To think that this anime would take me over a year and a half to complete is not something I would have thought about when I initially asked EpikProStarZ to watch this show with me. This was when we used to play amq together all of the time and the idea of watching ghost stories together was floating in the air. I ended up asking EpikProStarZ one day to watch kaiji with me and he did end up agreeing but I mainly decided to watch it because of the yakuza tag score on anilist being somewhat high. The show we watched together before this was wonder egg priority if I remember right and I only watched one episode before losing interest but yeah.

Now to come back to the show, I was not even close to prepared on what this show truly was. It's a sad tale about one man and his struggles to pay back the debt he has accumulated due to being wronged by one guy and also because of his gambling addiction. The show itself though starts off on a cruise ship where kaiji is given a chance to payback his debt by playing rock paper scissors using cards and if he wins he will pay off a certain amount of money after the game's end. I believe that if you lose the game, you basically become a slave to the organization and have to do years of manual labor to pay off the debt. Just with this first arc, I was enthralled with the world that kaiji had created because they made a simple game of rock paper scissors have REAL WORLD STAKES and made it so fun while also showing the true nature of humans. The show also does a great job exploring the human psyche and the characters feel very realistic due to this. All of this was done with just a rock paper scissors game and that's a testament to the mangaka and their abilities. There are some side characters introduced here but really only one of them is important because of the next gamble which involves walking on a metal pipe to get to another building and if you fall, you die.

This arc is called the human derby and there's a really profound moment in this arc where someone talks about how everyone leads their own separate lives and are all trying to get by but I can't seem to find the exact quote sadly. It is something similar to what I said though but this is the arc where people start to die and I started to get pissed at the people in charge of this gamble and so did the winners of this gamble who got cucked out of the money they were supposed to get. Then kaiji has to end up negotiating and eventually wins and we get e-card which is the next gamble. This is also a really high stakes gamble where if kaiji loses, he loses an ear and could potentially die because of a machine attached to his ear. It's really intense and this is when kaiji truly loses all hope and you can finally start to see his spirit start to dwindle and he truly starts to feel ultimate despair. I believe this is the arc where the amount of kaiji I was watching with anthony started to dwindle and the gap between the last time I had seen the show really started to widen. Getting to the actual arc though, it's really intense and serious and the characters are truly written well because by the end of it, I could sympathize with one of the characters who was actually supposed to be a villain. This is because there is an even bigger evil that is truly nonredeemable at the top of it all who is finally challenged in the final gamble which is the tissue box gamble. When you actually get the backstory of this villainous character, I felt some sympathy but then his actions were way too extreme to even start to sympathize with him and he turned out to be a sociopath who truly didn't care what it took to get the money he loaned out. The final gamble seems to be in kaiji's favor since he organized it but at the end, you realize that kaiji was never in control of his situation and the ending leaves kaiji way worse off than he originally started with.

I just love how the characterization of kaiji and even though he isn't a great person, you can still sympathize with him because of the situations he ends up being in and you can start to feel the pain he feels as the show goes on. This show pulls 0 punches when it comes to making kaiji suffer and it just helps make the show that much more impactful and convincing. The actual gambling games itself may seem long at first because there's usually an episode dedicated to explaining the rules and the characters end up playing a game for like 3 or 4 episodes but I think because of high the stakes are, it makes sense in the context and it doesn't feel like they drag on for too long. Also kaiji loses his left nut in the final tissue box gamble but yeah. The ost of this anime is FUCKING BRILLIANT and every time a song comes on, it serves to heighten the mood and can put the viewer at unease because of what is about to happen next and though other shows have done this before, this just does an exceptional job at it where if one song comes on, you can instantly tell the outcome of the next scene. The artstyle may look weird for the show since every character has a huge ass nose or the eyes are really big but I really think that madhouse did a great job with animating the show and you can look past the character designs to watch the show. Kaiji truly does pose some interesting philosophical questions on the value of human life and how far you really will go for money and some other things but you guys can figure that out yourself.

Now since I have taken over a year and a half to finish this show you may be wondering, did it impact my experience of the show in a positive or negative way? I'd say it impacted my experience in a positive way because I didn't end up forgetting what happened in kaiji even after all of the long breaks and I had more time to appreciate and fall in love with the story's elements. It also felt all the more satisfying when I finally finished it because it felt like the end to an era and heightened my enjoyment of the series as a whole to another level. Also the op and ed of the show are really good! Overall I am giving this show a 10/10 because it did everything right and it is the best if not the greatest gambling anime to be ever made. There sadly wasn't that much yakuza screen time though but yeah I'm giving kaiji the ultimate survivor a 10/10. If you liked squid game you will definitely love this.

Wow this was a long ass journey!!! It took me more than 3 months to finish this show and let me tell you that every minute of this show was worth it!!! I have never seen a show that has done action, characters, music, and storytelling as well as hellsing!!! It may seem edgy at first (because it is) but man that edginess is what makes the story so great!! I also loved the weird comedy the show had because it was just extremely unique from any comedy I have seen before and I just enjoyed it for the most part!!! There are some really memorable characters in hellsing and it truly is an epic without a doubt but man most of the characters are extremely flawed and even evil in some sense but they are still able to be compelling characters nonetheless. There isn't one character that wasn't great in hellsing and that's what I love about the show!! Even the main villain seemed over the top and like a fucking lunatic because he loves war enough to murder millions of innocent people in London and turn them to zombies but after you see how fucking evil and insane Arucard was, you actually start to pity him in his death. The only show that is even just kind of close in greatness is fmab but the thing that just pains me is how you're supposed to care about envy when he dies when he is the fucking worst out of all the sins and never ever feels sorry for what he did and instead his character development is "I kill humans because I envy them" THE FUCK!!!!!?????? That's just not a good reason but when you see a character like arucard who has killed millions for pure bloodlust since he's a vampire but still does good time to time, you start too see the major as the righteous evil to some extent. Also a really good thing about hellsing is even though a character dies, you never cry for them but you get emotional for them nonetheless. I just really enjoyed this show and it's uniqueness is why I honestly think it deserves a 10. The music is extremely fantastic and fits very well with the whole theme of the show. At the start of the show, you can actually root for Arucard because he's killing the people who are trying to destroy London but after you learn of all the bad shit he did in the past, which makes it harder to like him but he's such a well built character that even his flaws don't diminish him. Alexander Anderson was just great for the whole series and his final fight was just muah such a beautiful sight to witness. The animation is just spectacular and so are the characters. Seras Victoria started as comic relief but later like midway into the series, she becomes the best character because she doesn't kill humans for bloodlust and actually tries saving people so Seras is really the only good person in this whole anime. Her loyalty to Alucard is also extremely admirable and the love story between bernadotte and seras is also a beautiful story to witness. There are a lot of mature themes and violence and such but I did watch the uncensored version so if you don't want to see millions of people being mercilessly murdered or raped, then don't watch this show uncensored. Bernadotte was also one of my favorite characters because of how smart, cool, and how much of a badass he was. He was such a great character. Walter was also great even after his betrayal to Hellsing became clear so he was a very well executed character too. I just loved how stoic and badass Integra was because she would do whatever was needed to justify her ends of a goal. Well I'll stop talking about hellsing but long story short, watch hellsing ultimate it is worth your time and you will most likely enjoy it. I give this anime a 10/10.