Pachislo Kizoku Gin

Before I begin, I am obliged to say this- FIRST! Many thanks to the longsuffering YouTube channel Perevodildo 2 Electric Retro Fansub Boogaloo for making this possible, they deserve a great deal of credit for this thankless work. But now, on to the review itself.

Pachislo Kizoku Gin is an utterly unique anime, all-around unlike any of the others I've seen. It's a sports anime, but the 'sport' is a specific type of slot machine, it's a gambling anime, but its framed as a noble struggle, it's a story about navigating personal relationships, but the sacrifices they make to gamble are often, but not always, depicted ... as honorable. This is also an anime from 2001, and only got an English dub 21 years later by total chance, and watching it made me think about how many other obscure, vintage anime must be out there, unloved even by their domestic audience, waiting to be fansubbed and given a second chance at life, even if only with a handful of people. Following this thought, what struck me the most was that this odd anime is actually kind of good, at the very least it blew my expectations out of the water because they were so low to begin with. And of course it goes without saying that it's not especially good, but for what it is I am regardless impressed. I was first hooked only by the fact it had a strange premise and no score or reviews on MAL, but once I started watching it wasn't an endurance test like I thought it was going to be. Beginning with the story, which is this anime's strongest point, we are presented with this bizarre plot about a high-stakes underground gambling ring called Slothium (Though later a plaque says 'Slosseum', so maybe one is the Japanese pronunciation and the other is how it's spelled?) featuring finely dressed attendees and expensive liquor and butlers and whatnot, but the only form of gambling taking place is Pachislot, a specific type of slot machine where the player must choose when to stop each rotating drum. The players in Slothium face off against each other in regular bouts, either competing for the biggest score or seeing who can get to a certain score threshold first. Otonashi Ginya is a reporter who is sent to report on Pachislot, and is eventually dragged into the world of Slothium, attempting to unseat the Ultimate King Daiba Ryo. The story then proceeds from there, maintaining a consistent quality while hitting all the classic sports anime/shounen tropes. There's a long-running tournament arc, a whole cast of unique enemies with their own peculiar styles and strategies for how to play pachislot, an estranged father, and even the whole 'do you choose me or the struggle?' romance subplot. The story on its own is genuinely impressive, because while it is kind of formulaic, it manages to make this anime which is essentially just about pressing buttons legitimately engaging. Everything from the exploration of a broken family to the concealment of a secret illness, the story keeps your attention, and always brings it back around to pachislot. I especially like how Oumi is worked in as a character, becoming my favorite character by the end of it, and also how the show sticks the landing by ending the story in a satisfying way. Though, even with all this praise, it's still relative to my expectations. Some major problems include strange, uncharacteristically convenient character motivations, absolutely busted plot pacing, and how the whole thing kind of feels like a thinly veiled glorification of gambling addiction, even if it attempts to mitigate that at points. The way pachislot is viewed by society in the anime is not the way it is viewed in real life, like how Spanish pianists don't treat the game as an art form, for one glaring example. Though, even with these issues, it's still better than everything else in this anime. The art is serviceable for 2001, even perhaps a little rough around the edges. The character designs and art style are distinct and interesting, and even the CG is pretty good for the time, but the characters suffer from the 'dreaded mask', where facial expressions meant to convey emotion often fail to do so, and the animation is pretty janky at times. For example, I saw someone's arm pass under the animation cell of someone else's mouth, characters sometimes snap into a standing position once finishing a motion, and the physics of the world are often jarringly inaccurate. Still, you could tell they tried their best, and that's worth something. The sound was again serviceable, with voice acting and sounds of life that meet the minimum standard of quality, while the OP and ED are actually pretty good, and will be stuck in my head for a while. The characters also meet the basic level of quality required for the story to take place, and it feels more like the story imbues them with value rather than that value being intrinsic to the characters themselves. Overall, Pachislo Kizoku Gin is a weird anime that does the best it can with what it has, and even manages to keep one's attention for a while, but even then it is a rough, unpolished work, and while I certainly don't regret watching it, I think that if circumstances were different and other people had already rated and reviewed this anime, I probably wouldn't have bothered to give this one a chance.