teaches himself how to control himself and not be so traumatically affected by the plights of others (note difference between ‘affected’ and ‘traumatically affected’) on the Brave Men Road. E-Card is a bit of a different spin, being direct person-to-person combat, and the Tissue Lottery gamble caps it off the most directly, by screwing over Kaiji, not only for getting greedy but for putting faith in God and hoping for Tonegawa to lose, instead of taking action into his own hands and using his sharp senses of observation, like he had done in past gambles.

Come to think of it, that’s probably a secondary if not a supporting moral to the story, in that Kaiji learns to push forward, to never lose hope, and to perservere with a calm head. This is one surprisingly common in a lot of anime – perhaps because of my genre of choice, the dramatic / romantic, where it’s quite easy to see how waiting to act, or getting drowned in melodramatic emotion can really be detrimental.

Perhaps the reason that I’m not as bowled over by Kaiji’s didactic, intellectual side is that what it tries to get across lines up a bit with what I believe, and it’s not quite as heavy-handed as other shows, going for a more subtle mix-in among the adrenaline. The end result is that it’s not as world-shaking or soul-rocking (H2O not withstanding) as other shows like ef or Byousoku 5cm can manage, but is more of an added bonus to the rest of the show, for those who dig a bit deeper.

Maybe this means that Kaiji will be remembered more for his manly moments, the powerful tears cried after watching nine men fall to their doom, the dramatic speeches and reveals of E-Card (”this is the last of their voices from behind the grave!”), but that’s not so bad either. On a lighter analytical level the gambles were quite enjoyable to watch as well.

Restricted Rock-Paper-Scissors was one of the most wild ones, definitely fitting of the first arc. Both Kaiji and the viewer are relatively green. While we may have been smart enough to see through traps such as the one Kaiji set for himself by giving his stars to Andou and Furuhata, some of Funai’s more clever traps were harder to figure out. Likewise, Kaiji’s excellent back-to-the-wall strategies were a kick to decipher. It also laid out the tone of the show, where Kaiji digs himself a huge hole and promptly climbs out of it (barely) – although this was cleverly subverted in the end.

Brave Men Road was definitely the challenge that epitomized the mental side of Kaiji; there’s not a lot of skill or strategy in “don’t fall off” involved, but certainly a lot of will. Both the first and second stages of Brave Men Road have different discussions about human nature, one focusing more on the interpersonal and one on the intrapersonal, combined with a fair amount of sheer unpredictability that makes Kaiji great to watch – while obviously some of the guys were destined to die, actual named characters like Sahara and ISHIDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA had a reasonable chance of surviving … they just didn’t.

E-Card kicked us back to strategy heaven, a duel between two wits who continually pile strategy on top of strategy in an attempt to out-think the other. Of course, it got a bit ridiculous and a bit messy at times, but it was still a thrill to watch when it was moving a full speed. It really was one of the crowning moments for Kaiji as a character, showing his ability to go beyond the normal and defy the bounds of a regular human, both in logic and in action.

Tissue Box Raffle, as the falling action of sorts, then totally reversed Kaiji, bringing his story back down to human levels. It was pretty clear that Kaiji was destined to fail at the start, given all his (even more than usual) ridiculous planning and cockiness, and seeing his ability to look back and realize after the fact (and minus a few fingers) really clinched the development of his character.

Even though he lost at the end and came out from what was apparently a very stretched-out night in the red (i.e. losing lots of it), technically Kaiji came out a stronger character. It’s one of those good endings that people hate to call good endings, but it’s clear that the fight isn’t over for Kaiji and he’s more determined and more badass than ever.

It’s probably a better ending than what could have been – having him win Tissue Box Raffle through cheating and deceit, and walking out a millionaire, would be tough to spin the right way to feel redeeming. Maybe he deserved it from the past games he won, but 100 million feels like too much, way beyond what he just wants to ’start life over’, for him to achieve. Rather, he seems the type that would win on a deeper level than monetary.

So I’m satisfied with the ending. Yeah, it feels incomplete. Yeah, it sucks for Kaiji to come out with nothing. But it really fits with the tone of the show, its morals, its characters, and I can’t think of another way to get it to work right. And hey, there’s promises of a second season, and for that I’m willing for forgive far too much. At least this way we don’t have to retcon everything and have Kaiji suddenly ‘forget’ what Hyoudou said, and then introduce a random green-haired loli who … wait, wrong show.

On that light-hearted note, let’s gloss over the other more ‘review-like’ stuff that I tend to not go as in-depth on in these reviews.

