Tobaku Mokushiroku Kaiji
Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji

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(just for the record, this is a toned down version of my anime review)

I am a fan of macho protagonists (you don’t say!), as well as unorthodox presentations, unique sensations, uncommon tropes, and so on. I got all that in this manga.

The series has a very simple to understand concept, yet very thrilling to follow through. The world moves with money, and some are willing to gamble a lot in order to get rich, or in case they are in dept just to get rid of it. Thus every player in this series is there for a good reason; he is highly motivated to play ... and win, with the result being him scoring big or ruining his life. As weird as it sounds at first (even for me) the series makes constant remarks to how they are all thinking while going after something that can ruin their lives. As they put it, they’d rather risk everything for a life of luxury instead of wasting their time as nobodies. And if they fail, at least they tried. And if they get ruined, their lives were insignificant to begin with. So yeah, this life or death business really strikes a cord with its direct explanation.

And thus we have Kaiji and his occasional friends and foes, having a big dept to moneylenders and other yakuza members, and all taking part in games that can eradicate either the dept or their lives. The old man who is in charge of all this establishment is by far the greediest bastard I have ever set my eyes on and his logic is “make money for the sake of making more money”. And as cost-unworthy as it seems to make all these games, eventually he gains lots of slaves who work all their lives practically for free, while the few winners usually are gamblers who return just for the gamble and get ruined as well. In his eyes, it is a win-win situation and all the money eventually returns back to him. He is a great adversary, both despised yet prized for his way of thinking.

What makes this show even more interesting, is the games themselves. Their rules are always easy to understand and they appear to be based on pure luck, yet eventually the smart mind can find more strategy than luck into winning the game. Even through cheating if possible. So it is highly ironic to have so many card game anime like Yugioh, each one with thousands of different cards and numerous strategies, and yet none of them are as exciting or strategic as a simplistic rock/paper/scissors game played with cards. Later on more games are introduced to keep the interest from going stale, as different strategies are needed for completely different games. And although all of them are usually based on cheating, the means through which they are revealed or countered makes it all the more exciting.

Speaking of excitement, the whole series is basically a mind game of itself. Various cinematics are used to portrait how the characters are feeling, and most of the duration is actually about them sweating, getting close to a heart-attack, or crying from joy when an obstacle is overcome. The background constantly changes to tsunamis and castles and beasts as means to depict all that, while the endless kanji for ZAWA ZAWA make you feel anxious as well. Even the narrator contributes to all that by mentioning some really overblown with drama monologues around life and death. And the BGM is full of unresting tunes, while the main songs are preparing you for some really blood-boiling situations. So yeah, you are watching men playing card games and you are made to feel THE WORLD IS ABOUT TO END! The show does a great job at maintaining the anxiety and sucking you into it.

So in all I loved this manga. It was exciting, different, thrilling, GAR, and did things right all the way. It was both portraying its characters’ mentality AND had mind games worth looking into. It had moral messages AND honest depiction of human greed. It was both about pathos and catharsis, desperation and hope, emotions and cold-heartingness. IT WAS LIFE ITSELF!

… and it was GAR.

And if you want more, try the Liar Game manga.

Gambling Apocalypses Kaiji is a rather solid Gambling manga, and honestly it's quite good with a couple caveats.

The main story is about a down on the luck guy named Kaiji who constantly takes gambles and fails quite often. Life has screwed him over, but at the same time, I feel like it's also mostly his fault for putting himself in those positions. However early on he's enticed by an offer to clear his debt, because of a big money game. I normally won't give away spoilers, but to understand Kaiji I feel like the first major arc needs to be explained. ... That's of a gambling boat where players on board play a card version of Rock Paper Scissor. This is not a special or magical game or anything, is just a game about Rock Paper scissor, and this takes up around a third of the story, but I also will say it's a very compelling story, and so is the rest of this series.

The reason I mention this is many gambling mangas seem to go for quantity over quality. While that's entertaining most of the time Kaiji develops the situation and how the players approach it far more, and it leads to a deeper story. I'm someone who usually wants to be entertained and move on, but the elongated card game is excellent and really illustrates the strength of Kaiji's narrative. The characters in the manga are well fleshed out but more importantly games aren't a "one and done" experience.

However this is also where I have to bring up a flaw. Many of Kaiji's panels, I feel like there's probably hundreds of them are devoted to a close up of Kaiji's face where he's doing what reminds me of the shifty eye look that most cartoons now spoof. He's not shifting his eyes, it's more meant to be a thoughtful moment, but there's multiple pages that have that on more than one panel, and it's excessive. At the same time, that's really the negative I have for the art style, even though it's a dated look, this is still an iconic series and well worth enjoying.

The other thing I'll mention is the ending, not to give a spoiler, but I didn't know something important, but before that I have to say I appreciate Kaiji not just wrapping up the story with a happy ending but gave some meat to the the narrative and left me impressed... except I didn't realize this is actually part of a long running series. Kaiji has multiple follow up series and while I enjoyed this story, it's left on a note where readers are almost going to have to read the next series... and that's not a bad thing, considering how much I enjoyed this.

Overall the big take away from Kaiji is it's a bit dated, and the art is definitely from a different time, but the story is so strong that I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys narratives about gambling. This is a gambling manga, but unlike most of this genre, it's more about the characters, and the condition of the game, than that rapid fire style of different games, and that makes this more unique. Easily worth a read.

Kaiji series stands at the origins of Survival Game mangas.

The way the story develops evokes in the reader a range of emotions from indignation to bewilderment at the actions of the main character. This is not a toothless manga, where the main character is covered by the armor of the narrative; after several volumes you understand that the main character is likely to face any troubles (tho as well as victories), up to a crushing losses, terrible debts, or even the physical mutilationы.

The games themselves (with some exceptions) pleasantly surprise with the thoughtfulness of their tactics and the development of the player’s psychology. Some ... of the ideas that are presented by Kaiji or his opponents in difficult moments of the game really make you think about the role of money in our lives and social hierarchy.

Although the art looks a bit outdated, it does not detract from the main thing in this manga- the plot and development of the game, and the main characters have a memorable and expressive appearance.

In general, the manga is highly recommended for reading by fans of the genre.