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| The eyecatch is nothing more than black with the logo in the corner, so here's the iconic final shot of the OP sequence. |
By 1996 mangaka Nobuyuki Fukumoto was already a bit of a star in the industry, though admittedly more of a cult star. Having made his professional debut back in 1980 Fukumoto wouldn't really hit it "big" until 1989 when he debuted the mahjong manga Ten: The Nice Guy on the Path to Tenhou, followed by its prequel Akagi: The Genius Who Descended Into Darkness in 1991, which told the early days of a supporting character who was already a legend in Ten; in short, Fukumoto's forte was gambling manga. While some of his works would receive live-action movie adaptations in the 90s, namely Akagi & 1992's Silver & Gold, anime was understandably not something one would expect of his work, due to the subject matter, but in 2005 that all changed when Madhouse, VAP, & NTV debuted a late-night TV adaptation of Akagi. The Akagi anime did surprisingly well for a late-night anime, hitting as high as 4% in the ratings (in today's landscape that'd put it just below the iconic Chibi Maruko-chan!), so it was decided that Madhouse would follow up Akagi with another adaptation of a Fukumoto manga, one that wasn't quite as focused around mahjong (at least, not until way later on).
Debuting in early 1996 in the pages of Weekly Young Magazine, Kaiji would go on to become the most iconic work in Nobuyuki Fukumoto's entire career, with a current total of 91 volumes across six series, the most recent of which debuting in 2017 & is still running, though it's been on hiatus since 2023. The series details the trials & tribulations of Kaiji Ito, a man who is constantly self-destructive when it comes to money yet when put into life or death games of chance (with absurdly high financial payouts) is capable of seemingly impossible turnaround victories. On October 3, 2007 a TV anime adaptation of the first manga run (Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji, which ran from 1996 to 1999) debuted on NTV under the name Gyakkou Burai/The Suffering Pariah Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor, and adapted the entire initial 13-volume run in 26 episodes. When I originally reviewed the Kaiji anime back in February 2011 the show was still only really available via fansubs, outside of a short-lived "blink & you'll miss it" official English subbed stream on Joost (yeah, that service didn't last long), with a second season adapting the second manga run soon to debut in Japan. However, in July 2013 Crunchyroll announced that it was adding both seasons of Kaiji to its catalog, followed by Akagi getting added later that September. Meanwhile, 2008's One Outs, which was done by much of the same staff at Madhouse, got ignored seemingly because it wasn't based on a Fukumoto manga; ironic, since now some of that Madhouse staff is reuniting for a Lair Game adaptation.
Then, in late 2020, Sentai Filmworks announced that it had licensed both seasons of Kaiji for home video release (alongside a streaming option on its own Hidive service), with a sub-only BD boxset collecting both seasons together coming out in April 2021. Later, at Anime Expo 2022, Sentai announced that it would be dubbing Kaiji into English (though the announcement never seemed to clarify just how much of it they were dubbing), with the dub coming out in chunks starting later that November. Hidive would eventually offer the dub for all of Ultimate Survivor by the end of 2023, but it would take until December 2024 for Sentai to give Kaiji a new home video release, this time a dual-audio BD box set containing only Ultimate Survivor; there has been no word as to whether or not Season 2 (Against All Odds) will get similar treatment. Still, while I did review Kaiji: Against All Odds shortly after it originally finished airing in September 2011, so it's technically not eligible for an RiR re-review, I can at least give Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor a new watch, this time via the English dub, and see if the praise I gave it in that original review remains true, over 14 years later.
In the three years since moving to Tokyo, Kaiji Ito is a young man in his 20s that's barely clinging to anything resembling a "normal" life. He has next to no money, lives in a basic apartment, hasn't had a job in months, & takes his anger at life out on any nearby luxury cars by puncturing their tires & removing their hood emblems so that he can hang them on his wall as trophies. However, one day a loan shark named Endo pays Kaiji a visit, as a year ago he co-signed a loan for an old coworker named Furuhata as his guarantor... and Furuhata skipped town recently, meaning that Kaiji now owes what Furuhata owed, after interest: 3.85 million yen (i.e. ~$34,700 in 1996 money, or ~$72,575 in today's money). Unable to pay that amount in any way, Endo offers Kaiji a chance to negate his debt by joining an overnight gambling game on a cruise ship called the Espoir, lest he spend the next decade+ of his life slowly paying back what's owed, and with no other choice (& some manipulation by Endo) Kaiji accepts. Thus begins Kaiji's journey as he deals with various games of chance, life, & even death run by Yukio Tonegawa, the right hand man of Kazutaka Hyodo, president of the financial giant Teiai Corporation.
Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor is split up across five "games". Episodes 1-9 detail Kaiji's time on the Espoir as he plays Restricted Rock-Paper-Scissors, where he & 102 other players are given 12 cards, made up of four of each type of hand in the traditional game, with the (basic) goal being to dispose of your entire hand & have at least three stars of "life", which you win/lose by playing the other competitors, before the four-hour time limit expires. Episodes 10-12 cover the Human Derby, in which 12 competitors (at a time) have to make their way across one of four girders from one side to the other, with falling resulting in considerable physical damage (& elimination), & grabbing the girder with your hands resulting in automatic DQ. Episodes 13-15 are for the Electrified Steel Beam Crossing, which is the same thing as the Human Derby... only the now-electrified girders are between two high-rise buildings & 22 stories up, which adds the element of lethal consequences for those who fall off, as there's no net to catch them below. Episodes 16-22 see Kaiji & Tonegawa face each other in E-Card, an original RPS-esque card game using three types of cards (Citizen, Emperor, & Slave), with Kaiji putting his very hearing on the line. Finally, Episodes 23-26 pit Kaiji against Hyodo himself in a Tissue Box Lottery, Quintuple-or-Nothing style, with Hyodo wanting Kaiji to put a set of his fingers on the line to sweeten the pot.
In it's simplest terms, Kaiji is a series all about super, melodramatic tension based around human nature, with the games themselves being the vectors by which Kaiji, his opposition, and (occasionally) his allies base their respective actions on. For example, Restricted RPS as a game is rather straightforward, as you'd think it would add in an element of strategy beyond the usual mind games & psychology that traditional RPS can be played with, as now there's the idea that players could run out of a specific hand or two. However, add in both the life stars & the fact that each player had to borrow money from the "house", complete with its own interest & debt that accrues, before the game started & now you have new factors to consider. One could use the money to buy stars, cards, or even just information from other players, which in turn can allow far-thinking players to possibly hoard specific cards in order to manipulate the flow later in the game. Players could also team up & share their pool of cards & stars... or even work with another player who's been eliminated & sent to a room next door with a one-way window in order to cheat, in return for the surviving player(s) to get enough stars to rescue the exiled partner. The idea is that only the basic rules are explained to the players, so there winds up being a bunch of "the rules don't say anything about" tricks & even loopholes that clever players can take advantage of.
Meanwhile, the Human Derby is much more straightforward of a concept. Twelve men, four girders (so three to a girder), and physical "interaction" with the man in front of you isn't just allowed... it's encouraged. It's a short game for the anime at only around 1.5 episodes, but it exemplifies the dog-eat-dog world that Kaiji finds himself in with these gambles, one where looking out for your fellow man only results in screwing yourself over. The electrified variant, on the other hand, changes things up by not simply turning the game into an automatically lethal one but also replacing the combative nature into one where anyone who makes it across can win money. This, in turn, creates a sense of collectiveness & camaraderie between the competitors, because those in the same deadly scenario clearly don't want to see each other fail... but do you think the people who are having them engage in such insanity really care about feelings of "humanity"? Then there's E-Card, which takes the concept of RPS but turns it into an asymmetrical game by giving each side five Citizen cards but only one side has a single Emperor card, while the other has a single Slave card, & there must be a winner; a full game is made up of 12 rounds, with the two sides swapping hands (i.e. Emperor & Slave) every three rounds. Since only the Slave can beat the Emperor it creates an imbalance that results in a strong focus on mind games & manipulation, especially on the Slave's side, that's meant to represent the idea of the "weak" needing to find ways to fool the "strong" into defeat... especially when one's life could potentially be on the line, which can make some do things others wouldn't even dare to think of. As for the Tissue Box Lottery, that's mainly there to showcase the simplest, but most infamous, danger of gambling... the concept of "letting it ride" when you find yourself on a winning streak, especially when you add in the idea of delivering retribution on the "house" & the potential reward is multiple times higher than ever.
