Kaiji

Japanese title: カイジ
Number of episodes: 26

Some info:
1) ANN
2) Wiki
3) Official Site (Japanese)

Actually, the wiki article is more on the manga, rather than the anime series, but the gambles performed during the anime series are basically those from Gambles: Series 1 under the wiki article.

To be honest, I’m sure the drawing style is going to put a lot of people off, but I was more interested in the gambling stuff, since it’s tied to -some- statistics (“probability”) and quite a bit of psychology and stuff, which you don’t really see it that often lah. By the way, this author also wrote the Akagi show, which is mahjong related and the nature of approach is somewhat similar.

Anyway, most of the gambles that appear in the anime are described in the article. Sometimes the explanation serves as an enlightenment to those who are unable to grasp certain important aspects, though at times it may be a little “repetitive” in nature. Ah well, gotta give and take a bit.

Restricted Rock-Scissors-Paper: On the surface, it really does look like a rather simple game, sometimes even relying on a bit of luck to win. But there are many things one could do to aid them in winning the game. Basic tactics such as observing what cards people have played to figure out their remaining hand (since everyone starts with the same hand). Monitoring the “global” number of cards remaining board can serve an indication as well, if you happen to buy over a certain type of card with the money they allow for “loan” at the beginning of the game. Certainly, this one was something new to me.

Human Derby: I find that this portion of the anime is more of the psychological, rather than gambling skills and tactics. Most of the description is already there in the article so I shan’t talk much about this, other than the fact that the electrically charged bridge is indeed a very cruel set-up to do. Heh.

E-card: Another psychological + gamble game. The rules are described in the wiki article. Well, initially the “banker” is cheating since he has a monitoring device to see Kaiji’s vital stats. Kaiji’s countermeasure to that was quite drastic, and it really requires quite a bit of guts to carry that out. Well, in the end he won, which isn’t surprising since Tonegawa isn’t all that great without external help. Haha. Anyway Kaiji can’t lose yet since he hasn’t met the “final boss”.

Tissue box gamble: Well, the final gamble of the anime series. I thought Kaiji would actually make a comeback like in Akagi, but I guess that’s not the case for this storyline. Judging from the wiki article, I should have expected it, since the manga has series 2 and 3, which I suppose continues where it ends for the anime where Kaiji wants to have his revenge on the chair

At times, some of the things appear to be rather extreme, or at least to me. For example, the punishment for Tonegawa received when he lost the E-card to the main character (see picture). Maybe such cruel things really do happen in the dark, dark gambling world, unlike your usual 4D/Toto/Strike!/whatever. But other than that, you could say I somewhat enjoy the less seen genre of anime in this series, though I do have some reservations about the artwork style.