 So we watched an anime and we're going to review it and before we get into that, we need to point out that Akagi and Kaiji are not the same thing. Right. So who's the creator of this? What's the guy's name? Oh God. I don't remember. I got a Wikipedia brand. So this is a person who made these manga and this anime based on two of these mongas and or three, it may be three anyway, three. So first they made one. I forget what it's called because no one's ever talks about it, but there was a spinoff of this manga they created. It was it was a manga about Mahjong. There was a spinoff called Akagi, which is also about Mahjong. And that Akagi became an anime. And that's when I first heard of it because I saw this Akagi Mahjong anime. Then there was a brand new thing unrelated to the first things called Kaiji, which I confused with Akagi, but I knew that it was related because I had the same exact art style. It was clearly by the same creator, the anime's and the manga's look the same. I thought it was also about Mahjong. It's not Kaiji is about gambling in general and not just about Mahjong. Yep. And because I vaguely knew that like Akagi was a spinoff or something and we got these things confused until just now. Yep. Apparently most of the internet also confuses and conflates them for what I can tell. Right. Anyway, there was a spinoff of Kaiji that we judged last season on judging by its cover called Tonagawa, middle manager, whatever it's about. There's a lot of different English titles for the Chronicles and middle manager to Konagawa, middle management blues. So here's the deal in Kaiji from I've never watched Kaiji, but in middle manager, they give you basically summaries of what happened in Kaiji so you can sort of figure out what the deal is. It seems like what happened in Kaiji is as an evil company, right? Yep. And the boss of this evil company was the most evil head boss person and he's bored and he's bored. So he got his employees to create this ridiculous gambling game of death and Kaiji, the main character of Kaiji got involved in this horrible gambling game of death and that game existed to entertain the big evil guy in charge of the company. Yep. And like the second boss, like the sub boss of the show was this Tonagawa guy. It was like the second and second in command was this guy named Tonagawa who did most of the work setting up this evil game of death. So what is Tonagawa's middle manager? It's a completely separate anime that shows you how Tonagawa, the middle manager, second in command of the evil company whose boss is the head boss. He's basically the vice president. Tonagawa is the vice president. It shows you how this the main character is the second in command guy. It shows you the story of how he created the game of death, which I presume is the main plot of Kaiji itself. And it's literally like he's thinking about going to golf and he's like a middle manager, like doing HR paperwork or whatever. And then the big boss is like, yeah, I need you to make a game of death for me. So it ruins his weekend and his job, like he gets a team together. And it's literally just like board meetings and HR shit. And like, how do I put this together? And office jokes like Dilbert. Yup. But at the same time, like, even though he's also a bad guy, he's also terrified of his insane boss. Yup. But he's also trying to keep his, you know, the people below him under control. But he's also trying to be like he's trying to be like good manager. Right. He's trying. He's like, you know, his boss is a crazy bad evil dude who everyone's scared of. Right. But he is like trying to learn the names of all his subordinates so that he can gain their loyalties. That was actually really funny. And they all have names that like are too similar to each other. And he's going crazy, but he's also trying hard to actually remember them and gain their trust. But, you know, it's like they hate him. They like him. He's trying to make, you know, he takes them to a barbecue to try to make them like him so that they'll come up with good ideas. He accepts all their ideas. But then when the boss comes in, he has to, you know, berate them all. Now, it's pretty funny. And I watched a bunch of it. We're not going to finish it. I only watched like three episodes. I watched like seven, but basically it's pretty funny. Like it's worth watching a few episodes, especially like the first couple when he's trying to learn everyone's names. It's actually really funny. That's the funniest part, but as the, as it goes on, I guess the problem is you don't actually have need to seen Akagi. Akagi Kaiji at all. Right. It gives you these flashbacks and summaries of what happened in Kaiji in like excruciating detail, like literally the beginning of the first episode is like this very long summary of what happened in Kaiji. At least I assume, I don't know if there are other things happened in Kaiji that they're not summarizing because I didn't watch Kaiji. Yeah. But I feel like I don't need to watch Kaiji now because I got a cliff notes of it, right? Because it spoils stuff like it tells you what happens to him in the end. But on the other hand, I don't, even though it's summarized the events of Kaiji, I don't care about Kaiji or the events of Kaiji. So so many of the jokes are referencing or basically tied to the story of Kaiji that it's like, oh, here's how they came up with that particular game of death that happened in Kaiji. It's like, I don't care about Kaiji because maybe if I had seen Kaiji, it would be funnier. Oh my God. The scene when they're that's the other really good scene in the early episodes where they're they're workshopping like high level ideas for games of death. And one of the guys is like, what do you say? Something like, what if we make him play poker, but they're betting their own blood? And that was actually a really good idea, right? Anyway, the point is, if think of you've seen Kaiji and like Kaiji, a lot of the jokes in this show will hit harder. I you don't have to have seen Kaiji to watch this show, but I think you will because you care less, it will be less funny and they'll be less tying you to it. Now, in one way, the concept is really solid. Take a not really a deconstruction, but take any of those anime that have an evil organization