Yes, the art is ugly, and I’m sure people have to constantly go to the hospital because they get their eyes stabbed out by pointy noses, but it’s a distinct art style, and the dramatic flair (see: zawazawa, facial contortions distortions) is well done. I think it works to drum up the ‘look ma, no moe!’ concept.

The music isn’t exactly something you’d listen to in the car but it is great music to put people in the mood (nice try – I mean for tension), especially when you’re panicked about a test tommorow. It’s background music, in that sense – more focusing than intrusive.

And, uh, no women, except for the one that works at the gas station. Felt like that needed mentioning twice.

So, you can probably guess the conclusion from here. Kaiji. It’s a unique show without a doubt. Definitely at least try it, if you’re disillusioned with the usual fare, and even if you’re not. Hey, if the resident harem guy can enjoy a show about a bunch of guys playing card games … (and walking on balance beams, etc.)

-CCY

(Try to spot the point where I got derailed by #animeblogger.)

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.)

Where blogposts run wild in the internet, one man stands between a computer screen…and the wall behind him. And actually, he’s sitting. Coming soon – actually, right now – to a screen near you…

The Editorial. (This post is not yet commented)

Unfortunately that’s about as funny as the post is going to get, as we return back to our regularly scheduled Shiori worshipping search for a better memorable meme analysis, commentary, and yes, topic title, which, as you may have noticed, has a lot to do with that great voice from the sky.

Uh, the narrator.

Ironically enough most anime, and probably TV work in general, have as many varying beliefs in the existence of the narrator as the world does in the existence of the higher powers vaguely alluded to in the last paragraph. The majority of the shows take a largely individualistic approach, believing that The Narrator is inside each and every character, with the male lead interjecting useful mental comments into the conversation such as “Heloooooooo, <s>officer</s> meido.” (This is anime after all.) Very rarely, a show will be a nonbeliever, not implementing the narrator at all, giving a very third-person view to the scheme of things. And also quite uncommon is the canon implementation of the narrator, the enthusiastic and energetic voice that helps to explain the action, shouting statements like “The hero makes his move!” (Followed, of course, by the girl turning him down – don’tcha love context?)

A mix of the first and third variations are the ones I’ll be covering today in a case study, as I’ve recently been doing some musing about the storytelling of Kaiji during the ample downtime (action-wise, perhaps, although the mental conniving goes non-stop) of a show that is probably taking a few episodes to explain less than an hours’ worth of play.

The situation I pose is simple: the anime utilizes both lengthy inner monologues by titular character Kaiji and external explanations by the third-person narrator. Together, they probably compromise the bulk of the show, as Kaiji is very much a thinking man’s show, in-between all the falling off beams (among other physical punishment) .

But, what if we were to remove these segments?

I suggest something like this because of the pretty straightforward issues that a narrator adds to a show. I’m of the type that doesn’t like having their hand held story-wise, and would rather figure things out for themselves; so, having them shout “Kaiji notices something different!” borders on annoying. It’s not as bad as it sounds, if only because they save the real big explanations for after the event, but still one can get a sense of “something is up” when the narrator starts talking and foreshadowing things.

Kaiji’s self-narration does a lot of foretell parts of the plot as well; maybe this is just because of the ill-fated nature of his character, doomed to mess up time after time, but it always seems that, in E-Card at least, every time he goes “hey I have this thing figured out” it’s pretty much certain that he’s going to lose. It’s interesting seeing his train of thought, but the cliff at the end of the tracks, maybe not so much. I do still try to root for this guy, after all.

Although, maybe it’s just part of the arc that it’s made to seem that Tonegawa is some incredible god, able to rock Kaiji’s soul and terrorize him to the point where Kaiji’s character art becomes incredibly awkward-looking. Maybe this just sets off thoughts of the mildly-less appealing “one tiny man against the big mean world” adventures of Akagi (or what I’ve seen of it), instead of the largely PvP, equal-grounds status of the earlier Kaiji arcs.

But still, sometimes it seems that it would be more interesting if the narrator would shut it for a bit. I’ve said it before that silence is sometimes more powerful than words, and I think it would be a novel way of presenting things to the viewer, letting them wrack their minds just as much as Kaiji does as to what is going on. What if we couldn’t see inside Kaiji’s head as well as Tonegawa’s? What if all we saw was two men staring each other down, the shift of the fingers between the cards of Emperor and Citizen, the beads of sweat rolling down the trembling face, a silent realization instead of a vocal one?

