Kaiji (manga)

Japan, February 1996. 3 years after graduating from high school and moving to Tokyo to get a job, Kaiji Itō fails to find steady employment due to the country being mired in its first recession since World War II. Depressed, he festers in his apartment, biding his time with cheap pranks, gambling, liquor and cigarettes. Kaiji is always thinking about money and his perpetual poverty frequently brings him to tears. Kaiji's unrelenting misery continues until he is paid an unexpected visit from a loan shark named Yūji Endō who wants to collect an outstanding debt that Kaiji has carelessly co-signed for his former co-worker. Endō gives Kaiji two options – either spend ten years repaying this outstanding debt, or board the gambling ship Espoir ("hope" in French) for one night to clear the debt. Using a con, Endō pressures Kaiji into accepting the deal, believing he will never come back from the voyage.

However, Kaiji survives the gamble and is invited to another gambling night, this time at Starside Hotel. Although initially wary about the offer, he is spurred by his acquaintance Sahara to go. After being the only survivor of the Human Derby, Kaiji decides to avenge his friends by competing in another gambling match the financing corporation known as Teiai Group has prepared: E-Card. Kaiji, despite losing an ear, defeats his opponent Yukio Tonegawa, the second highest ranking executive at Teiai. He goes all-in once again in a new game with Kazutaka Hyōdō, the president of Teiai, but this time loses both the money he had won in E-Card and four of his fingers.

Though Kaiji survives the events at Starside Hotel he now has a debt of over 9.5 million yen. He contacts Endō in hopes of being able to take part in another high-stakes gamble, though Endō betrays him and sends him to Teiai's underground labour camp where he will have to work off his debt for 15 years. In the labour camp Kaiji is paid 91,000 perica (equal to 9100 yen) per month to dig an underground kingdom. This is reduced to 45,000 perica after Kaiji loses to Ōtsuki in Underground Cee-lo. However, Kaiji allies himself with other Forty-fivers (those earning 45,000 perica per month) to defeat Ōtsuki and win enough money for a one-day outside pass.

Although Kaiji manages to get out of the labour camp with 800,000 yen on hand using multiple one-day outside passes, he only has 20 days to earn the 60 million yen he needs to buy his freedom and release the other Forty-fivers. Fortunately, Kaiji comes across Kōtarō Sakazaki, a man who tells him of a pachinko game known as the Bog in a high-stakes casino where Kaiji can win over 500 million yen. Kaiji agrees to help him beat the Bog. However, the casino is owned by Teiai, and the Bog has been rigged in several ways by the manager of the casino, Seiya Ichijō, and his men to ensure that it won't pay out. Kaiji succeeds at beating the Bog after a long battle and Ichijō is sent to the underground labour camp working for 1050 years to pay back the 700 million yen from the Bog that Kaiji won.

Months after the events and finally having cleared his debt, Kaiji has been living with Sakazaki and his family until he kicks Kaiji out with 3 million yen in cash. Kaiji then agrees to help the former Forty-fivers Miyoshi and Maeda beat Takashi Muraoka, the president of a casino at his Minefield Mahjong game and potentially win over 100 million yen. After losing sums of money during the game, Kaiji realizes that the game was rigged from the start in Muraoka's favor, with Maeda looking at Kaiji's tiles and giving information to Muraoka and Miyoshi sending false signals to Kaiji. Kazuya Hyōdō, the son of Kazutaka Hyōdō, who was in the same room with Kaiji and the rest, loans him money to continue gambling, and after several matches, Kaiji is finally able to defeat Muraoka and wins 480 million yen through a pure stroke of luck.

Kazuya offers Kaiji an opportunity to gamble with him, to which Kaiji accepts and follows him. Kazuya reveals to Kaiji his twisted and bloodthirsty personality and how despicable he thinks human beings are. He decides to test his view on human nature with a life-or-death game called Salvation Game, with three friends indebted to him, Mario, Chang and Mitsuyama, and see if their friendship is a true bond. Kaiji is an observer to this game and cheers on the three men to challenge Kazuya's corrupted views. However, after several rounds, Mitsuyama ends up failing to put his trust into his friends and betrays them, taking all the money of the game and leaving them behind to die. Kaiji instinctively saves Mario and Chang from death, and before going with Kazuya to a warehouse and do their gamble, Kaiji asks them to join and support him to defeat Kazuya.

