Gyakkyou Burai Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor (Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor)

After one of his coworkers fails to repay a debt, apathetic bum Kaiji Itou is pressured by loan sharks to settle the large sum of cash. Since Kaiji has little money and no future prospects of his own, he is unable to return what his colleague borrowed. Faced with massive financial burdens, Kaiji is given an offer to board the illustrious Espoir—it is said that "one night aboard the ship, and all of your debts will be paid."

What seems like a simple night of gambling quickly turns into a game of strategy and betrayal. With the losers of the tournament being subjected to a backbreaking life of indebted servitude, Kaiji must choose his actions—and allies—carefully. However, this is only the beginning of a series of gambles that will wager Kaiji's life, testing the full extent of his wits and will to survive.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Edit

Background

In a February 2015 poll conducted by Japanese website Goo Ranking, Gyakkyou Burai Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor placed second for "Best Cerebral Anime." The series was released on Blu-ray by Sentai Filmworks on April 20, 2021.

Episode Videos

Edit

Related Anime

Adaptation:	Tobaku Mokushiroku Kaiji
Sequel:	Gyakkyou Burai Kaiji: Hakairoku-hen
Spin-off:	Chuukan Kanriroku Tonegawa

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Itou, Kaiji

Main

Hagiwara, Masato
Japanese

Tonegawa, Yukio

Supporting

Hakuryuu
Japanese

Narrator

Supporting

Tachiki, Fumihiko
Japanese

Hyoudou, Kazutaka

Supporting

Tsukayama, Masane
Japanese

Endou, Yuuji

Supporting

Uchida, Naoya
Japanese

Ishida, Kouji

Supporting

Yanaka, Hiroshi
Japanese

Andou, Mamoru

Supporting

Sakurai, Toshiharu
Japanese

Sahara, Makoto

Supporting

Komoto, Masahiro
Japanese

Funai, Jouji

Supporting

Ishikawa, Hideo
Japanese

Furuhata, Takeshi

Supporting

Matsumoto, Yasunori
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Nakatani, Toshio

Producer

Takahashi, Ryouhei

Producer

Kobayashi, Mikiko

Assistant Producer

Satou, Yuuzou

Director

Edit

Opening Theme

"Mirai wa Bokura no Te no Naka" by Kaiji with Redbourn Cherries

Edit

Ending Theme

""Makeinu-tachi no Requiem (負け犬達のレクイエム)" by Hakuryuu

More reviews

Reviews

Dec 9, 2007

Torisunanohokori

Recommended

This review was originally written after the first arc, and has since been revised to cover my opinions of the entire show, with minimal spoilers.

Story: Itoh Kaiji, a bum with 3 million yen worth of debt gets into a gambling cruise to pay off his debts. The game played on the cruise is Gentei Janken (Restricted Rock-Paper-Scissors), where the players get four cards of each type and battle it out. What's the catch? Several things; each card can only be used once, cards can be bought off of other players, con men abound, and losing forces one into the vaguely established but ... horrible "other room". Also, one must not only break even in the actual matches, but also earn enough through the buying and selling of "stars" (3 of which equate a trip off the ship) to pay off their debts. A simple premise which gets expounded on to a cleverly intense degree. That, mind you, is the first arc. The later arcs follow up with themes on society, and it gets philosophical in a gritty sort of way. But, unfortunately, the"ending" is not anything of the sort, devoid of climax. The last 4 episode arc feels a bit tacked on, and leaves season 2 wide open.

Art: I looked at the promo picture, and I thought one thing: Elves. These noses are big, and the faces look pretty weird at first. However, once one gets past the first five minutes, it really becomes apparent just how expressive these faces can be, as the characters go through one emotional crisis after another.

Sound: Nice intro, nice ending. Where the sound really shines, though, is the intense scenes. It's well integrated into the rest of the show's experience - so much so that I didn't notice it except after watching a second or third time. However, once I did look into the more dramatic half of the soundtrack, I found it a fairly nice score.

However, soundtrack isn't the best part of this show's auditory arsenal either. That honor goes to the best voice acting I've ever heard. It may sound silly, but I have never heard anyone cry as effectively as Yanaka Hiroshi's character. Ever. The voice acting really captures the gritty, dreamless atmosphere which the show exhudes. Also, an extremely dramatic narration often helps the story along, and helps the viewer make sense of sometimes subtle mindgames.