It would allow for much more interpretation, more theory, more of the confused attempt to piece things together and figure out the key to the game, that so fits with the mood of this show. That is, until the end of the gamble, or match, or whenever Kaiji and Tonegawa finally decide to shoot off their traps about whatever they think about the game, their opponent, or, of course, society.

I think the last part is key, if only because without a comic background audio track a la Haruhi’s Someday in the Rain, you risk putting too many people to sleep with so much silence. Not to mention, the red flags of pretension, or whatever word I should use, for making the viewers try to figure things out, something that will lead to many a “What, you don’t get it? Noob.” condescension.

And after all, a large part of Kaiji is the eerily accurate views it puts forth on the world and the nature of man. Without the narration we’ll probably miss a large part of this, or else only recieve it in large, straight chunks in between the more raw ‘action’ moments. I’d rather not have to resort to a ‘commentary gallery’ where instead of a narrator, a bunch of random irrelevant characters talk to explain things for the viewer; another thing that worries me about the E-Card arc.

Still, if there were some way to do this, I’d like to see more of this in anime, with less explained and more inferred. As you may surmise (you’re reading a blog after all) discussion and theory are what drive the fandom of anime, or any form of fiction, the most, and if a show comes out and slaps you over the head with the meaning and motivation of a show and its characters, that’s a large chunk of debate topics gone. Having some more quiet moments, showing emotion, expression, and thought, visually (and, to a lesser extent, aurally) rather than explicitly, will let the viewer get into the head of the character and explore and interpret the show their own way.

-CCY

(http://danbooru.donmai.us/data/33c056d0444b995cd8d42d3df25cd65e.jpgSome things better left uninterpreted…?)

(I have this feeling I could try this by watching the raws of the show, but then I would be ignoring a lot of things other than the narrator. Standard kawaii sugoi baka baka daisuki anime vocabulary does not apply to Kaiji.)

Day before yesterday I saw a Not Boat,
yesterday an sentimental fic,
and today, you…weird…music video…thing.

I keep trying to be a crazy anime fan. As a guy, I watch magical girl shows, as a realist, I watch ridiculous harems and visual novel adaptations, I fanboy over 2D things more than anything 3D, and I have an adoration of glasses-sporting characters that will put me in a straightjacket someday.

Yet somehow, I always seem to be one-upped by the manic minds across the sea, of what undoubtedly are self-labeled the “true otaku”, those who really have no shame nor sanity.

Perhaps this is the wrong type of person attribute to a mix-up like this, but on a scale of one to SHAFT in the what-in-the-hell department this Kaiji MAD (or whatever music-video-edit thing) probably clocks a nine thousand.

The Japanese really enjoy their weekly dose of zawa zawa, and for some reason this directly correlates to the show being placed in a bunch of strange situations and videos. And I’m not talking semi-plausible mash-ups like Haruhi and Lucky Star here. I mean, first there was Nanoha fanart in Kaiji style. Then they inserted Kaiji into Lucky Star. The Azumanga Daioh OP was redone with Kaiji animation.

But, seriously…KimiKiss? Maybe they’re poking fun at the uber-manly drama of Kaiji as well, but the whole “kiss kiss koishiteru yo” thing, combined with Kaiji art in KimiKiss style (plus some ASCII yaoi) truly makes this video one hell of a strange sensation. KimiKaiji Pure Zawa? Straaaaaaaaaaange. I call dibs on the Zawa Brigade, with Kaiji featuring as Haruhi, Mikuru, and Nagato, because God Knows Andou and Furuhata ain’t going to cut it. (well, Ishida could be Mikuru, I suppose. Hello, mental imagery.)

On a more sane note, in case you have been hiding your eyes trying to make the boats go away, let me pry them open with the reminder that School Days has two OVAs in the works, both of which seem to be decidedly lighter than the usual fare. Magical Kokoro-chan, a shameless magical-girl parody (I imagine; Kokoro sports a Beretta handgun-weapon-thingy in one clip), will be released later in March, but Valentine Days was bundled in with the School Days LxH game release for the PS2 (yes, sanitized School Days, isn’t it weird?), and having been subbed recently, I had the chance to check it out.

Straaaaaaaaaaange. Again. It’s really weird seeing School Days take on a light-hearted tone that I’d imagine you’d find in a comedy-harem like show, like the early parts of Shuffle!, or what I imagine Love Hina is like. It’s not exactly a self-contained piece; it seems to be a prologue to the anime (replete with purposely tacky ‘monologue while panning up’) and makes a lot of jabs at the show, such as the references to two of the bad ends, and Makoto’s deliciously ironic line “My fate is sealed! I’m going to be killed!”