And in the middle of all this is Kaiji Ito, a character that (despite his initial unlikable attitude in Episode 1) the viewer is meant to relate to... which makes sense when you consider the time the manga debuted in: The early part, or middle (depending on definition), of Japan's "Lost Decade". After Japan's "bubble economy" burst in the early 90s a lot of people were hit hard financially, and while many were able to continue on well enough others were seemingly caught in constant financial woes for a good while. Kaiji, in turn, is meant to represent that kind of person, i.e. someone who (for one reason or another) is caught in constant financial turmoil, likely due in part to actions made in the past without much forethought put into them, with this original series meaning to showcase the lengths people in this situation will go to to get ahead of others, all while the fat cat rich watch it all go down for their own personal amusement. While Kaiji is clever enough to figure out potential strategies that might be able to get himself out of a pickle he's also completely fallible himself & liable to get fooled when in an emergency. Meanwhile, his inherent better nature & hope that there are indeed good people caught up in the same scenario as him can occasionally bite him back, not to mention make him unwilling to indulge in actions that would benefit him while screwing over others like him in the process, sometimes to his own annoyance. He knows full well how to get ahead when push comes to shove (sometimes literally), but he also still has a conscience that makes him not want to act upon those selfish thoughts. There's good reason why some of the most iconic moments are when Kaiji is at his most desperate & anguished, both because his own survival is on the line & because he feels for his fellow man.
As for a supporting cast, it's admittedly rather small & changes (for the most part) depending on the game being played. For Restricted RPS Kaiji eventually teams with Furuhata, the man who put Kaiji into this whole scenario in the first place, & Ando, with the two acting mostly as incapable goofs who sometimes feel like they'd screw themselves over if left to their own devices... but can they truly be trusted when the biggest gambles are made by Kaiji? There are also a handful of people best described as "villains" or "rivals" for Kaiji during Restricted RPS, namely Funai (who had previously played the game once before & knows how to manipulate the situation to his benefit), Kitami (who comes up with a similar plan as Kaiji in the middle, which throws a wrench into Kaiji's plan), & Okabayashi (who Kaiji meets when at his lowest point, to remind him of how things really work on the Espoir); none of them get much of anything in development, but they play their roles very well. Meanwhile, the two beam-crossing games focus on Sahara, a coworker of Kaiji's at the time who isn't in any major debt & simply asks to be involved so that he can hopefully make some quick bank, & Ishida, a middle-aged man who was on the Espoir but in many ways is admittedly too pure & kind-hearted for games like these. E-Card & Tissue Box Raffle do eventually see other nameless competitors come to Kaiji's assistance later on, but for those the focus is primarily on Tonegawa & Hyodo as final villains; they're also around for the prior games, but solely as observers.
Tonegawa is an uncaring, almost sadistic older man who shows no pity for the danger the competitors may put themselves in. By his own admission he feels that anyone who finds themselves in these games are "losers" whose very lives are worth far less than the money that they're playing for. By his own logic he has every right to demean, insult, & chastise players who dare to talk back at him or even simply ask for more clarification when he purposefully describes the rules in the most basic & generalized fashion. In fact, in Tonegawa's mind he's actually trying to help these "losers" become better people by putting them on the brink, even if it means a literal life-or-death situation; after all, if Tonegawa was to ever lose he'd take it like a real man would... right? Meanwhile, Hyodo is pretty much a psychopathic old geezer who finds a sort of perverse joy in seeing those in debt risk their own lives & safety in the games, with those who do manage to rise to the occasion (like Kaiji) especially catching his interest, as he becomes curious to see just how far their luck & talents can go. In Kaiji: Against All Odds Hyodo essentially becomes insane with his obsession over seeing others suffer, but here in Ultimate Survivor he's a little more reined in, attitude-wise, but is still extremely clever & manipulative in his own right. Hyodo represents the concept of the absurdly wealthy who think themselves emperors over the mere poor citizenry and that the pain of their "subjects" is something they can never feel, which allows them to revel in continuing their blissful happiness. In other words, Hyodo will always choose pure selfish greed over benevolent support for those "beneath" him, because (in his mind) the people below him can't possibly succeed if they don't risk their own lives to do so, so there's no point in charity.
