Tobaku Mokushiroku Kaiji
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Vorlage:Nihongo is a Japanese manga that started in 1997 written by Nobuyuki Fukumoto about the art of gambling. It was recently adapted into an anime that began airing October 2007. Kaiji is considered Fukumoto's most famous work, and is well known in both Japan and Korea.[1]. In 1998, it was the winner of the 22 Kodansha Manga Award in the General category.
Story
Japan, 1995. After graduating from high school, Itō Kaiji travels to Tokyo to get a job, but he fails to find steady employment because the country is mired in its first recession since World War II. Depressed, he festers in his apartment, biding the time with cheap pranks, gambles, liquor and cigarettes. Kaiji is always thinking about money and his perpetual poverty frequently brings him to tears.
Kaiji's unrelenting misery continues for two years until he is paid an unexpected visit from a man named Endō, who wants to collect an outrageous debt owed to him in Kaiji's name. Endō gives Kaiji two options - either spend ten years to repay this outstanding debt, which will continue to gain interest, 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.
Characters
- The main character of the story. Kaiji is poor, downtrodden and lazy - he lives by himself in a slum and is constantly in debt. He bides his time by playing cheap gambling games with neighbors, though he always loses. In spite of this, when his life is in danger, he displays a remarkable hidden capacity for gambling, which allows him to endure the hardships he faces in the manga. He is shouldered with a 3,850,000 yen debt at the beginning of the story by a coworker who convinced him into consigning a loan, leaving Kaiji with the full weight of the debt compounded over a year.
- Wealthy socialite and president of the powerful financal consulting firm "Love Emperor" (帝愛), not to mention owner and sponsor of underground gambling tournaments like those onboard Espoir. He is believed to be seventy years old and worth several hundred billion yen. Driven mad by wealth, conventional hobbies fail to entertain, so he funds gambling tournaments to watch the destitute of society struggle against overwhelming terror and despair. He meets Kaiji in the final segment of the manga, where Kaiji is selected by lottery to compete in the "Castle of Despair". Hyōdō's talents for winning in anything have earned him the title of "king" by some, though others merely call him "very lucky". His first full manga appearence was in volume 13 - prior to that, all readers saw of Hyōdō were his hands finger tapping.
- In many ways, Hyōdō is quite simmilar to Washizu Iwao, who was also voiced by Masane Tsukayama.
- A dirty loan shark with ties to the yakuza. He lends out large sums of money to the desperate, but charges an absurd (and illegal) interest rate. He tracks down Kaiji after a client of his Furuhata disappeared without repaying a loan, which Kaiji cosigned in an act of weakness. Recognizing Kaiji could never repay the loan, Endō offers him the opportunity to board the gambling ship Espoir, where he can repay his debt and make some money as well.
Part 1 - The Ship of Hope, Espoir
- One of the veterans of previous voyages on Espoir, Hunai is an excellent conman and uses the fears and worries of the other competitors to his advantage. He "befriends" Kaiji during his first night and explains the unofficial rules to him, and the two agree to form an alliance - both will exhaust their number of gesture cards after the outlining of the game rules and offers to form an alliance, whereby the two would exhaust their number of cards without having to lose any star pendants. However, at the last minute, Hunai backstabs Kaiji and scams him out of two star pendants, leaving him with a single card and a hopless situation. He is presumably killed when he loses all five of his pendants to Kaiji in a sudden death gamble at the end of the voyage.
- Debtor and one-time coworker of Kaiji. One year before the first tournament on Espoir, he lured Kaiji into cosigning a loan for him, making Kaiji liable in case Furuhata did not repay the loan. Although believed to have disappeared, Kaiji discovers him on Espoir and makes an alliance with him after discovering they are both in a desperate situation. As before, he betrays Kaiji
- A bespectacled, fat man who forms and alliance with Kaiji and Furuhata.
Gambles
- Vorlage:Nihongo
- The game featured in the gambling tournament the first night Kaiji spends on Espoir, with an average survival rate of 50%. The rules were outlined after the issuing of war funds, which were done in 2,000,000¥ and 10,000,000¥ increments referred to as the "lower" and "upper" bound, respectively. The money was in effect a loan, equalling 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.
- Restricted Rock,Paper, Scissors is simmilar to the original game but with a twist - the hand gestures are represented by cards, and contestants are given four cards each with the same gesture for a total of twelve. Contestants are also given three plastic stars as collateral to bet on each round of play - whenever one loses a round, the winner gets a star from the loser. To survive the night, contestants must maintain their three star pendants and lose all of their gesture cards, while earning enough money to repay the interest owed to the Espoir hosts. Cards cannot be traded or thrown away, to do so is subject to instant disqualification. Unofficially, however, the star pendants can be traded using the war funds for around one or two million yen each, and they are typically how contestants manage to meet the interest demands of the Espoir hosts.