It’s a great finisher to the show, many months later, similar to sola’s second OVA; it’s a light-hearted work that reminds you to have a little fun with the show after some intense drama. Yeah, I know there’s another OVA; but it looks to be a bit more fanservice orientated than this one. There were quite a few funny moments, both intentional and unintentional; the oh-so-subtle “oh yeah!” in the background as we slow-pan over Sekai’s scantily-clad mom is a moment of the latter that jumps to mind.

The only thing is that just like in the real anime, I find myself dissapointed in Setsuna. This time, she really did move over, but for Taisuke yaoi lovin’? I don’t know about that…

And for the third segment to this short post, I recently unearthed a years-old fanfiction of Cardcaptor Sakura that I enjoyed reading five or so years ago at the height of my low-level fandom. It’s over fifty chapters – quite an accomplishment – and I’ll provide a link here, although I have no guarantees as to quality, sanity, or pinkness of the page.

It was something that stirred quite a sentimental moment in me, knowing that such a piece was still hanging around the internet; it’s really funny how much things have changed in just a few years, and at this rate I’ll be senile and making snaps about how “back in my day we had to see sad girls in the snow, and we liked it!” by the time I’m twenty-one.

I’ve distanced myself quite a bit from my ‘old fandom’ self, the days of watching one or two shows and writing cheesy fanfiction, something that seems common in a lot of anime fans, and I wonder, whether it’s better to embrace this past after all. Certainly, there are a lot of good stories out there – it’s just scarily similar to the genre of harem in that there’s a few good ones and a lot of rubbish that will make you wince.

It’s almost like a parallel to the subs vs. dubs argument, in that I’m finding myself increasingly repelled from non-art fanwork (music videos, fanfics, etc) for surprisingly familiar reasons (”it doesn’t do the characters justice”, “it’s just not the same”, etc). Is the anime blog community in a sense just an extension of this fan community, except with essays instead of stories? I wonder…it’s important not to make too many “us vs. them” distinctions.

I’ll end this with a question: what of your anime fandom past? Is it something that you feel ashamed of? Should all the old fanfiction, all the fan pages and connections be swept under the rug? Or are they a mark of pride as well? At the age that a lot of anime fans are at there tends to be that long search for identity, even in a microcosm of life such as anime fandom. Should these moments of the past induce thoughts of “what was I thinking?”, like any more normal mistake of youth, or are they just something to build off?

-CCY

When in doubt, Kotomi. This picture is not yet related.

(I always worry that my introspections sound a little too depressing, but hopefully they aren’t. I have fun with them.)

(Incidentally, I’m thinking of changing the style of this blog a bit. The Track Two category will probably be spread out into more posts, instead of consolidating them into hidden-in-the-archive posts. This will result in more short, spur-of-the-moment posts like this, and less of the organized format. I think it’ll be simpler and entertaining.)

1/26/08: Episode 16
Show ▼

1/19/08: Episode 15
Show ▼

Click here for more information on Track Two.

-CCY

And now for the Slowpoke news: we’re in the winter season.

I’m still stuck in the past, not because of any traumatic accidents which have permanently scarred me and/or my memory, but because the fall season is arguably a much more robust season than the winter ones, at least in terms of new shows.

Especially for a visual novel slash romance slash restricted rock-paper-scissors fan like me, there were a lot of shows that were very appealing; many of them, despite being in tried and tired genres, brought a lot of fresh concepts to the table.

And what’s interesting about this, is that unlike in the summer season, a lot of the most promising shows didn’t close out at twelve episodes. Those that did, were strong shows, no doubt, but many more than that have been promised at least 20-odd episodes, double the goodness if they can keep the pace up.

As such, the winter watchlist is turning out to be strangely familiar. There are plenty of carryover shows on the list, and those that are new shows to 2008 are mostly sequels in some way or form (Zoku SZS, Minami Okawari). Not to leave a bad impression of the winter season – but there aren’t any names of new shows that really stand out from it.

This doesn’t equate with ‘no good shows’, per se – some of my favorite fall shows have been ones that have been completely off the radar – but going off the blog reactions so far, there hasn’t been a standout show that absolutely blows people away, that came out of nowhere and delivered the awesome. Undoubtedly there probably will be, but for now I’m content with surviving off both fresh old shows, and some true classics that are burning a hole in my DVD collection. Today, I’ll take a look at what we have to expect from some of the shows coming into their second cour in 2008.