Really, that's the general theme of Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor: The plight of the downtrodden, especially when it's about money. While Kaiji certainly is no saint himself, his situation is one that the vast majority of the general public are always fearful of, i.e. being unable to financially support oneself (& others, if they have a family to support as well). Therefore there is an element of relating to Kaiji when he puts himself into these "games" operated by the uber-rich for seemingly nothing more than their own sick enjoyment, because while the possibility of such things happening to you in real life are astronomically small... would you actually be "a Kaiji" & try to figure out a path to victory (or at least survival), going to the lengths that Kaiji does here, or would you actually be one of the many "losers" that the games claim as their victims? Back in post-bubble crash 1996 the very concept of Kaiji as a manga likely came off to some as a bit wild & overwrought, while in a pre-recession 2007 the concept of Kaiji as an anime was probably seen by some as a bit silly & unrealistic. However, in the year 2025 where the concept of the rich only getting richer while the general public often feel incapable of changing things for the better is unfortunately not as ridiculous as it once sounded, Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor might hit a little too close to home in some way, even if it is no doubt highly embellished. After all, why do you think the Korean live-action series Squid Game, which was fully admitted to have been inspired by Kaiji in many ways (& is likely why Sentai even dubbed this anime, in the first place), became such a smash hit on Netflix, so much so that its three seasons are the #1, #3, & #4 most-watched original TV series for the service?
While the characters & games are obviously the main appeal, Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor also succeeds in large part due to the talented staff at Madhouse that produced the anime. After previously having directed the Akagi two years prior Yuzo Sato (Trillion Game, chief director for the upcoming Liar Game) was brought back for Kaiji, and this is the anime that truly showcased that stories like these are Sato's bread & butter as director. Alongside a writing team led by Hideo Takayashiki (2nd half of Maison Ikkoku, Gurazeni) the Kaiji anime is a perfect example of how limited animation can still work wonders & maintain a viewer's attention when paired with great writing & a pace that keeps you watching. To be perfectly honest, not a lot actually happens in most individual episodes of Kaiji, but it's the excellent narration, inner voice of Kaiji himself (plus occasionally someone else), & attention to detail when it comes to interpersonal communication that makes you not care about how little directly happens in any episode. In essence, the focus isn't on the actual games themselves but rather is on the inner workings of the mind games being played, i.e. planning two or three steps ahead (if not more), considering what countermoves might be made to your own moves (& vice versa), strategizing before you even make a challenge, whether or not the opponent might be cheating, etc. Meanwhile, on the visual side of things we have the character designs by chief animation director Haruhito Takada (Gakuen Basara: Samurai High School, One Outs), who had also worked on Akagi alongside Takahiro Umehara (who did the designs for that show), which do an excellent job at converting Nobuyuki Fukumoto's iconic character designs to animation, including Kaiji's very "angular" face as well as the the more bulbous & oblique looks some other characters have. The anime also includes Fukumoto's iconic "zawa" sound effect as a visual (alongside a voice coldly saying it) during specific moments, something that wasn't done in Akagi until the final episode, which only emphasizes the danger & uncertainty for great effect.
