Mega Megane Moé
Hell and Heaven Moéltdown
Kaiji
Track Two: Kaiji
Jan 27th
The story of Kaiji is a mentally and emotionally charged one, revolving around the titular character’s quest to escape from a crushing debt inflicted upon him by the yakuza, the Japanese gang. Kaiji, an anti-hero with a dead-end job, is forced to participate in emotionally and physically testing ‘gambles’ against his fellow kind of losers, in a last-ditch chance to win big…or die trying. These games include an evil form of rock-paper-scissors, a tightrope walk 22 stories up, and even more sinsister events, where the punishment is often too painful to comphrehend. Much commentary on the society of today, combined with complex psychological battles, makes Kaiji a deserving watch for anyone who likes mental challenges with a shot of adrenaline.
1/26/08: Episode 16
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1/19/08: Episode 15
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Click here for more information on Track Two.
-CCY
Looking Both Ways: The Fall Season Carryovers
Jan 19th
Looking back…
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.
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Rolling the Dice on Kaiji (01-02)
Oct 23rd
If there’s one bad thing I can say about Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji it’s that it didn’t cause me suddenly grow hair from my chest and give me urges to stand on my chair and utter primal screams.
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.
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