Kaiji 2 – Episode 4

When we last saw Kaiji, he was still playing that stupid dice game underground, hobiron or whatever it was called.  He had just been bankrupted which means… not a ton, really.  He’s still trapped in the hellish underground work camp, just like before he went bust.  I guess he has, like… 45 fewer dollars worth of snack budget a month?  And he’s forced to pay concession-stand prices for his snacks, so that’s more like 20 dollars, if that.  It seems like at this point it might be wiser to devote yourself to spiritual pursuits, and disregard the pleasures of the flesh, as you are permitted to indulge in so few of them anyway.  I guess if he could do that there would have been a million places he could have escaped the mafia’s clutches…  what you don’t have in your will you have to have in your dice.  Let’s see Kaiji uncover the foreman’s cheating in episode 4 of Kaiji season 2!

…thirty minutes pass…

Kaiji 2 – Episode 3

Let’s continue on with Kaiji, I need to see if they are going anywhere with this chinchillarin-chinchillarin game.  I mean, I get it, Kaiji lost his battle, he has to face the consequences, he has to go through his pain in order to “get his groove back”.  I just wish the pain were a little more interesting than “try to roll well, and not poorly”.  Well, here is hoping they spice things up in the third episode of the second season of Kaiji.

…thirty minutes pass…

Kaiji 2 – Episode 2

Let’s return to Kaiji.  When we last left our hero, he did not have as much money as he would have liked to purchase snacks with, and so he had decided to once again return to his gambling ways.  Well, I guess he never really left them.  Even at the beginning, when he was living the life of an underemployed slacker, and junk food would have been in abundance, he was eager to get in on a new gamble.  Some folks just do not learn, even when they have to get their fingers sewn back on in a dark alley somewhere.  Well, probably the competitors in the mafia’s underground labor camp are not too tough.  Probably not all of them are even there for gambling debt, and of those who are, surely Kaiji must be among the higher-level gamblers, having made it face-to-face with a Dark Lord, even if he did end up losing.  Let’s get ready to see Kaiji crush some fools as we enter episode 2 of Kaiji season 2.

…thirty minutes pass…

Kaiji 2 – Episode 1

Let’s see if we can’t keep the streak alive. I’m not sure there’s anything Kaiji season 2 could do to convince me to drop it after only one episode. After all, I was ready to drop it after the first episode, and think how disastrous that would have been! So let’s see, where were we in Kaiji. As I recall, major spoilers for Kaiji season 1, he had just had his finger(s?) cut off by an evil mafia boss for losing a game of drawing-lots. Man, it has been three years. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a recap episode, we aren’t going to just seamlessly jump into Kaiji carving loaded dice out of his finger bones like nothing had happened. And what good are fingerbone dice anyway, if you don’t have fingers to roll them with? Some serious Gift of the Magi shit going down here. Well, let’s watch episode 1 of Kaiji season 2 to see how they play it.

…thirty minutes pass…

Spring Anime Season 2011 – Get Overwhelmed

Well, winter is well and truly past, it was like 70 degrees out today, so we had better hurry and turn our attention to Spring Anime Season 2011. I know some shows have been airing for two weeks now, and I am interested to hear your reactions to them, but I am just now starting this season’s shows. And good gracious, there are a lot of shows to choose from. I hope some of you guys will explore some of these for me, because… well maybe I will just list all the shows I’m interested in.

Nichijou (Daily Life): Kyoto Animation finally doing something other than K-On Exclamation Point Emphasis Theirs. I’ve lost a lot of the reverence I’d had for them, but I enjoyed Lucky  Star, so a school life comedy by them is at least worth checking out.

Sket Dance: It seems like it’s the same sort of idea as Haruhi’s SOS-dan, but played more straight. In fact, I’m not sure of the chronology, Haruhi’s SOS-dan might be a direct parody of it? Anyway, it seems like it will be laid-back character driven comedy, and that can turn out really well.

C – The Money of Soul and Possibility Control: Well, let me just quote the description – “The Japanese government was rescued from the brink of financial collapse by the Sovereign Wealth Fund. For its citizens, however, life has not improved, and unemployment, crime, suicide, and despair are rampant. Kimimaro, raised by his maternal grandmother after the disappearance of his father and the death of his mother, is a scholarship student whose only dream is to avoid all this and live a stable life. One day, however, he meets a man who offers him a large sum of money if he’ll agree to pay it back. From then on his fate is radically altered as he’s drawn into a mysterious realm known as ‘The Financial District.'” Ok, now let me repeat the last couple of sentences of the description, but this time in bold font. “One day, however, he meets a man who offers him a large sum of money if he’ll agree to pay it back. From then on his fate is radically altered as he’s drawn into a mysterious realm known as ‘The Financial District.‘”

Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko (The Weirdo Girl and the Young Man) – Where Shaft leads, how can I but follow? Especially if it’s a love story with a weirdo girl who claims to be an alien.

Steins;Gate – The sequel to Chaos;Head, which I enjoyed.

Yondemasuyo, Azazel-san (He’s Calling You, Azazel) – A comedy/mystery show about a detective who summons demons. There is the danger that the “comedy” will be in the form of demons behaving wackily, but that should be easy enough to tell from the first episode.

Kaiji Season 2 – The continuation of Kaiji, which I enjoyed.

Toriko – He collects rare ingredients, because he has strong arms. You can do anything, so long as you do it with Passion, Friendship, and Justice, and it will pull me in for at least an episode.

The World God Only Knows Season 2 – The continuation of The World God Only Knows, which I enjoyed.

Hanasaku Iroha (The Fundamentals of Flower Blooming) – A drama about a big city girl who winds up in the country working at a hot springs. I’ve been hearing good things about this.

A Channel – Another school life comedy. It’s really hard to separate the wheat from the chaff from this sort of show based on the premise, because the premise is always “four friends talk about nothing much”.

So that’s eleven shows. Of those, the two continuations are probably safe bets, as are the Shaft show and the critically acclaimed drama. If we assume 50% yield on the rest, that gives us seven shows to follow, which might be pushing it a little. Well, we’ll see how it goes.

If you have opinions on one of these shows, or even better, opinions on a show I left off (“How could you forget about Sofuteni, Locus! The chick has pink hair!”), I am eager to hear from you!