Finally, there's the music by Hideki Taniuchi (Death Note, Akagi), former guitarist for the then-recently broken up rock band Shocking Lemon (best known for its two OPs to Hajime no Ippo) who was on a bit of a star-making roll when it came to composing anime scores at the time... before it all ended in May 2012 after getting arrested for possession of marijuana, which in Japan carries an immense stigma & has ended other musicians' careers; Taniuchi hasn't scored another anime since Kaiji: Against All Odds in 2011. It was a shocking & sudden end to a career that could have gone down as one of the all-time greats, because Taniuchi's score to Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor (much like just about any score he composed) is absolutely stellar & arguably can be readily ranked alongside scores often cited as some of the greatest of all time for anime. While Taniuchi certainly carries over his rock experience for a good majority of the songs here, used to help sell a variety of moods (all while instilling a sense of uncertainty), he also experiments here with a number of songs that are highly amelodic & intended solely for the purpose of establishing a constant feeling of dread to a moment, mostly while Kaiji is at his wits' end, hoping for a lifeline to come his way. There's good reason why Tiger Lab Vinyl chose this anime's score as one that it felt was deserving of a release on vinyl record outside of Japan, because it's absolutely essential listening. As for the theme songs, the OP "Mirai wa Bokura no Te no Naka" by Kaiji with The Redbourn Cherries (i.e. Masato Magiwara with a backup band) is a cover of the iconic song that started punk rock band The Blue Hearts' initial (self-titled) 1987 album & is an all-time classic anime song, distilling the rebellious theme of the entire Kaiji series into less than a minute, & the idea of having "Kaiji" himself sing it is brilliant. Meanwhile, ED theme "Makeinu-tachi no Requiem" by Hakuryu is a hard hitting slow ballad about how it's up to "cowardly losers" to take a stand for themselves & get ready for a battle ahead of them, and having the voice of Tonegawa sing it is very fitting, honestly.
Since I'm basing this re-review solely off of the English dub I did not re-watch any of it via the original Japanese, but I would imagine my feelings about it would remain the same as they were in 2011, so here's a modified quotation about the Japanese voice cast from the OG review:
"Masato Hagiwara plays Kaiji here and...is nothing like his Akagi, [and] only a couple of times does he bring about a similar performance. Kaiji's screams of defeat and crying are excellent and his voice when he starts to return to life are a very different style than Akagi's evil snickering and condescending wordplay... Masane Tsukayama, who played Washizu in Akagi, also returns to play Hyodo, but these performances are very similar, with the main difference being that Hyodo sounds a little older than Washizu, but that's just fine as the characters are very similar in general. [Zainich Korean film actor] Hakuryu voices Tonegawa...but Hakuryu's performance is absolutely perfect for Tonegawa, giving the man all the evil style that Tonegawa embodies [& fitting the man's penchant for playing right hand man roles in yakuza films]. The other characters are similarly voiced excellently, but the other actor to give focus to is Fumihiko Tachiki, who plays the narrator... Tachiki's voice is just so identifiable and original, giving the narration a true 'voice of god' feel to it, much like Tohru Furuya's narration in Akagi." Meanwhile, the rest of the Japanese voice cast includes the likes of Masahiro Komoto (Sahara), Hiroshi Yanaka (Ishida), Toshiharu Sakurai (Ando), Yasunori Matsumoto (Furuhata), Naoya Uchida (Endo), Hideo Ishikawa (Funai), Tomohiro Nishimura (Okabayashi), & Kazuki Yao (Kitami) for the "major" characters.
So... what about that English dub produced by Sentai Studios? Honestly, it's really damn good! Leading everyone is Jeremy Gee (Rick Flag in Suicide Squad Isekai, Keiji Akaashi in Haikyu!) as Kaiji, and while he admittedly took a few episodes to really grow me once the show gets to the parts where Kaiji really shines (i.e. formulating plans & the dichotomic success/defeat emotional range) Gee's performance similarly really hits its stride; the inclusion of the occasional bit of profanity here & there is also very well placed & fitting. Previously Sentai had dubbed the prequel/spin-off comedy series Mr. Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues from 2018, so this dub features four reprisals from that anime's dub, which is actually more than what the Japanese got, as only Tsukuyama returned as Hyodo for Mr. Tonegawa; Hagiwara also returned to voice Kaiji as a cameo, but the dub never actually revealed who voiced Kaiji in English. Anyway, David Harbold (Bonedrewd in Maid in Abyss, Coach Washijo in Haikyu!) reprises Tonegawa for this dub, now being allowed to be as blunt, uncaring, & manipulative toward his victims as possible (& with it being taken seriously, this time around), and Harbold does a really good job at that. Meanwhile, Marty Fleck (Director Anderson in Gatchaman, the narrator in Sentai's Saint Seiya dub) is definitely having fun reprising Hyodo, which allows him to act like an old man who's seen it all already & therefore desires new depths of torture from his victims; I'd love to see Against All Odds get dubbed, because I'm sure Fleck would have a field day there.
