(Part of a 12-day series fondly remembering some of the best moments in anime this year. Participants include: lolikitsune, lelangir, FuyuMaiden, Zeroblade, Nazarielle, ghostlightning, TheBigN, ETERNAL, Mike, A Day Without Me, digitalboy, Josh, otou-san, Culchann and Pontifus, IcyStorm, Cokematic,
koneko-chan, and miz, and you’re welcome to join too!)

GO WATCH ONE OUTS, NOW.

Perhaps it’s not a note worthy of screaming in all caps, but I get the feeling that anime like these, with less moe and more Awesomely Badass GARmbling, get overlooked a little bit.

The straw poll at MAL, for example, shows that, at 1,400 viewers, One Outs gets roughly one-tenth the viewers of Toradora, one of the more popular anime this season, which has a figure in five digits.

Kaiji, the sister show of sorts to One Outs, doesn’t top 4,000. Akagi, barely 3,000. Akane-iro ni Somaku Saka, the rubbish VN conversion of the season that’s hardly been around 3 months, has 6,000. How is that possible?

Well it’s an easy answer, in many forms:
1) You don’t like things that are not moe.
2) You don’t like sports, or mahjong, or rock-paper-scissors.
3) No one has shouted at you to.

In any case, this means that
1) You are lying.
2) You didn’t know that it doesn’t matter what game they play.
3) YOU NEED TO GO READ THE TOP OF THE POST.

Because really, whether they’re playing baseball, tile games, or walking on a thin beam 30 meters above the the ground, the end result is still badass enough to get you fired up and ready to kick life’s ass.

(And it doesn’t hurt that they do after all compress a game of baseball into 20 minutes.)

You want proof? How about this fact, that one of the best moments out of the three shows, in terms of raw goosebump-inducing awesomeness, has nothing to do with baseball, or mahjong, or children’s card games.

It has to do with everyone’s favorite manly weapon of choice, guns. How can you go wrong with that in anime?

12 Moments of Anime 2008
#08 – Akagi 4

Today’s moment, as may be duly noted, does not deal with One Outs, per se; I just figured that it would be the most relevant, given that One Outs is the GARmbling anime of choice airing this season.

After all, the third birds (and by birds, I mean badasses) of this feather, flock quite close together …

However, of the three, Tokuchi Toua of Out Outs and Akagi Shigeru of his self-titled show have much more in common, in their raw, analytical, calculating mannerisms that would put Yuki Nagato to same.

Indeed, all three of them on an average day will show roughly the same amount of emotion; Toua and Akagi spend most of each day with either a blank expression or a wry smirk glued to their face.

It’s very much the manner of a cold genius, the one you see spinning around in a chair, twiddling his fingers in an evil manner, in front of six computer screens, except they’re so much more than that.

Why? Because even though they spin their webs of evil schemes and mindgame plans like the brightest of cunning masterminds, they do so while constantly putting themself at larger and larger risks to themselves (at least, to us, the audience).

It’s not just that curiosity to see the plans unfold, to watch the villains (or maybe just competitors) be humbled, but also that morbid intrigue, that sense of danger, that maybe, perhaps, things won’t always work out.

This is helped of course by the equally-sharp wits of many of the competitors in these games, and by the fact that honestly, many times, Akagi, Kaiji, and Toua have lost. Whether on purpose or truly lost, it varies – but that’s part of the fun.

On the other hand, sometimes, yeah, maybe it is just fun to see some absolute rampaging (I hesitate to use the phrase ‘total ownage’) on the part of Akagi.

Such is the case here, when Akagi bets his life at least once …

The first game Akagi plays here, is an example of the more thrilling battles between minds, the modus operandi of most of Akagi. He walks into a yakuza hideout to engage in some Manly Negotiating.

After sealing the deal (to compete in some mahjong something or other), he asks for a little 5-shot revolver to take care of some business with. The yakuza agree; Akagi walks off and spies the man who is meant to be his adversary for much of the next story arc.

He certainly has a strange aura around him, so Akagi decides to check him out. He empties the revolver but for one bullet, and spins the chamber.

“I want to see how real that expression of yours is,” he utters dramatically, while slowly pulling the trigger. The yakuza go up in arms, but the man’s expression never changed.

Click.

“The chamber spun seven times. If the bullet is in the center, it will fire on the 4th, 9th, and 14th turn. You knew that,” Akagi’s opponent mutters.

Akagi gives a slight smile. “I can tell he’s many times better than the last opponent. I’m looking forward to tonight.”

The man stops him. “We’re only half done. We don’t know if you’ll survive until tonight.”

“You pulled the trigger on me; thus, you must do the same to yourself.”

Akagi agrees, and hands the gun over to the man. It is promptly shoved (after some fumbling) right between Akagi’s teeth.

“I’m blind. This is the only way I can be sure.”

Akagi only replies, with a half-full mouth and a somewhat insane tone, “It’s interesting. The more insane it is. The more interesting it is.”

The trigger is pulled, much to the dismay of the yakuza (again) but not the participants (again) …

Click.

Akagi straightens up, not breaking a sweat. “You just said yourself the chamber turned seven times…”

These are the battles of wits that really make Akagi worth it. The high stakes of mahjong are raised even more by a simple game of Russian roulette, and even if the chances of failure are less (speaking from a story-building perspective), seeing the reactions and contemplations of the characters is still mentally thrilling.

The rest of the series is full of moments like this, which may be more incomprhensible to the untrained eye (ear), but are equally well-explained, reasoned, and adrenaline-pumping.

I haven’t even mentioned the moment later in this episode where Akagi plays Russian roulette with someone else’s mouth – and not one with even close to the same mental fortitude as above … and doesn’t even load the chamber.

Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Akagi revolver torture? You bet. This man is brutal, he is brilliant, but he is not a murderer.

Although, his cat and mouse play may be more intriguing, and more vicious, as a result…

-CCY

(Oh did I mention GO WATCH ONE OUTS. OR MAYBE AKAGI. OR KAIJI. OR ALL THREE. AT ONCE. i like caps why do you ask also I really love the images I found for these posts)