Tobaku Haouden Zero: Gyanki-hen

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After reading both Akagi and Kaiji by Nobuyuki Fukumoto. I was pretty much hooked on this mans style of writing. Which led me to Zero.

And despite again being a serie completely revolving around high stakes gambling it took another approach to it's predecessors and not just a rehash. to reflect:

Akagi centered about a gambler who was not afraid to throw his life away.
alway's calm and collected and extremely intelligent no matter how close death stood at his doorstep.

Kaiji on the other hand was the complete opposite. this serie revolved around a gambler who lacked plot armor to some degree. because he could lose. he ... showed emotion the effect off stress which made him chaotic making him human and relatable.

Zero is somewhere in the middle of these two. he is very intelligent but he would often need time to come to a conclusion, where Akagi would solve problems in an instant. He also shows his emotions but not to a point where it would break him. Making him more stable then Kaiji. And is probably the kindest of the three.

This series is also different in the aspect that Zero does not play for himself. but for others in order to protect them. Other then that. the setup is mainly the same as it's predecessors. But I have to admit the gambles that take place in this series are probably the most creative and massive. each new gamble feels fresh and every little detail you see on the pages makes you want to think along and figure out the answer before Zero would. where compared to Akagi or Kaiji you where alway's watching over his shoulder and felt more like a bystander.

so in short. If you like the gambling escepades of his pervious works but with a more Robin Hood like edge to it. I sugjest checking it out.

Utterly disappointing sequel that rings any buildup completely hollow due to serialization being halted back in 2013 and a Part 3 likely never coming out.

***SPOILERS BELOW***

Shirube & Zaizen only appear at the start and very end of this part. The timeskip is completely handwaved and FKMT has clearly lost all sense of direction of where he wants to take it. Junko; who I thought would be a major antagonist, is utterly laughable comparable to Kotarou from the previous entry. Her menacing shtick of wanting to rip out people's teeth for her own "pure" beauty treatment eventually turns into a joke when Zero completely and utterly ... dogpiles her in every conceivable fashion with his Sherlock Holmes esque contrived deductions.

There are little to no thrills or catharsis in this part. It's not even a death game anymore. While yes it's funny how the previous entry didn't actually have deaths shown despite being an explicit Death Game, there was still tension and risk of death present. You will feel none of that here. Every opponent/obstacle is a cakewalk. Heck, it even stops being a gambling series mid-way through and transitions into this pseudo-detective "mystery" of finding a rich man who's been trapped somewhere for 3 years.

A meandering, meaningless, contrived, and convoluted "solve the riddle" "mystery" where the reader has 0 chance of figuring details out on their own. Basically just watching a compilation of characters circlejerk their superhuman intelligence to idiotic fodder while FKMT gets to show off his characters making the same expressive shocked facial expressions. All answers are tied to unknown character backstories, Japanese word-play, and contrived double meanings that leave you completely dumbfounded on why the hell Kijuurou would even send something like this as an SOS help message - after years of conditioning his food supplier and being Oldboy-ed. The reveal of bringing it back with his son & their past stinks and his reward to Zero is utterly unsatisfying as we having nothing after this. You could probably argue he'd rely on Tatsuki to solve such a convoluted riddle, but even he is just a fallible 13-year-old kid who clearly overthinks too much and would've never found him without the help of Zero. Another barebones antagonist btw, if you can even call him that.

No character resolution, no satisfying payoff, zero tension & intrigue, nothing but monotony and disappointment.