The venerable David Matranga also returns to voice Endo, and though his appearances here are limited (literally just three episodes) Matranga still gives it his all. Even more so than with Marty Fleck, an Against All Odds dub in the future would allow David Matranga to really shine, as Endo plays a much larger role in that series. Finally, for the dub reprisals we have David Wald (Daigo in Dororo 2019, Tsurumi in Golden Kamuy) as the narrator... and he absolutely steals the entire show, hands down. You see, the narration in Kaiji in Japanese was very different than it was in Mr. Tonegawa, with the latter (voiced by Jay Kabira) coming off more flashy & comical, and while I'm not familiar with Wald's narration in Mr. Tonegawa I would have to imagine that he had to change the tone a bit for Kaiji. Regardless, the performance here is probably best described as Wald channeling his inner Tim Curry to the Nth degree, which means that he manages to walk the fine line between scene chewing ham & uncaring faceless orator with finess. Wald swaps between seemingly feeling for Kaiji's plight, sarcastically demeaning Kaiji for his mistakes, & darkly pointing the hopelessness of a situation on a dime, and I absolutely loved it from Episode 1. Wald's narration manages to be wholly unique from Tachiki's in execution, resulting in both languages having superb narration that just adds to the overall tension in their own ways. The rest of the "main" cast is rounded out by Joe Daniels (Sahara), John Swasey (Ishida), Sean Patrick Judge (Ando), Tyler Galindo (Furuhata), & ADR director Kyle Colby Jones ("Zawa Voice"). Yes, the dub even included its own take on the iconic "zawa" sound effect heard throughout, though I honestly couldn't tell a difference, so Jones' voice is likely just snuck into the dub's zawas at various points.
Back when I first reviewed Kaiji in early 2011 it was a title that was still stuck in the depths of the fansubbing mines, especially since Joost was so short-lived, a title that found itself a cult following (no doubt helped by people who loved Akagi, like me, getting all sorts of excited about another Fukumoto anime adaptation) but was obviously nowhere near as popular as the biggest hits, and the same was true when Against All Odds came out the same year as my OG review & was never simulcasted. When Crunchyroll announced that it would be officially streaming both seasons of Kaiji (as well as Akagi) in 2013 it really did feel like a victory, of sorts, that the cult following that formed around Fukumoto's works had become large enough that the company that was already the biggest name in anime streaming deemed it a title that was "skipped over" & deserved to be given attention; I still think it's really messed up that One Outs got ignored, though. Then, when Sentai announced it had licensed both seasons of Kaiji it felt even more awesome, as now it was a company that did home video releases deeming it worthy of "ownership" for English-speaking fans. Remember, this all happened before Squid Game debuted on Netflix, so both Crunchyroll & Sentai licensed Kaiji solely on the merits of its own quality & the love its fanbase had for it.
What I'm trying to get at is that, much like its titular main character, the Kaiji anime has continually managed to find a way to not just continue surviving in English-speaking fandom but seemingly rise up the ranks &, in essence, win more & more over time. From fansub darling (& given a chance by a short-lived streaming outlet that was arguably too early in the game) to fan-favorite streaming catalog addition to sub-only home video release to now a full English dub produced for the first season, Kaiji's sheer quality as an anime is undeniable. While the original Japanese audio will obviously always be in my memory, the dub from Sentai Studios for Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor is indeed stellar & does absolute justice to the series, and I can only pray that, one day, Sentai will announce a dub for Kaiji: Against All Odds, as it's arguably even better than the first season in some regards. Regardless of how you watch it (subbed over on Crunchyroll, subbed or dubbed over on Hidive, or on BD from Sentai), Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor remains one of the absolute best anime I've ever covered here on The Land of Obscusion, continues to be one of my favorite anime of all time & should be watched, without question. I felt this way back in early 2011, and I feel even more sure of it in late 2025.
(And, also, someone please give Akagi a home video release & finally license One Outs, because I really want to do RiR re-reviews for both of those, as well!)
Anime © Nobuyuki Fukumoto/Kodansha, Ltd. © DNDP・VAP・Madhouse
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