Shugo Chara!
Understandably, Shugo Chara! was a show that wasn’t exactly on my radar when the season started. Even if I was born and raised on Cardcaptor Sakura, magical girl shows aren’t always my cup of tea, and I usually rely on feedback from other blogs to pick out the subsets of this genre that would be my type. In that sense, I’m a sort of elitist for magical girls – I tend to prefer only the ones that have an appeal to both genders, those that carry ‘feminine’ traits such as romance and a lowered focus on action, yet don’t come off as too girly. I do have a pink tolerance still, despite all these years of anime watching.

Anyway, Shugo Chara! got a surprising amount of good feedback from placed that I read a lot, namely Jeff Lawson’s and Owen’s locales, and so it was an essential “here goes nothing” while I was scraping the bottom of the barrel one day. As has been detailed, the first few episodes were a bit too pink for my tastes, but contained enough interesting stuff to keep my interest, so I forged on; and man, am I glad I did.

It seems a bit pretentious to both proclaim it the next Cardcaptor Sakura or even compare it to that show at all, considering how times have changed a lot in the 21st century, but there’s no doubt that Shugo Chara! has the potential to be THE magical girl show of this decade. I can’t speak for other popular shows, such as the PreCure series or whatnot, but certainly SC seems to have the wide appeal and fanbase to make it big.

The animators seem to know this too, as the show has been slated for one of the longer continuous runs in recent memory, topping 50 episodes, and this is something that, naturally, is good and bad. The good is of course more of what we love, more of this show and it’s entertaining character dynamics. The bad is that, since there doesn’t appear to be a huge amount of content for the manga, there’s going to end up being a lot of filler in the show, ergo, not as much of the entertaining character dynamics. (Not to mention, it’d be a pain to blog.)

What, personally, deserves the most focus is the quickly-shaping romance tetrahedron of sorts, forming between Amu, Tadase, Ikuto, and Utau. Of course, saying this is a bit simplified; Amu’s torn between the goodly Tadase and the dark Ikuto, Tadase’s smitted with Amu’s transformed self, Ikuto’s busy being the guy equivalent of tsundere (Shiraishi’s “cool-dere” comes to mind), and Utau is mysteriously possesive a la Primula (that suddenly explains a lot for Stripey’s fandom of Utau), and all these facts add up to make the romance side of this story a bit more appealing than your standard ‘will-she-won’t-she’ love story.

The magical girl elements of SC are a bit overdone, personally, as Amu seems to be able to hax any X Character into submission without barely breaking a sweat, but this might just be the show’s way of deemphasizing these aspects in favor of it’s stronger romantic and slice-of-life elements.

So what’s to look for in the upcoming episodes of Shugo Chara? To be honest, I’m worried that the answer is ‘not much’ – different shows handle their mid-sections in different ways, but Shugo Chara! has a lot of time to burn, and so it might not be doing much in the way of developing character relations in the near future. Hopefully it will be like many recent shows and not delay the love confessions until the end.

Although, regarding that, what’s really keeping me interested in this anime (aside from denying cute traps) is that I can’t really decide who Amu’s going to ‘win’ at the end…presuming she does at all. Both Tadase and Ikuto have their appeals, both to Amu and to the viewer, and it’s not as clear-cut as other shows which one will end up being the ‘main’ guy. Tadase is undoubtedly the more traditional choice, being the good guy who fights along her, but Ikuto’s been getting a lot of attention recently, and being the somewhat rebellious yet soft-hearted personality he is, I can’t help but root for him.

Oh, and the mysterious evil motives of Easter, I suppose I have a little vested interest in; who knows if it will be some typical “parents vs. kids” endeavor or not. I can’t get a lock on this either.

Shakugan no Shana II
Shana II was not exactly the most popular anime around the blogosphere recently, having eschewed it’s action and love-triangle aspects for more of a repetitive drama that failed to be really engaging. But with the recent episodes having kicked the series full throttle ahead, it might be time to pick up interest in the show again.

For me, Shana II has always been a show that was sort of a bread-and-butter watch – something it would be a little painful, other times a little more intriguing, but most of the time it was relatively typical supernatural-action-romance fare, with the action part just getting into gear now. However, with some of the plot points that I think lie ahead, both involving a few Torches (accidental spoilers, whee) and the story of Pheles and the Reiji Maigo, Shana II might have an opportunity to prove itself more than that, and show that the hype for this show isn’t just irrational love for melon-bread-eating tsunderes.

