January 25, 2008

Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji - 16

Filed under: Finished Series:/Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji


I’m not sure what’s wrong with me, but this has been one of the most enjoyable episodes of Kaiji yet, even though it consisted mostly of people sitting and talking. It’s probably for the same reason why I still consider the first episode to be one of the best episodes of the series as well. It’s episodes like these that are simple, yet effective.

Now I realize that with the beam-arc, Kaiji had been drifting away a bit from its original purpose: gambling. The beam-arc just consisted out of a bunch of idiots who walked towards their death. What I want to see are the mind games; people who try to outsmart each other in a battle of psychology. Seeing people, just scared to death becomes uninteresting quite soon.

It’s because of this that this arc is looking very promising. This time, Kaiji doesn’t have an idiot on the opposing side. This time, he doesn’t have to strangely be the only one to worry about the fates of others. This is really a battle between two men, and it already starts out well. Of course, with two rounds, you won’t be able to predict your opponent. It, however, really seems that Tonegawa will only lose about four times if Kaiji doesn’t start using his head soon. I’m especially interested in this experience of Tonegawa.

Hakaba Kitarou - 03

Filed under: Finished Series:/Hakaba Kitarou


The story for this week was rather bizarre… Remember the little plant that grew from Dracula’s dead body in the previous episode? Well, Nezumi Otoko uses his breath to knock a famous singer unconscious and plants this plant into his right arm. After a while, the plant starts to grow and it consumes its host. In the meantime, the famous singer met Mizuki. Yeah, who else would believe that there’s a demonic plant, growing on your arm?

In any case, the singer turns into a rather strange kind of tree-stump, and soon even loses the ability to speak. Nezumi Otoko then kidnaps the stump and moves into a secluded house, somewhere far away, using the money he stole from Kitarou in the previous episode. ^^; The stump then grows into a tree, and one very large fruit appears. Nezumi Otoko hoped that this would be the reincarnation of his late master, but instead it hatched a small version of said singer. The episode ends with Nezumi Otoko fleeing, the tree burning, and Kitarou, the small singer and a third youkai who just showed up having tea…

Still, I would be lying if I said that I don’t enjoy these kinds of stories. This series manages to combine a quirky feeling with horror-stories, and the result works out pretty well, and this series is really fun to watch.

I think we also saw the beginning of Catgirl in this episode (or Neko Musume, as Gegege no Kitarou named her). She’s just a normal girl right now, but I doubt that remain the same. Especially since Kitarou has fallen in love with the girl because she can sing so well. I doubt that he’d leave her alone. He was really cute in this episode as well. :P What’s also interesting is how Mizuki returned back from hell, to keep an eye on Kitarou. Indeed it would be the best for someone to keep an eye on such a demonic child as Kitarou.

Another thing I like about this series is how all the victims so far have been grown-up men. Usually, an anime would portray some kind of really cute girl in peril at this point, but the fact that Kitarou uses businessmen gives a nice twist to things, especially since they’re portrayed so much away from stereotypes as in this series.