Character: Sheeit- there's just too much to say. Men (absolutely no women in this show) betting their lives can make for pretty deep plots, and this is perhaps one of the very best. Kaiji himself is a normally hopeless person whose survival instincts lead him to fight off the system intended to break him down, and he takes himself down a number of pegs to help people who have nothing to give him (and occasionally stab him in the back). The rest of the cast of characters is a bit less scrupulous, and Kaiji suffers three major betrayals by con men and friends alike in the first nine episodes. In the antecedent arcs 2-4, shit hits the fan for our hero, though he is never betrayed after arc 1. Plenty of manly tears make the whole process very entertaining.

A major part of Kaiji that I feel I shoud mention is it's haves vs. have-nots dynamic. Rich "haves" are constantly responsible for the suffering of impoverished "have-nots", and situation which naturally causes tearful frustration for the have-nots. At times the narrator's observations of both sides sound like Hobbesian logic.

Enjoyment: A couple of major highlights: fistfights, naked wrestling behind a one-way mirror, and a fat guy being kicked in the corpulence. The presentation is terrific, dramatic, and bold. Just be aware that, when the chips are down and everything is at stake, there's a very real possibility that Kaiji will lose...

Overall: Kaiji=Pwn+Max Drama-A Decent Ending. If you don't want to be dissappointed, stop watching at episode 22 and wait for season 2 before watching episodes 23-26. There's no reason to skip the first 22, though. If you have any free time, what are you doing still reading this review? Watch it now!

Open

Gift

Feb 16, 2017

basilevs27

Not Recommended

---The review contains spoilers---

3/10. Explanation:

Starts off strange to say the least. A young man is deep in debt and is being given a chance to repay it by boarding a cruise ship to do the 'gambling' (?). At this point I was already a bit wary, because why would a loan company give an opportunity to repay the debt and get rich on top of that to somebody who owns them money? Surely that's not a profitable thing to do. Why not collect the money from them or make them repay somehow, idk. On the ship though, this series becomes amazing, and I mean ... top-tier material, the plot is well thought out, the mechanics of exploiting the faults of the restricted rock-paper-scissors are very well done, there's betrayal involved, competition is dynamic with worthy opponents, kaiji's brain is being turned inside out from all the stimulation and he really becomes a much much better gambler after that, who is able to think outside the box and quickly adapt to various difficulties he faces on later in the series.

However after that this anime completely destroys itself. The so called 'gambling' is no longer gambling but rather a selection of sadistic game for pleasure of the wealthy. By the way I hate this trope, the rich that make poor risk their lives to do crazy stupid things for money, which involves gore and death that supposedly gives them great pleasure somehow. This is completely unnatural, this goes against human common sense of what is pleasurable and what is merely disgusting, and eventhough such twisted people might indeed exist, there would be nothing of such scale of cruelty that is portrayed in the show.

The biggest issue I have with the show is not the fact that 2nd half of it is pure garbage from the logical point of view, or that the 'gambling' games are unoriginal and not intellectual in any way, but rather the pacing. It's so fucking slow it's unreal, the 'card-game' arc with Tonegawa lasts forever for no apparent reason, the narrator repeats everything at least THREE times that is obvious to absolutely anybody watching who has at least 1/4 of the mean IQ value. The series was dragged out for so long that I genuinely started to lose the feeling of tension and suspense that you develop when engaged with the series. About 5 episodes before completion I was so annoyed that i wanted to drop the show despite being so close to the finish line.

Another thing that annoyed me was how the outside people were brought into the plot. There were a bunch of crippled men (after the disgusting sadistic 'gambling' competition) who were cheering Kaiji on and helping him moraly and providing first-aid. WHY????????????? All those delinquents hated each others guts, treated each other like trash during the 'cruise ship' arc, and then they suddenly developed friendly feelings for kaiji when he won the 20million from Tonegawa. Were they just after the money? Perhaps, but then they had plenty of opportunities to steal the money whilst kaiji was busy, but they didnt. But even if they weren't after the money why was kaiji so willing to trust them after being betrayed so many times in the first part of the series?

The show is simply put illogical, everybody acts irrationally, completely against what real-life humans would do in most of the situations. I can't stress that enough. This is a show about gambling after all, psychological interactions needed to be thought out properly, but instead we get this. It rendered the show completely useless.