Kaiji and Kazuya play a game called One Poker, and after several matches with Kaiji close to death, he finally overthrows Kazuya. Nevertheless Kaiji, in an act of mercy, saves Kazuya from dying with the help of Mario and Chang. While Kazuya lies unconscious, they escape with 2.4 billion yen. Enraged after he found out what happened, Hyōdō commands the blacksuits and Endō to chase after them and get the money back. Currently, Kaiji, Chang and Mario are still on the run from Teiai.

Series 1

Restricted Rock–Paper–Scissors (限定ジャンケン, Gentei janken)

The gambling tournament during the night Kaiji spends on Espoir, has an average survival rate of 50%. The rules were outlined after the issuing of war funds, which were done a minimum of 1,000,000¥ and 10,000,000¥. The money was in effect a loan, equaling the debt of the contestant and compounded at 1.5% every ten minutes for the four-hour voyage; contestants who hold onto their funds for the length of the trip would have to pay 140% of what they invested, thus putting an incentive to finish games early. Money that exceeded the amount needed to repay the loan to the Espoir hosts would be pocketed by the contestant.

The rules of the game are similar to the original rock–paper–scissors game but with a twist – the hand gestures are represented by cards, and contestants are given twelve cards, four of each gesture. Contestants are also given three plastic stars as collateral to bet on each round of play – whenever a player loses a round, the winner gets a star from the loser. To survive the night, contestants must retain their three star pendants and use all of their gesture cards. Cards cannot be destroyed or thrown away, to do so is subject to instant disqualification.

Due to the simple nature of the game, single matches can be completed within ten seconds, and players can win or lose in a matter of minutes. Winners are allowed to go upstairs, where any extra star pendants are exchanged for cash and they lounge in a small cafe. In the event of a loss, individuals are taken away to a back room by men in black suits.

Steel Beam Crossing (鉄骨渡り, Tekkotsu-watari)

The gamble seen during Kaiji's competition at the Starside Hotel, consisting of two parts – Human Derby (人間競馬, Ningen keiba) and Electrified Steel Beam Crossing (電流鉄骨渡り, Denryū tekkotsu-watari). In contrast to Restricted Rock, Paper, Scissors, contestants are not briefed on the rules of the Human Derby, and are unaware of the nature of the gamble until they accept participating in it. Contestants are loaded into numbered "coffins" and are elevated several floors up the Starside Hotel to a platform overlooking a concrete courtyard. Contestants are expected to walk across four long, steel beams – the first to arrive on the other side of the beam nets 20,000,000¥, the second place finisher 10,000,000¥. The steel beams become more narrow as the contestants begin to cross them, though touching the beam with hands at any time disqualifies the contestant. The pushing of contestants to get out of the way is not forbidden but is in fact encouraged, since the contestants (the "horses") are being bet on by spectators below, who enjoy the struggle to the other side. Contestants who fall from the beams suffer severe injury – depending on how and where they land, their injuries can range from serious to fatal.

Once the winners of the first leg of the race have been identified, they are given coupons redeemable for their prize with a set time limit. To cash the coupons, the contestants must cross similar but more dangerous steel beams twenty two stories or 75 meters above the ground and 25 meters long. Falling from this narrow bridge means instant death. Since the hosts concluded that the crossing of the bridge would not be entertaining if the contestants could give up and use their hands to assist in their retreat off the bridge, a strong electric current is run through the steel beams – while not powerful enough to cause serious injury or be fatal, the current is enough to stun contestants, causing them to lose balance and fall from the bridge. Psychologically, this bridge is much more challenging because of the greater peril involved. What's more the end of the bridge is not the end goal. Rather a glass stairway is set up at the end that reveals the true end goal but due to the dark lighting, it's hard to make out and requires a leap of faith in order to reach.

