Anyway I thought Kaiji was gullible at the beginning but Nao is easily one of the most foolish character's I've seen. She hasn't seen her teacher in years and she just forks over the whole 100 million without even thinking about it. She didn't even think to ask where he was going to deposit the money and it's not like asking a few basic questions would have made her seem distrusting or anything if she was afraid of offending him. She should at least have asked to go with him to see the money deposited that way when he inevitably said no or made some excuse why that wasn't a good idea she would have realized something was up. Although I don't think her being naive to start off with is a bad thing. It leaves plenty of room for her character to grow but she needs to start growing up fast or she's fucked.

Otherwise her character does remind me a bit of Kaiji in a few small ways. She's a disaffected loser with no real friends and no family other than her dying father. She has no one she can count on and seems to be a bit of a loner. Although she is missing the cynicism and bitterness Kaiji had at the beginning of his series. It'll be interesting how a more pure character deals with this world of trickery and lying. Kaiji may have been naive at the start but he at least had some experience with lying and being fooled before he got onto the Espoir. Again I don't think it's a bad thing that she has such an innocent view of the world as long as she gets over it rather quickly.

Like I said the only thing that kind of bugged me about the start was the coincidences. She would never have found out about her teacher if she hadn't of just happened go over to his house and hear his phone call. Then when she's looking for a conman to help her she just finds out that the greatest one is Japanese history is getting out of prison that same day. Then she literally just happens to run into him when he was getting out of jail. He managed to avoid all the reporters that were waiting for him but she bumps right into him.

Of course there would be no story if she didn't overhear that phone call because she would have sat there with her thumb up her ass until the month was over and then been in 100 million in debt. That's the other thing the initial amount of money is much higher than what Kaiji was dealing with at the outset. Kaiji was only 3 million in debt at the beginning but she's already starting off with a potential debt of 100 million so as this thing progresses I could see the amount of money quickly becoming staggering.

The last thing that I will say is the solution about what to do with the money seems obvious. Just put it in a bank account that way it's not only safe but you would also earn a little bit of interest on it. It's not like there is a penalty for not having the cash on hand when they come to collect so you'd still only owe the 100 million which could then be transferred to them.

Hmm well I'm through the first game and it's still one of those things where I like some of what I'm reading but annoyed by other parts of it. Honestly at this point I see lots of potential but the first arc doesn't really take advantage of it. Right now I'm writing off the parts of that I'm not impressed with as being part of the tutorial for the game. This first arc was just to set the stage for what I hope is awesomeness to come because all the elements are there for something great but the question is can the author come through? I really want the answer to be yes.

I think my real problem is how predictable this arc was. I predicted pretty much every step of Akiyama's plan right down to small details. In fact the only part I failed to call was also the most annoying. I can't believe that Akiyama gave up his 50 million knowing she was going to fork it over to Fujisawa. Nao is a naive girl that has still has a rosy world view so I can see her giving up her half but Akiyama doing the same really pisses me off because I feel like the author took a dark story and tried to force this cheesy happy ending on it. I know Funari has said this story doesn't always show the darkest side of people the way Kaiji does which is fine but I felt they went overboard with the kindness here to the point where it was unbelievable.

Really I think Akiyama needs some background because I can't really get a good grasp on his character. He seems to be one of these savant genius types but he's also supposed to be a conman and they can't survive being that nice. He keeps putting himself out for Nao and I need to know why before I can decide if what kind of character he is or if I like him. We're still early in the story so I'm sure it's coming in due time but until then I remain undecided on what I think of him. However the other thing is I can't be sure if he's really a genius because his plan was incredibly simplistic. Now that isn't a bad thing because plans don't always have to be convoluted to be interesting but I just hope I'm not supposed to be super impressed with his planning in this first arc. It's one of those thing where I wonder if the author has created this supposedly brilliant character but then doesn't know how to write for him. Now at this point I'm kind of running away with the speculation here because this could all be fixed in the next arc or the ones after that.

Now what I really did enjoy in this first arc was the psychological talk. That was interesting but again it was really simplistic so while I see potential in that aspect I'm hoping it's going to get more meaty later on. To me this could easily be the best thing about the story if the author manages to get it right.

As for the characters Fujisawa was a bit too exaggerated as the first villain. Just look at this facial expression:



Jesus Christ, that is a bit much. I'm giving the story a bit of pass on that one because he's the freshman villain and if he was a bit too much on the so evil he needs a twirly mustache side of things maybe it will get toned down later. Even if it doesn't as long as the villains are more interesting than him I won't mind too much. Really he was a one trick pony and once he played that trick he was a really chump. He was just a bitter ex-school teacher that thought he was way more cunning than he actually was.


See a complete chump.

For what I think of Akiyama well see the above paragraph. For now he kind of seems like a generic antihero genius type. He really needs some development before I can make any more concrete statements about him.

Then there is Nao. I've already said she is gullible and frankly her naive nature seems a bit too extreme. However what pissed me off about her was she apparently didn't learn a fucking thing from the first game. Right when chapter 7 starts the fucking fake lawyer comes to her apartment and gives her free advice. Her only though is "I'm lucky to have met such a nice lawyer." Seriously wake the fuck up. She didn't even have any foreboding feelings about that visit. It's like she has no survival instinct at all. For now I'll put it like this. On the one hand she's annoying as hell but on the other I'm kind of glad I'll get to see her naive world view shattered first hand. Hopefully she does learn from her experiences. I don't want to see her keep getting in deeper because she has the memory of a goldfish.

So now she's caught up in the second round of the game which was just being set up. I have to say I like the set up because having all these people brought together and then being given money reminds me a lot of the first arc in Kaiji especially with the ominous way the guy said they will get the money back from the losers one way or another. I'm not sure what Minority Rule is going to end up being but I like the way it's going thus far.

I have to say I love that the amount of money involved has already gotten out of hand. We're already at 2.2 billion yen at stake and this is only the second game. I mean there might be trillion at stake before all is said and done.

The art style is really simplistic and I can't say I'm enjoying it all that much. The character designs almost seem minimalistic and the backgrounds are particularly detailed. Now I will always take a great story over great artwork so if the story improves I probably won't give a fuck about this. However I do appreciate different artstyles and I adore the ugly style of Fukumoto's works like Kaiji.

I get the fact that she "has" to continue, sort of, to save everyone. But seriously! Every sane person would have quit. For a moment it just seemed kind of illogical to me. Especially since it happened after she heared Akiyama had already quit. And then he shows up again... Of course.