Visionary Nexus Network

Just this past weekend, I finished the moe mahjong series Saki and if there was one thing that struck me about that show, it was how predictable it was. To illustrate that point, when a friend let me know that an individual tournament was about to begin and asked me to predict the winners, I rattled off the names of all three winners accurately. My reasoning at the time was that two of the characters were instrumental to the story while the third is a major fan-favorite and I suppose that the producer or manga artist felt the same way so to ensure the goal of a cohesive, friendship-bound story as well as attracting eyeballs, they are allowed to move on. If it were up to me, I’d have the trio of Hisa, scrub/noob-chan (mostly for sheer irony), and Stealth Momo advance, but I digress.

The ease in which I was able to guess the winners shows just how ridiculously predictable competitive anime tends to be. While most of the shows are fun to watch, the tension they produce is manufactured; you already know that when two teams or individuals clash, which will emerge victorious simply because if the other person won, there really wouldn’t be much of a story. After all, are we really supposed to be surprised when Azuma Kazuma and company were able to advance after every single bread matchup in Yakitate Japan? Or what about Takumi conquering most of his opponents with relative ease in Initial D? Armed with this bit of insight, the anime in question is effectively forced to squeeze as much drama and tension out of the matches to make them interesting. In other words, it’s an elaborate charade, one that Saki in particular delivers upon in an enjoyable fashion, but it’s a charade nonetheless.

As you can guess from the title, this is where my discussion on Kaiji comes in. Kaiji, like other competitive anime is also predictable; after all its longer title is Ultimate Survivor Kaiji and the overall point of the show cannot be made plainer than through that title. You know that Kaiji going to come out of the various contests in which he participates alive, but what makes this series gripping is that you don’t know how much of himself will be lost as a result.

Kaiji takes the road less traveled by putting an element of danger into its competitions. We’re not talking about the danger arising from, say, a showdown between two Bleach characters (this also falls under manufactured tension by the way). In Kaiji, the dangers are real; the situations in which the competitors are placed into are so over-the-top insane that one would be lucky to come out of it alive and in one piece, both physically and mentally. The amount of physical and emotional duress that the contests’ participants are subject to are monstrous and inhumane. Yet, it’s difficult to avert our gaze because deep inside us, there’s a sadistic curiosity to be had in watching misfortune. It’s the same reason why we are held spellbound by a burning train wreck.

Threats like the loss of life, of limb, or of sanity serve to make Kaiji a fascinating watch as the contestants lose their ability to empathize with others, viewing them as obstacles to their very own survival. Watching this degeneration is riveting because the ultimate outcome of each contest might be predictable, but what isn’t predictable is the physical and psychological toll that the contest exacts upon Kaiji. I recognize that not all competitive anime can operate on this level of tension and drama, but it would be nice to break from the formulaic competitive anime plot and have the competitors literally put their skin in the game. Or dress it up around character interactions/relationships a la Cross Game.

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