Usogui - Recommendations

• TV (26 eps)
• 2011

Sunk deep in colossal debt, Kaiji must spend the next decades of his life working it off in an underground slave pit, shovelling dirt with other disgraced down-and-outs. But far be it for Kaiji to have learned his lesson from his experiences on the Espoir. Upon discovering that the only fast track out of gambling-induced slavery is to gamble even more in a dice game called chinchirorin, he throws caution – and presumably his senses – to the fickle winds of luck! As well as giving him plenty of reasons to weep, this takes him up against formidable foes like his supervisor, Ohtsuki, whose dirty delight is to ruin the workers psychologically as well as financially. As the saying goes, in a bet there's a fool and a thief, and Kaiji can only hope he will not end up the former.

• TV (12 eps)
• 2018

Descend into the dark world of SCM, where you are labeled either a master or servant based on your ability to win a game. What type of depravity will people reach to become the ultimate master?

• TV (26 eps)
• 2007 - 2008

Kaiji Ito is as pathetic a person as they come; a man who gambles his days away, only winning enough to lose significantly more. He hates himself, is riddled with envy for others, but is ultimately too weak to think of a way out of his massive debts. Then one day he is approached by a strange man who offers him what seems the solution of a lifetime – to take a short journey on a ship called Espoir, during which time he will be given the chance to win more cash than he can dream of in a card game like no other. Ever the desperate, Kaiji takes the gamble of his life; however, the game turns out to be far darker than he expected and the hard lessons pile on thick and fast. Now stuck in a closed world of unsavory characters willing to do anything to destroy him, can Kaiji gather enough courage to outwit them all?

• TV (12 eps)
• 2019

Obsessive gambler Yumeko Jabami may know when to hold them and when to fold them, but knowing when to walk away and run has always eluded her. That's bad news at the insane Hyakkaou Private Academy, where students must gamble their fortunes, futures and lives in an endless series of competitions to determine who rules and who become slaves. Yumeko's razor-edged instincts, skills, and the devil's own luck have kept her going thus far, but when the ruthless Momobami clan arrives, intent on taking over the school, the stakes rise even higher while the intrigue, both in and out of the games, hits the deadliest level yet.

• Music Video (1 ep)
• 2020

• TV (26 eps)
• 2005 - 2006

One stormy night, a desperate man finds himself playing Mahjong with yakuza thugs; the prize is his life. He is losing, and death seems certain, until a teenage boy stumbles out of the darkness into the Mahjong parlor, drenched in rain. Allowed to watch, the boy soon offers to play in place of the marked man, and that night, a legend is born. After his first taste for Mahjong, Akagi Shigeru finds himself entangled in the dark underworld of Mahjong gambling: for money, reputation, and lives.

• OVA (3 eps)
• 1988 - 1990

• OVA (1 ep)
• 1991

• TV (13 eps)
• 2013

Kiri has been obsessed with cutting others' hair since he was a child, to the extent that he always carries a pair of shears with him wherever he goes. So when the boy accidentally meets Iwai, a young girl with floor-length hair, he's crushed to learn that due to a curse, her locks cannot be shorn by ordinary means. And what's more, she's an unwilling participant in a deadly game where psychotic wielders of powerful "Killing Goods" do their best to take her life in exchange for a prize beyond imagination. Wielding the shears he learns are his own Killing Good, Kiri must now keep Iwai safe from those who wish to murder her and help her survive this sinister game.

• TV (12 eps)
• 2017

Hyakkaou Private Academy. An institution for the privileged with a very peculiar curriculum. You see, when you're the sons and daughters of the wealthiest of the wealthy, it's not athletic prowess or book smarts that keep you ahead. It's reading your opponent, the art of the deal. What better way to hone those skills than with a rigorous curriculum of gambling? At Hyakkaou Private Academy, the winners live like kings, and the losers are put through the wringer. But when Yumeko Jabami enrolls, she's gonna teach these kids what a high roller really looks like!