Choki! Finally the first glimpses of Kaiji’s inner demon are revealed.

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And the moment we’ve all been waiting for arrives. Kaiji’s fish takes the bait and he’s taken in…hook, line, and scissors.

It was most excellent to finally see Kaiji’s shrewd gambling cunning come into play and his accompanying RON face.

In this respect, Kaiji is completely unlike the cool and collected Akagi, who always maintained his composure, and who barely so much as cracked a smile when he crushed his opponents, let alone gloated over them.

Akagi, being the calculating genius that he was, had a much more confident look about him. It was almost as if he was disgusted by the lack of foresight on the part of his opponent.

Whereas Kaiji’s is much more of a “in your face biatch owned!!” kind of expression. It’s a much smugger look of satisfaction, however, it was still quite satisfying, ne?

I must admit that I didn’t particularly trust this Andou character, not because he had lost his cards and stars and not necessarily because he seemed to have a defeatist mentality.

No, I began to mistrust him when I saw the scene in the ED in which he bears a most insidious sneer. He just looks like a completely untrustworthy deviant.

However, even after his stupid blunder and poorly attempted betrayal, Kaiji keeps the loose confederacy of debtors intact and puts his ploy into action. I thought it was an interesting moment in Kaiji’s character development; it was reassuring to see him step up.

This early part of the story is critical in revealing what kind of person Kaiji is. There’s a saying that there is no honor among thieves, but Kaiji seems determined to maintain trust and unity amongst his erstwhile comrades.

It appears that he’s surprisingly reliable and strong under pressure.

Because it wouldn’t be a Kaiji episode without lots of manly tears.

Or maybe not.

You have to love the clever manner in which the metaphors are visualized in Fukumoto’s work. The shot of the cards passing through the multiple knots of rope and then suddenly becoming one thread as Kaiji discerned the necessary gambling stratagem was brilliant. Well played, indeed.

For my part, I really enjoyed the “sinking in quicksand” analogy. For something as boring as Rock Paper Scissors the trading card game, Fukumoto does an excellent job of making it seem gripping and action packed, with full on slo-mo, zawa’s flying everywhere, and tight shots of intense eyes and shocked reaction faces.

The off the wall visual metaphors just add to the sheer awesomeness of this show, something that shouldn’t be fun to watch, yet is absolutely thrilling.

You’ve got to appreciate how well he’s read his opponent, as well. It makes you realize that even a solid stratagem is useless if excludes the possibility of chance or seemingly erratic moves.

People ask “Why was Kaiji such a bum if he’s so clever? Why did he always suck at gambling?”

It’s all comes down to his naturally listless nature, really. His real potential only comes out when he has no other options; only then does he start using his head. When he does, however, he can be stunningly insightful and brutally pragmatic.

While he differs from Akagi in many ways, the one key trait that they both share is their ability to overcome fear and doubt when necessary, to throw caution to the wind and walk straight into the jaws of death.

And that, of course, is what this show is all about!

Zawa zawa!