E-Card (Eカード, Ī kādo)

E-Card (Emperor Card) is a card game similar to Restricted Rock, Paper, Scissors in that it uses three card types: the Emperor (皇帝, Kōtei), the Citizen (市民, Shimin), and the Slave (奴隷, Dorei). The game is meant to be a simplification of society that Kazutaka Hyōdō refers to right before the game begins. The Emperor has ultimate power to give money (i.e. most powerful card). Citizens cannot disobey him because they want money (i.e. Emperor card beats the Citizen card). The Slave has nothing to lose and has no use of money, therefore the slave can defeat the Emperor (i.e. Slave card beats the Emperor card but loses to the Citizen card). Each hand is played with one side having four Citizen cards and an Emperor card (Emperor side). The other side having four Citizen cards and a Slave card (Slave side). Since it is much harder for the slave side to win (as Slave cards can only defeat Emperor cards) the players of the Slave side get five times more winnings. The game consists of 12 matches, 4 sets of three, where the players alternate between the Slave side and the Emperor side. In each set of 3 rounds, each player must place down one of the 5 cards in their hand until one emerges as the winner of that match. As Kaiji did not have enough money to match the bet, he was given the choice of losing an eye or an ear instead.

Tissue Box Raffle (ティッシュ箱くじ引き, Tisshu-bako kujibiki)

Unlike the other gambles, this gamble is made by Kaiji himself. After completing E-Card he prepares to leave the hotel but then steps on a tissue box and notices that its sides are open, which he finds fascinating. Upon further investigation of the box Kaiji decides to challenge Hyōdō to a raffle gamble with the tissue box as the container for the lots made of small torn squares of paper towel. The winning piece had a circle drawn on it.

Series 2

Underground Cee-lo (地下チンチロ, Chika chinchiro)

A variation on the dice game, Cee-lo, this game was crafted by Ōtsuki, the foreman of Kaiji's work team in the underground labor camp. Notable rule variations include that the dealer is not fixed and each player can take a turn as dealer. However, each player may opt to pass their turn as dealer, but if they agree to play dealer, then they must be dealer two consecutive times.

Pachinko "The Bog" (パチンコ「沼」, Pachinko "Numa")

An elaborate Pachinko game in a high-stakes casino featuring a payout of 100% of the earnings from the machine. Taking this into consideration the house has set up state-of-the-art countermeasures to ensure victory; such as tightening the nails to ensure only 1 in 100 balls go in, using flippers to knock away balls, and tilting the three bottom plates to prevent any balls dropping through the winning holes. Previously only two people have ever beaten the Bog; Hyōdō and Tonegawa. Each ball is worth 1000 times more than a normal Pachinko machine, ¥4000 (around $39), but the payout is 100 million balls. When Kaiji first comes across the Bog the jackpot is ¥550 million but when he plays it, the jackpot has risen to over ¥700 million.

Series 3

Minefield Game “17 Steps” (地雷ゲーム「17歩」, Jirai gēmu “17-ho”)

A variation of Japanese Mahjong where the game is played by two players who make their best hand from a random draw of 34 tiles. Players do not draw a tile as usual, but instead take turns discarding the 17 leftover tiles from the 34 tiles used to build their hands. Because no tiles are drawn, a hand can only be won by declaring ron on a winning tile discarded by the opponent. A winning hand must reach mangan or higher in order to be valid. If neither player achieves ron after 17 turns, the game becomes a draw, the tiles are reshuffled, and the current wager is doubled.

Series 4

Sword Over Love (愛よりも剣, Ai yori mo ken)

A game that appears in the in-universe novel written by Kazuya Hyōdō. The novel is based on the punishments that Kazuya actually enforced, with a changed setting and character names, making the story ostensibly fictional. The gamble uses two boxes with two sword holes in the feet and five in the body, nine steel plates and nine swords. Two players go into their respective boxes and take turns designating the holes into which the swords will be pierced. The player can choose their own hole as well as their opponent's. In addition, 9 of the 14 holes have a steel plate in them, so that even if the sword is stabbed into one of the holes, it will not pierce the body, so if all nine swords are stabbed into holes with a steel plate, both players will end up unharmed. However, the remaining five holes do not have an iron plate in them, and stabbing a sword in one of them will stab the player, which will result in serious injury in the case of the legs, and death, though not necessarily instantaneous, in the case of the body.