In that regard, it might have actually been a wise decision in the end for the beginning parts of Shana II to be so slow; it could be considered that the animation team was merely getting the filler out of the way so that the rest of the show can be exciting from here on out. Maybe not a good business decision, but if it holds true it will be promising for the second half of Shana.

As for what will happen in what episodes remain, I don’t really know. I’m really unfamiliar with this series as a whole, and so what I can say is that there will be a lot of fighting, a few romantic scenes, and a lot of terminology spamming to come. It’s pretty cut-and-dry that Shana and Yuuji are into each other, but I can’t decide whether we’ll get true confessions and conclusion with this season, considering the retcon we got this time. If there is enough material for Shana III, that aspect might just be held back on. Kazumi doesn’t look like she has much to go on; we already know she likes Yuuji, and now she’s in that limbo between backing off and going on the attack, neither which would really suit her. As such, I think all she’s good for so far is some romantic insights, what with her virtues of patience and all.

And so my hopes for this show lie with Ike for reasons too numerous to count. He’s your glasses-sporting “just as planned” smart guy, he’s gotten shafted through the whole cultural festival arc, and he seems pretty level-headed and likable as a whole. Not to mention, he’s shooting for the moon in going after Kazumi, who even he knows prefers Yuuji; he’s effective working off a rationale of ‘well Yuuji likes Shana, so someone’s got to be there to catch Kazumi’.

I really hope he gets his fair share of screentime considering how much he’s been made fun of recently, as I think he could be a really strong character. I’m hoping they have time to fit him in among all the more standard storyline fun with the green-haired ladies.

Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji
I think I will forever tout this as the reason why blog hype is important; I would not go within a million miles of a show featuring ugly men (and no moe girls) fighting it out in rock-paper-scissors, yet undoubtedly some of the latest arcs of this show have been nothing short of stunning.

It’s funny; what makes this show work is that it’s not pure macho, nor pure mindgames, but sort of a mix of both, and then some. There are moments that make you think, there are moments that make your blood boil, and sometimes, there are even moments that make you tear up. Sometimes, there are all three at once. I mean, for the love of whatever deity I worship now, I thought Aozora was going to start playing during Ishida’s scene in episode fourteen. It was absolutely wrecking, in that way that made you contemplate the nature of man while crying manly tears and shouting “ISHIDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”.

Kaiji rivals the best of the visual novel genre in having disturbingly touching insights; while those deal more with the romantic irrationality of man, Kaiji goes more into the nitty-gritty stuff. The difference between the haves and have-nots, the wants and want-nots, how everyone is selfish in being kind and kind in being selfish. (A bit of a stretch, but I heart parallelism)

And it’s a great mix of predictability and unpredictability as well. You know that Kaiji isn’t going to win millions every time soon, but you know they can’t quite kill him off either. You know that he’s going to work his way out of this hole somehow, but fall back into another. It keeps the mind racing, and to be honest, I still don’t know how the Brave Men Road is going to come out. We know he’s not doing to die. So what is he going to do to get rid of the money? I’m guessing give it all to Ishida’s wife, because there’s got to be another yakuza-sponsored game on the horizon; the other aspect that keeps it interesting. It’s that ‘what will they think of next?’, both in the fourth-wall and in the storyline sense.

It’s that strange mix of disgust and delight when you see the shoving in Brave Men Road, that puts you disturbingly close to the action, in a similar position as the ‘rich bastards’. It’s eerie in a sense, how unwittingly we are becoming like them, being the viewers watching something like this for pleasure. It ties you into the show like what nearly no other show can do, and so that’s why I can reccomend Kaiji as one of the top shows – especially if you hate moe – of the fall season.

KimiKiss Pure Rouge
For as many times as I’ve used this phrase, KimiKiss is one of the shows that I think could most fit the idea of being ‘unpredictably predictable.’ It’s a very vanilla show in a sense, one that’s refreshingly down-to-earth and real, and at first the romance seemed pretty much a straight shot. It could be easily seen how Kouichi will be with Yuumi, how Mao will end up with Mai, and how Kazuki will snag Eriko.

But, since this show is so multi-threaded, it’s easy to see how these threads will intertwine as well. The show seems to be dropping plenty of hits of possibly tying Mao and Kouichi together. Plus, it’s tough to tell whether Asuka or Eriko is the true girl for Kazuki.

Let’s go with the latter first. Eriko is probably the more likely shot – on-screen kisses aren’t taken lightly these days, and it seems all too sensible to have the romance with Kazuki be the thing to introduce Eriko to the world of emotion – I would say break her out of her shell, but Owen has another way of putting that.