Open

Gift

Jan 20, 2014

Kynov

Recommended

Kaiji, maybe is one of the genius anime that would be rarely be consumed these days. Many reasons for it, like people these days are just loooking for anime which have cute girls (or we can said seeking for MOE). Cant blame on it since anime industry now are using cute girls for their sales and of course for seeking profit. Anyway, there is no cute girls in Kaiji so please step out if you’re looking for it. But honestly you would miss a show that would make hold your breath from the beginning to the end.

Kaiji itself have a simple story, Its about ... a man named Kaiji who is a thief but then his life changed when he is being visited by a debt collector. The debt collector said Kaiji has an unpaid loan which Kaiji had previously co-signed for a work-mate. But his work-mate had disappeared, the loan then fell on Kaiji. Hopelessly to find a money to pay the loan. Then he find there is one way to solve his loan and that was playing a gamble.

There is so many things that makes Kaiji is so attractive, one of them is the gamble or we can said a “game” that Kaiji must play for paying his loan. What they’re playing is just a simple game like Jankenpon but simply its not just a simple Jankenpon, Fukumoto (Kaiji’s creator) makes it into a serious and psychological game that you’ve ever seen. The game is clever and usually depends on psychological to win the game. And if you’re thinking the game is hard to understand then dont worry, since they’re really explained it well and moreover, its just a simple game (like Jankenpon or anything like that) that been modified a bit by Nobuyuki to make the game more interesting.

Another fun part about Kaiji is guessing. This series is really know how to keep you on your toes and as you keep guessing as the stakes get higher and the games become more absurd,Like any mystery and detective show, we’re usually trying to guess on whats gonna happen next or probably trying to solve whats the trick between it. Well, Kaiji is not mystery or detective show but at least thats what i felt when i watch this show. The way how Kaiji solving each game is really remarkable and unexpected. And another great things about it was how logical Kaiji solution was. Well, sometimes another series use some illogical and unrealistic tricks but not in Kaiji, They’re all making sense and that part what makes Kaiji is so amazing.

Another aspects that really prominent is the art. Kaiji’s art is superbly good, not in the term of realistic nor catchy color but its in term of the compatibility within the story. Sometimes some anime missing the point on what art should be, like an example the themes of an anime is thriller but the art looks so colorful makes the thriller atmosphere being wasted. And Good things Kaiji isnt like that. Their art is probably the most unique one, they using thick lines for the characters to make it like a comical style and the character design is unique, probably you cant find it in anywhere. The originality style that Fukumoto (Creator of Kaij) bring probably hard to watch for someone who’re not used watching something extraordinary like this but the comical style that Kaiji use is bring out the advantage for themselves. Like it can increasing the expressive of each characters so we can feel the emotion within them. Its truly beautiful.

There is no other way to make Kaiji more epic than the sound. The background song or the soundtrack within every scenes is really remarkable, they’re fitting well for every scenes that occurs. Like when Kaiji is being despair, there is a sound that you would notice along the series, “ZAWAAA” or it can be translated as agitation. The sound like the one i notice before increasing the despair atmosphere and thrilling the audience. Its like the song forced us to feel the same way as the kaiji does. Well, its not astonishing since the music composer is Hideki Tanuichi, the one who responsible for Aoi Bungaku and Death note music. He did briliantly again in this anime. The opening song in this anime is also amazing, “Mirai wa Bokura no Te no Naka” that being played by Hakuryu is really fits with the anime. This 45 seconds opening song is quite wacky and random but somehow this is quite addicting. After talking about the song, lets talking about the seiyuu voice. There is two name that i should mention for this. Hagiwara Masato and Fumihiko Tachiki, They are the one who responsible for making Kaiji become so epic. Masato voice is really fits with Kaiji, his voice that heavy is really suitable with kaiji that a middle aged man. He succesfully makes Kaiji like himself but in anime version. In other words, Masato is bring the life for Kaiji. For Fumihiko, his roles in this anime is narrator. But dont take this lightly, because his energetic and passionate voice in every narrating the story would stun you up.