Salvation Game (救出ゲーム, Kyūshitsu Gēmu)

A life-or-death game designed by Kazuya to test if the friendship between three men indebted to Kazuya--Mario, from the Philippines, Chang, from China, and Mitsuyama, from Japan--is a true bond. The three men sit in a stair case formation, strapped to their seats with seat belts which can only be released one at a time with a release button, and are not allowed to look behind them. They each wear a helmet with a light on the top. At the start of each round of the game, the current pot is doubled, and of the three men, one "savior" and two "hostages" is decided via the light on their helmets. The savior must release their seat belt after 30 seconds, but before 60, and press a button across the room, otherwise the helmets of the two hostages will crush their heads. They must use the powers of deduction and observation to determine if they are the savior or the hostage--the player at the top of the staircase is in the best position for this, as he can see the two other players' lights. Halfway through the game, Kazuya reveals that, if the savior fails to rescue the two hostages, he gets double the entire pot of the current round. Kaiji is brought in as an observer to this game, and frequently cheers on the three men and challenges Kazuya's corrupted view of human nature.

Series 5

One Poker (ワン・ポーカー, Wan Pōkā)

A card game using two standard decks of playing cards, designed by Kazuya. Rather than deciding the victor via hands such as Straight, Flush, etc., each hand consists of just one card and is ranked according to its normal value, suits not factoring into the value at all. In addition, like in the earlier E-Card game, the absolute weakest card actually beats the absolute strongest card--a 2 is the absolute weakest, and an ace is the absolute strongest, so the 2 wins against an ace. If both players play a card of equal value, it is a tie. At the start of each round, players have two cards, and must play one of them, the most valuable card being the winner. Lights in front of each player indicate whether their cards are "up" (higher value) or "down" (lower value). Standard poker betting rules apply and the cards of both players are always revealed after betting even if one player folds (but they don't affect the outcome in that case). In addition, all of this is played at the top of a large tower, on a mechanical shuffling table Kazuya has designed, which he names "Mother Sophie". The table is placed on a set of tracks, and moves towards the loser's side's edge with each loss.

Movies

The Princess and the Slave (姫と奴隷, Hime to dorei)

An original gamble that appears in the live-action film Kaiji 2. The attraction, which takes place in the underworld casino where Ichijō is the manager, is the "New Brave Men Road" which replaces Steel Beam Crossing. Originally named "The Princess and the Tiger," based on a short story by Frank R. Stockton, the name was changed due to the tigers being changed into lions for the movie. The game involves a "slave" (heavily indebted challenger) being trapped with his feet shackled in a room with no way out in front of three cages and buttons. The slave can press only one of the three buttons, which open a cage corresponding to it. If the cage containing a "princess" (the challenger's companion) is opened, the slave will be released with 30 million in prize money, but the other cages contain lions who will attack and kill the slave if freed. The princess is notified on the spot which button is the right one, and can inform the slave about it. However, there is no guarantee that the princess will truthfully tell the slave which is the correct button, because if the slave dies, she will be awarded 3 million. The slave must correctly determine the truth of the princess's statement or else endanger his life. There doesn't appear to be any reason for the princess to betray the slave in terms of the amount of money they can get, but since the slaves are supposed to be chosen from those who are heavily indebted, even if they win the 30 million, it is assumed that most if not all of the amount will go towards paying off the debt.

Tower of Babel (バベルの塔, Baberu no tō)

An original game that appears in the live-action film Kaiji: Final Game. Participants compete for cards stuck to the tops of poles erected around the city.

Dream Jump (ドリームジャンプ, Dorīmu janpu)

An original game that appears in the live-action film Kaiji: Final Game. Players select one of the ten ropes and get dropped in a bungee jumping fashion. There is a one-in-ten chance that the person who picked the right rope will be able to survive, but the others will fall from a high ground to their deaths.

Final Judgment -The Human Scale- (最後の審判 -人間秤-, Saigo no shinpan -ningen bakari-)

An original game that appears in the live-action film Kaiji: Final Game. Two participants, who are in a rivalry with each other in terms of assets, convert all of their wealth into gold bars and compete to weigh them on a scale. The main feature of this game is that the players can attach supporters to the game, and the key is for the player to be able to persuade their opponent's supporters to join their own team. There are three main types of supporters: "Friends," "Fixers," and "Family," who can turn cash, works of art, land deeds, and other valuables into gold bars using a state-of-the-art grading machine. There is also a "Fan" type where the spectators vote by throwing gold coins into the scale of the side they think will win. The gold coins are numbered so that it is clear who threw them into which scale. If the winning side gets voted on when the polls close, they will receive twice the amount of their lump sum. However, if voted with a gold coin and it falls to the ground without being placed on the scale, it will be forfeited by Teiai.