Still, like in Shugo Chara’s similar dilemma, I can’t help but root for Asuka, the underdog here. It just seems wrong that the one who seems to be more passionate will lose, although I think that instead of Asuka winning here, she will just get some major development instead. She seems the strong, fiercely independent type, and she could definitely learn how to fly on her own with her love for soccer instead of Kazuki.

Mao and Kouichi’s situation is even tougher to call. Certainly it seems like it would be impossible to break the romantic bonds between Kouichi and Yuumi, given the collective amount of time they’ve stared at each other. And certainly it seems hard to split Kai and Mao, who seem the reverse of the Eriko – Kazuki situation; Kai is an interesting character, the ‘frequently misunderstood delinquent’ type that’s cold, but has a big heart.

But there still remains that possibility that Mao and Kouichi will in the end, be together; after all, she had to come back from France for a reason, and the anime has certainly dropped more than a few hints. I could see how Kai could live independently, like how Azuka could. And Yuumi could – could, the imperative word – be removed from the story with her moving away.

But that’s the catching point, that it would just seem too sad for her to be alone; she doesn’t look like she has a fallback, she seems much more emotionally invested in Kouichi. Enough to nearly clinch the ‘with enough effort, you’ll win’ romance award, but not enough to go yandere. So somehow I think Kouichi and Yuumi is the most likely combo, which will probably set Mao up with Kai. I wonder, if maybe Mao will be the one who has to understand who her true feelings are for.

(Oh, and don’t leave Hiiragi and Mamiko Noto out of the picture, either.)

There’s a lot to think about for such a simple-looking show, which is why KimiKiss is one of the strongest romances running so far. I look forward to seeing how it can do so much with so little in the future.

Clannad
Visual novels are probably the toughest shows to predict for, which is why I enjoy them so much. Others may not be as fond of the wild, rampant plot twists and overly idealized characters that these shows frequently make use of, but this is probably an issue of cliche more than anything else.

The visual novel genre is full of them, with childhood friends left and right throwing themselves at some undoubtedly bland guy. That’s probably part of the reason why I’ve always been a fan of the Key shows – AIR, Kanon, and now Clannad – because they do things differently.

Yeah, a lot of things are the same. Everyone’s still love-love toward one guy, and most of them have a history with him, but it’s not always about that. Clannad is a show that feels more balanced – it’s not just romance, but it’s comedy, it’s not just about the girls, it’s about Tomoya as well, and when it is about the girls, it’s more about them discovering themselves rather than their affections for Tomoya. In that sense it really is a show that anybody can enjoy.

The beginning episodes and the Fuuko arc were a great representation of this; people left and right both enjoyed the comedy, and when it came down to things, spouted fountains of tears at her story. Despite its somewhat derivate roots of Ayu, Fuuko’s arc managed to work well because it wasn’t just straight Tomoya – Fuuko interaction, but since it also involved Nagisa both helping them and helping herself.

Nagisa’s probably the reason why Clannad works, in that despite her soft, pushover personality she’s a very strong character all her own, and a great complement to Tomoya. She’s not one-tenth as adorable as Kotomi or Ryou, but that might be exactly the reason why: she’s more of a real character, with real thoughts and emotions, instead of a cardboard moe cutout. Yet she doesn’t renounce those roots either.

Recently I think the anime has slumped a bit with Kotomi’s arc – I love her character, her story’s interesting and all, but it’s just so typical. I think any visual novel anime could pull the ‘reclusive childhood friend with dead parents’ concept off, since it just seems so perfect storm, the sort of dream that any lonely guy would wish to have, to be the only one there for a girl like that. Clannad needs to be different.

Luckily, I think we’re getting into the best parts of the show, with what arcs we have left. Despite not knowing anything about the show, I have high hopes that Fuuko and Kotomi, as interesting as their arcs may be, will be utterly shamed by the powers of the three (four) girls remaining.

Tomoyo’s always been a riot in character, and she looks to have the story to back it up, if it involves her trying to change the way she’s seen, like it sounds so far. It’s definitely potential for her to develop a lot on her own, into a strong person.

Kyou and Ryou are perhaps a more typical bunch but one I’m much more willing to fall for than Kotomi. Kyou is a great personality, with her light-hearted, flirtatious attiude absolutely captivating, combined with more of a sisterly love for Ryou, equaling something fierce. Ryou, well, she’s a mix of Shiori and Tsukasa, and that I’m willing to overcome any sense of logic for. I just wonder what their story could be about, and that’s what really interests me.