If there was something that makes me so addicting with this series,it was Kaiji and the other characters. Kaiji is one of the best main characters out there, but he can also the most lamest main characters. There is too many way to describe kaiji, he can be a hero but also a loser. Loser in this term is how Kaiji sometimes following his desires for gambling and ended up to have much of debt but in the other way, when he was in pinch, he could turned into a heroic character. Last, his personality that clever and tricky make this story become more interesting to follow. Not just kaiji, The other characters also one of the aspects what makes Kaiji is so amazing. Every characters that appears in this anime isnt just for a side show,they playing some important roles too andThe other characters acts like what in real life do, like when you are in the pinch with your friends and you have a chance for escape for yourselves, what would you do? I believe if we are in that positions, we are choosing for escape by ourselves and abandon our friends. That question is for describing what the characters in kaiji is. They would do anything for saving themselves, betraying is one of the way that they would do. The realistic things that every characters do make this anime become more interesting to see.

Lastly, after all mumbling that i said before i can safely said Kaiji is one the anime that you should watch. Despite its lackness in moe and cute girls on it, Kaiji would bring you an amazing thriller story with just some simple game. From that simple game, prepare for feeling some intense scenes that would make you hold the breath from beginning to the end.

Open

Gift

More stacks

Interest Stacks

Cultural References and Memes

by Cestlavie_

50 Entries · 276 Restacks

Anime Wonderland: Recommendations for Anime Enthusiasts

by KiritsuguKougami

37 Entries · 4 Restacks

Guide to Economics Major

by mekumekuchan31

20 Entries · 1 Restacks

More recommendations

Recommendations

View All

More news

Recent News

North American Anime & Manga Releases for April

Here are the North American anime, manga, and light novel releases for April Week 1: April 6 - 12 Anime Releases Aya to Majo (Earwig and the Witch) Blu-ray & DVD...read more

Apr 5, 2021 2:12 PM by ImperfectBlue | Discuss (5 comments)

Q4 2020 Anime & Manga Licenses [Update 12/14]

In this thread, you'll find a comprehensive list of anime and manga licensed in the second quarter (Oct-Dec) of 2020. Fall 2020 anime which were licensed before...read more

Sep 28, 2020 11:49 AM by Snow | Discuss (14 comments)

More discussions

Recent Forum Discussion

Poll: Kaiji Episode 26 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ) Exelen - Apr 1, 2008	215 replies	by VsyoNorm »» May 24, 9:05 PM
Poll: Kaiji Episode 23 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Faust721 - Mar 16, 2008	88 replies	by SEIRAAAA »» Mar 28, 7:59 AM
Poll: Kaiji Episode 24 Discussion ( 1 2 ) MEGATRON - Mar 23, 2008	66 replies	by Makuro »» Mar 22, 8:14 AM
Poll: Kaiji Episode 9 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) removed-user - Dec 8, 2007	118 replies	by Makuro »» Mar 21, 3:07 AM
Poll: Kaiji Episode 10 Discussion ( 1 2 ) removed-user - Dec 12, 2007	65 replies	by Makuro »» Mar 21, 3:03 AM

Recent Featured Articles

15 of the Best Adult Anime of All Time

You've always known that anime is a medium that breaks down boundaries. Now, we're going to be taking a look at the best adult anime which push things beyond the limit!

by MisterD98

2,166,493 views

Recommendation Collection Action Cute Girls Cute Guys Despair Horror Supernatural

Top 25 Best Psychological Anime of All Time [Updated]

Action is awesome, romance is sweet, but when it comes to making you think nothing beats psychological anime. These top psychological anime will turn your perception of anime upside down. Prepare to have your mind blown.

by Littoface

1,492,384 views

Spoiler

Recommendation Collection Analysis

Gyakkyou Burai Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

Streaming Platforms

Synopsis

Background

Episode Videos

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Related Anime

Characters & Voice Actors

Itou, Kaiji

Tonegawa, Yukio

Narrator

Hyoudou, Kazutaka

Endou, Yuuji

Ishida, Kouji

Andou, Mamoru

Sahara, Makoto

Funai, Jouji

Furuhata, Takeshi

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

Recent News

Recent Forum Discussion

Recent Featured Articles

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Gyakkyou Burai Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

Streaming Platforms

Synopsis

Background

Episode Videos

Visit MALxJapan MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Related Anime

Characters & Voice Actors

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

Recent News

Recent Forum Discussion

Recent Featured Articles

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-