Gold Rock–Paper–Scissors (ゴールドジャンケン, Gōrudo janken)

An original game that appears in the live-action film Kaiji: Final Game. This is a gamble that Kōsuke Takakura frequently plays for entertainment purposes, with the rules not deviating much from those of a normal rock-paper-scissors game, but the player must hold a handful of solid gold in one of the three rounds of the game, which means they must play Rock in at least one of those rounds. If the player holds the gold and wins with Rock, they can get that gold as a bonus.

At the start of serialization, Nobuyuki Fukumoto was 37, and he had a track record of gambling manga, including Ten, Akagi and Gin to Kin.[4][5] Originally, it was planned to be a short story based on the first game of the series, "restricted rock–paper–scissors", but Fukumoto told to his chief editor at Kodansha that he found it difficult to fit the story in a few chapters. Eventually, the plan to make it a serialized manga was decided in November 1995, and Kaiji began in Weekly Young Magazine in February 1996.[5][4] Fukumoto stated that the original project did not have the main character's name as the series' title and he named him so because he did not want to make him "so cool" and wanted the dullest name possible.[5]

Assuming that people who will read Kaiji are not familiar with gambling manga, Fukumoto has stated that he created original gambling games in the series because they are easier to process than already existing games, allowing him to make simple and easy rules, adding as well that anything can become a gamble having an original game, and he can draw something surprising or interesting for the readers.[6] To create a new game, Fukumoto first comes up with an idea and then a way to beat it, taking time to prepare tricks in order to win in a creative way, noting that persistence is key in the process.[7][6]

Kaiji, and most of Fukumoto's other works as well, are drawn in a "cartoonish and loose" style. Fukumoto uses techniques like shake up the character's eyeballs and face to express their feelings. The titular character is drawn "sharper". Kaiji has an angular face, pointy chin and sharp nose, making it difficult to freehand draw him. Fukumoto uses a ruler and rotates the manuscript paper to draw him.[8][6] For the antagonists, Fukumoto depicts their "ugliness" by bringing up a scary look in their eye and "threatening teeth".[6] Fukumoto uses his trademark onomatopoeia, "zawa..." (ざわ…), to express the characters' uneasiness.[9][6][10] He also uses visual metaphors, like making Kaiji jump a large crevice or drawing him into a rushing torrent of water, to express the uneasy atmosphere.[6][11] Women rarely appear in the series,[9] being Mikoko Sakazaki the most prominent, and their appearance in gambling scenes are even more rarely, as Fukumoto reportedly stated that he did not need women in the gambling world.[12] Nevertheless, in July 2019, Fukumoto started Yami-Mahjong Fighter: Mamiya, a gambling mahjong manga series, in which the protagonist is a female character.[13]

The manga portrayals people's psychology in extreme situations, and the characters deal with betrayal and elaborate cons, desperately looking for ways to win.[6] Fukumoto has stated that he can not make manga where the characters readily make friends that they risk their lives for, and his protagonists are always alone, with no friends or followers, and Kaiji himself is frequently betrayed. Fukumoto considered that his antagonists, like Kazutaka Hyōdō and Yukio Tonegawa, are bad guys saying cruel things that maybe are true.[14] By making Kaiji reflecting on his life and noticing his own faults, Fukumoto considered that the story is about maturation, as he wanted to draw a story in which the character gains something or changes in some way, so that he would be able to trust a person, even if he was previously betrayed.[6]

• Tobaku Datenroku Kaiji: Kazuya-hen at Young Magazine (in Japanese)
• Tobaku Datenroku Kaiji: One Poker-hen at Young Magazine (in Japanese)
• Tobaku Datenroku Kaiji: 24 Oku Dasshutsu-hen at Young Magazine (in Japanese)
• Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor official site at Nippon TV (in Japanese)
• Kaiji: Against All Rules official site at Nippon TV (in Japanese)
• Kaiji: Against All Rules official site at VAP (in Japanese)
• Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor official site at HIDIVE
• Gyakkyō Burai Kaiji - Death or Survival official site (in Japanese)
• Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji stage show official site (in Japanese)
• Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji at Manga Planet
• Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia