author bio said:
Kaiji and Akagi are two of this dude's more popular series, both having an anime adaptation animated by Madhouse and having live-action films. i thought i'd make a thread about these two because of the recent one outs bandwagon (one outs is akagi with baseball and 60% more homolust), and the two series complement each other well.
Akagi
Akagi is the tale of young genius Akagi Shigeru who stumbles into a gambling mahjong game after taking a game of chicken to the extreme. After about 20 minutes he's the most bitching mahjong player in the world using keen psychological observation, a bit of cheating, and luck blessed upon him by kami-sama or something. The anime carries this moral of "you can't truly live if you aren't willing to take risks, but totally don't forget that even if you live life to the extreme you're going to get bored and start murdering people and get possessed by a few demons".
Pros-
- the show is about akagi pulling crazy shit and that's fun
- each of the guys he plays against is memorable and insane is some way, so each game feels different
- detective-san is a pretty cool guy
- madhouse does some great animation that raises the feelings and atmosphere of every episode
Cons-
- gambling mahjong is confusing. you can still enjoy the show because everyone's always getting excited but it's like watching football as a kid and not knowing why you're cheering but going along with the flow of things
- the anime doesn't finish the washizu mahjong arc :l
recommend checking this out before watching kaiji. it portrays the ideal gambling mindset and ideals through akagi, so when you watch kaiji you'll better understand that most of the shit he does is stupid.
Kaiji
Kaiji follows Kaiji Itou who has a crappy life of smoking, drinking, and gambling. then he discovers that one of his former co-workers bailed out on a loan they co-signed, so kaiji has to pay off the debt. still being poor as hell, he's offered the chance to be freed of his debt by participating in a gambling event aboard the cruise ship Espoir (french for prepare to get fcuked loser). and then he get's wrapped up in some crazy ass gambles for the rest of the anime. there's a reoccurring theme that people will always screw you over for cash, and that in order to live you must be determined and serious enough to cross the electrified steel beam hanging 75 meters above the ground that is life.
pros-
- ballin soundtrack
- contrary to most coolguy anime protagonists, kaiji is a loser with only quick-thinking to save his ass but otherwise flawed in most aspects. he spends most of the anime crying and you find yourself cheering him on through his tears.
- around the end of the series kaiji finds this cool box
cons-
- the series is great in the first 16 episodes, but after that people stop trying to fcuk kaiji over and it loses some of it's charm
- some of the gambles drag on forever
- you will never guess right
check this stuff out. kaiji is one of the best anime i've seen, and akagi's pretty cool too