And of course, we’ll close with Nagisa, where it really could go any way in the world. Whether they expand more on her story or Tomoya’s story, them or their parents, the real world or the imaginary one, time can only tell. I can only hope it will be legendary like everyone is making it out to be – right now, it is a good show, but the potential astounds me.

-CCY

Looking forward…

On the flip side, it didn’t send me fleeing into a corner, shaking and quivering and searching for Shiori pictures in order to replenish healthy moe levels. In fact, my first guys’-orientated show in quite a while was refreshing and quite enjoyable.

This is probably due to the fact that Kaiji isn’t a “guys” show in the typical sense of the word, which conveys the image of shows with random action, filler, and over-9000 episodes length. Kaiji is more of a thinking show, a mind game; I’d liken it to Battle Royale, except instead of playing with physical lives, they are playing with figurative (yet still very real) lives.

It’s not a mind-render in any case, being still mostly predictable, but one can derive a certain joy, perhaps in a slightly sadistic manner, by seeing the expert interaction, or, more likely, manipulation, of characters.

Even, or perhaps, especially, for one whose typical plate of character interactions consists of ‘blush’, ’stammer’ and ‘fall on floor in provocative position’, the playing of characters like a fiddle in the free-for-all world of Kaiji is quite refreshing.

Still, Kaiji shouldn’t be expected to leave a good first impression, at least during the first few minutes. Kanon 2002 can finally breathe easy that another show has come along to usurp the title of ‘Faces Most Likely to Point an Eye Out’, and the rest of the art of Kaiji is, to put it one way, ugly.

99% of this can be chalked up to the character design, from extremely thick faces to huge lips to noses the size of small third-world countries. There’s not really a looker, or, surprisingly, even a pair of X-chromosomes in the bunch.

Yet, somehow, the art style almost fits with the show. Kaiji (the show) deals with a lot of bums down on their luck (like Kaiji, the guy) desperate for one last shot at life, and one wouldn’t expect the crowd to be filled with handsome, good-looking people.

It’s not like the characters are exaggerated ugly either, like a lot of ‘not good looking’ characters in other shows filled with bishonens and bishoujos. They’re just kind of there, a little scruffy, a little beat-up, worn out mentally and physically. Their crude look matches a crude personality; none of these characters have been treated kindly by life, and as such they pass on the seeming disregard that the world has shown them.

The ways that the characters adapt to the situation, and the quite large amount of straight emotion that they show is a great strength of the show. Kaiji is a very plausible character who acts in a realistic if not stupid manner.

He acts like most people down on their luck in clinging on to any last shard of hope that is offered to him; whether it’s the phony alliance with the Ten Million Yen Man, or going to hold tight to his last star in the Break Room of Despair, he’s alternatingly a follower and depressive, showing both naive hope and an inability to hold strong under pressure.

Yet Kaiji doesn’t have that air of ‘loser’ to him. Perhaps it’s the ‘anti-hero’, delinquent personality built up in the first episode, but he feels like the kind of person who just got tossed a few bad breaks, that really could work their way out if they just tried.

Sure, he whines when he gets two stars conned out of him. But like a good male lead, he gets his resolve up to work out of the corner; with his back to the wall he finally unleashes the determined side of him. It’s better than the usual near-flawless character that pwns everyone into the ground.

The game of Restricted Rock Paper Scissors is surprisingly intriguing as well. It’s beauty lies in its simplicity and complexion at the same time. It’s not a game that lies on luck, or even skill, but on sheer cunning.

It, more than any other game, is a game of wits, of out-smarting and conning your opponent. Analyzing what cards your opponent has or doesn’t have, trying to think whether your opponent will counter the ‘logical’ move, or counter the counter, and just trying to talk your opponent into slipping up like Kaiji had happen to him, it’s a deep game hidden beneath a shallow surface.

How much of this meta-game we’ll see will be pivotal to the series, as I look forward to seeing Kaiji connive and master his way to the 5 stars his coalition needs to make it to round 2. Certainly if he can do it in a plausible way rather than deux ex-ing his way through the Power of The Paper-Scissors-Rock or whatever, or if the Mastermind Plot by the boss yakuza works its way in the situation, it could be a very intriguing cruise.

If the storytelling keeps up, this simple game, and even simple show,could turn out to be a captivating story of the sheer amount of nearly sadistic entertainment that ensues when a hundred desperate humans are let loose against each other in a direct battle for financial survival. I’m betting on it.

-CCY