with lots and lots of faceless goons that's like always ever present and hyper organized and and look at it from the back and explore how would you organize like these thousands of goons to be the bad guys in the anime? Right. It's like, usually when you watch a typical, you know, a show, right, that's an action show or where there's good guys and bad guys. You see the mostly focusing on the good guys and a few scenes of the bad guys that you know what they're up to, but like the thousands of just faceless dudes in sunglasses who get shot in noir. Right. Like who organized them? What if you're watching them? Thundercats, but they show it, but it was mostly what are the mutants up to when the thundercats are just dicking around and there's not a fight going on. That's one thing He-Man did well. He-Man spent equal time on Skeletar. Oh, right. But imagine if the show was just like, you know, Skeletar on all the days when they're not fighting with He-Man. And he's like preparing to fight, you know, what? What? You know, like Starscream, just, you know, chilling with some energy on cubes or whatever. And I really like that concept and the show pulls it off OK, but there's a fundamental problem that makes like there's a poor part aspect of the execution in that it'll make really good jokes. But then it'll go way out of its way to explain the joke, to make sure you've got the joke, to double reinforce what the joke is referencing. And it like it almost the jokes are funny, but it really brings them out too much and just drags everything out too far. Right. That funny joke about the trying to memorize the names of all the employees. It's like that goes on for like minutes. It's like it was funny. And now why are you still? It's like someone just keeps telling the joke like, hey, why the chicken crossed the road to get the other side? To get the other side, get it? And I guess why did the chicken cross the road to get the other side? You get it? And on one hand, why didn't you cross it for like two minutes? Someone just keeps going on like it was funny the first time. But why are you still telling the joke again? Now, on one hand, it's clearly parodying the style of Kaiji. Like it'll come to someone who's thinking like, well, if I do this, then he'll do that. So therefore, lots of internal monologue, which is good. Yep, I like that a bit of, you know, it's just the timing of it. Well, that's things are stretched out too long, right? And there is zero comedic timing. The timing of the comedy is just wrong. It's like the content of the joke is perfectly good. And it's just there's no timing whatsoever. Yep. It's like the literal opposite of Nietzsche Joe, where the jokes are very simple or absurdist or often completely nonsensical, but the comedic timing of Nietzsche Joe is so perfect. And this completely fails to execute at any point on the timing and cadence of a joke. Only the content of the joke is conveyed. And that's the fundamental flaw of this. And I feel like it's a common problem in almost all of these parody anime that I've seen. I feel like what the show like the north star parody, the show had been way better if it was a short show, like Devilman. Parody, I'm going to go dobu too. Yeah, they were forced to squish it because they're trying to fill this full episode length. I think that's the reason that I think it feels like they didn't have enough material to work with, they had to stretch it out. Yeah, or they could have just crammed two episodes into one and told more stuff. Yeah, that could have worked also. But or they could have or you know what they could have done too is if they'd aimed it at the audience of people who have already seen Kaiji and our fans. Well, I think they did, but it's like they aimed it at them, but they tried to make it so that anyone could watch it. It's like they should have given up on the people who haven't seen Kaiji because at least like remember that like mini that Devilman parody thing that we watched a long time ago, like all those other weird parody anime, they tend to do the opposite and they don't explain. Shit. Yeah, there was I think there's a fist of the North Star like working in a grocery store one where they're all chibi or something and they didn't explain nothing, which was fine. But even then, even as someone who's seen all this of the North Star, I couldn't even watch it. Also, it wasn't funny. Yeah. Well, that's the thing that that show, the content wasn't funny and the execution wasn't good. This show, the content is great and the jokes are great. It's just the comedic timing falls so flat that it really kills the momentum and it's hard to keep watching. You know, it is funny. What's that the chibi Lotus Wars one? Oh, the Lotus Island. Lotus Island. That's also a mini Pato, but there's not a lot of mini Pato. Yeah, mini Pato really relies on having seen Pat Labour. Yeah, it does. Like if you haven't seen Pat Labour, you just like what? If you haven't seen Pat Labour, why would you even think about watching Middleman when you can go watch Pat Labour, which is itself has a lot of comedy in it, even though it is not a comedy. But I guess what I would say, I'd recommend watching one episode of this. Partly because then you'll see what the deal is and you'll see like kind of what the deal is with Kaiji and it'll tell you if you like either or both. I would recommend watching Kaiji. See if it's see if it's a thing you like. Watch one or two episodes of it is good. If not, then don't watch anything. Don't watch any of it ever again. But if you do like Kaiji, well, you can finish watching Kaiji. And then if you need some humor that will probably, you know, not be as lost on you, you can then watch the middle manager and maybe even watch Akagi or who knows what or anything else created by what's the person's name. Oh, I didn't even pull it out. You know, I'll look it up because we should, you know, give credit to be the Paul Chapman wrote the article I got up here. OK. Let me get the person's name. No, Biyuki Fukumoto. That's the person who wrote. Wow, lots of stuff. But it seems a lot of it is a gambling Apocalypse Kaiji, gambling, magric, Chronicle Kaiji, gambling, advent, Chronicle Kaiji, Chronicle Kaiji, Kazia art. Yeah, OK. A very prolific gambling manga writer.