First Date: Kaiji
- Title: Kaiji
- Studio: Madhouse
- Genre: Drama
Ratings (out of 5):
- Story: ♥♥♥♥
- Animation: ♥♥♥♥
- Characters: ♥♥♥
- OP/ED Themes: ♥♥♥♥
- Overall: ♥♥♥♥ (You’re ugly as hell, but I think I like you anyway.)
Thoughts:
Kaiji– and its predecessor Akagi –are not really very attractive shows. The art style, featuring super-long pointy noses and other exaggerated (even by anime standards) body parts, is off-putting to a lot of people. But the world Kaiji depicts isn’t supposed to be very pretty. In fact, the world setting is decidedly dingy, full of sad, desperate people.
Now, while the art may or may not be your cup of tea, the actual animation quality is actually pretty good, and the OP and ED themes are pretty good too– I particularl liked the OP. But then, on to the show itself.
Kaiji is an unemployed 20-something who wants to make a shit-ton of money but doesn’t want to work for it. I think we can all relate to that somewhat. But it’s a bit hard for me to stick with Kaiji as he slashes the tires of a fancy import car as his vengeance on the rich– and then to watch him get suckered pretty blatantly into the first arc of the story. How dumb is he? Well, dumb enough to co-sign a desperate friend’s loan, only to have that friend disappear, leaving him responsible for a large debt that has accumulated 14 months of interest– and that’s yakuza-level interest; 20%. Yipe.
Now, I have to say that the yakuza in this show feel more interesting than Kaiji does to me at this point. I mean, come on– the yakuza guy, Endou, picks up Kaiji and makes him an offer: get on this boat with a bunch of other people in major debt to us. We’ll loan you some money to gamble– at an even more insane interest rate, by the way –and you can win enough back to pay off your loan, right? But if you don’t, you get dumped into a couple of years of indentured servitude somewhere.
…What the hell kind of criminal organization has the time and energy to set up a giant cruise ship complete with game room to arrange this kind of nonsense? I mean, seriously, is the crime boss just really bored, or what?
But I think it’ll make for an interesting first arc, at least…
Tags: fall-2007, first-dates, kaiji