What drew me to Kaiji was the interesting premise, gambling. Considering the manga had over 30+ volumes, there had to be something to this. However, the question pops in my mind “how is one able to make an anime about gambling?” In the end, I found that a more important question is “how can one make a good anime about gambling?” and Kaiji isn’t a very good example.
Itoh Kaiji owes 3 million yen to the yakuza and is forced to go into a special cruise ship to gamble his way out of debt. The gamble is based on rock, paper, scissor, while simple at first there is quite a bit flexibility to mess with the system in your favor. This is what makes the first arc so interesting. My roommate and I discussed the many possibilities after each episode and eagerly waited to see what Kaiji was gonna do next. Near the end of this arc the story really started to drag on, but it wasn’t too bad as I though the story would end on episode 13. If I were to rate Kaiji based purely on the first arc it would have gotten a high 7 or low 8. However, Kaiji didn’t end on the first arc…
The next arc consisted of 3 major gambles, human derby, e-card, and umm… “awesome box.” Here Kaiji loses what made the first arc so interesting, the open nature of the gambles. The human derby arc wasn’t really a gamble per say, instead it was a task to complete for money and entertainment of very rich guest. Here Kaiji tires to create human drama and really delve into the minds of the characters. Well there’s only one problem with this, Kaiji never had strong characters. The people participating in the human derby were newly introduced and we don’t know anything about them, they are effectively faceless. So why should the viewer care what happens to them? People die everyday so why don’t we weep for them too? Yes, I’ll admit it’s quite tragic and on some level I do feel sad for the characters. Even for the title character, Kaiji, I felt very little, this is because the first arc only really focuses on the gambles and very little on the Kaiji himself. So there is no big pay off, so to speak when things get dramatic (ie My Hime). Instead it’s more like watching the 10pm news.
In this arc they also really delve into philosophy and psychology. The philosophical aspects were too in your face, reminding me of the extremely blatant Ghost in the Shell movies, especially Innocence. This is because of the delivery, long winded speeches from supposed sage. This wise old man steps on to the podium and lectures not only Kaiji but the viewer as well. There is nothing subtle about this nor was it very grey, this is how the world is because he said so. As for the psychological aspects, visuals were often used to convey the inner struggles, its just that they really over did it and kept repeating the same damn thing. This leads to my major complaint overall with Kaiji.
The thing that made Kaiji lose the most point is the fact that they dragged things for way too long, far longer than the first arc. The omnipresent narrator didn’t help either; I was ready to scream at the screen “shut up, we get the idea already!” As for the other 2 gambles, they faired a bit better…only a little bit. They were actual gambles, but featured the same things that made the human derby arc bad, too dragged out, shallow drama, and overt philosophical ramblings. However, in the E-card arc it did give me back a little of the “how’s Kaiji gonna get out of this mess” feeling. Although, the nature of the gamble is very closed, thus I remain a passive viewer. Finally the way those gambles ended was way too contrived for my tastes, suffering from the “just as planned” syndrome.
Let me add that Kaiji is extremely overt with the way it handles itself, from the emotions to the thoughts of the characters themselves. In some ways it feels a bit caricature but I guess that’s mainly the art that gives that impression. Visual metaphors are used to ram their ideas into the viewers head as well as the omnipresent narrator constantly tells the viewer exactly what is going on. It doesn’t help that the narrator is using an overly dramatic voice, reminiscent of movie guy.
Animation was excellent; it was very smooth as well as extremely consistent, as expected by Madhouse. For a very dialogue based story they made use of many visual metaphors, once again it gets old fast. It would have been better if they simply used more dramatic angles and shots as in Death Note. Art is well…ugly, very ugly, which makes me wonder why Fukumoto (the mangaka) was allowed to keep drawing manga. He should have someone else draw and he’ll work on the story.
The music is easily the best part of Kaiji, I loved the instrumental pieces and was surprised at how good the music was when I listened to the ost. Not only that the music was especially fitting considering the gritty tone of Kaiji. I just wished they used it more often. Most of the time there isn’t music, instead the narrator sets the tone and the trademark “zawazawa.”
Oh let us not forget about the ending… Kaiji ended on an extremely open note, so open that I wondered where the next episode was gonna air. While open endings can work, they only work for character based stories and Kaiji didn’t have the story structure to support such an ending. I’m not going to be that critical on the ending as I’m sure they plan on animating the rest of the Kaiji story. What I am gonna be critical on is the fact that Kaiji seemed to have grown dumber in the end. Ok let me rephrase that he’s grown smarter as a gambler but dumber as a person. There is a sense of irony when Kaiji, minus 4 fingers, an ear, and even more in debt, was talking about how he’s stronger now and will defeat the chairman next time. There is no evidence showing that he stronger as a person, only as a gambler. Even during the interlude between the first and second arc he is shown unable to live in normal society. Now I feel he is even more unable to adapt and live under normal circumstances.
I was an active viewer during the first arc and that was what made things interesting and fun. However, when they took that aspect away I was made into a passive viewer. Here, the flaws with the narrative, pacing and characters became apparent. The pacing was horribly dragged out and extremely slow. Perhaps I would rate Kaiji higher if I didn’t watch it weekly and marathoned it, but what’s done is done. In addition, they suffer from the “just as planned” syndrome too much in the 2nd half. Now that think about it I didn’t really mention the characters in my review yet. Well that’s because all the characters are flat. As for Kaiji himself, he is someone with no past and based on the ending, he also has no future.
