Although high-stakes survival horror with a battle-royale type spin is far from new or unique, the Korean Netflix series Squid Game has captured the world's attention regardless thanks to its unique reinvention of the genre. But for anyone who has already run through every available episode of the show, maybe even more than once, and finds themselves craving more of it... There's a perfect anime to satisfy that Squid Game craving. A vicious group of rich elites stringing poverty-stricken and indebted individuals through familiar but twisted games of skill and chance, oftentimes with their lives on the line, isn't exclusive to Squid Game; it's also the exact plot of a lesser-known but brilliant anime known as Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor.
Based on a seinen manga created and illustrated by Nobuyuki Fukumoto, this anime follows Kaiji Ito (Masato Hagiwara), a deadbeat that lives in poverty. He whittles away his days by gambling, losing, and taking his frustration out on expensive imported cars. One day, however, his life gets upturned when a seemingly amiable man comes to his door. His former coworker, who'd gone inexplicably missing, had borrowed a high sum of money from the man before his disappearance, and unfortunately, Kaiji was listed as the co-signer on the loan. Suddenly, he's now on the hook for ¥3,850,000, and with no savings and no steady job, he has no way to pay it. The man, a loan shark named Endo Yuji (Naoya Uchida), explains to him in grueling detail how he can slowly pay him back, day by day, for the rest of his life, barely scraping by and likely dying in debt...or he can take a gamble, and make his debt vanish all in one night. If he takes this offer, he'd board a ship called Espoir and participate in a mysterious gambling event that could pay off the nearly four million yen, and possibly even leave him with some money left over.
Reluctantly, Kaiji accepts and boards the Espoir, but this is just the beginning of Kaiji's troubles, and his encounters with Endo. Even though he manages to scrape by and escape the Espoir, he now has to shoulder nearly double his original debt. The mounting financial pressure pushes him to accept the next offer Endo conveniently brings him, pulling him further and further into these depraved gambles with both new and familiar faces alongside him.
Throughout the series, Kaiji unravels twisted games and punishments set up by sadistic rich elites to view, enjoy, and encourage the suffering of those beneath them on the economic ladder. Initially simple games that twist popular pastimes, such as Rock Paper Scissors and Pachinko, offer Kaiji not only a means to escape the pit he's fallen into, but also threaten to worsen or even end his life, as they do for so many of the equally desperate and destitute players that surround him. Gambling everything he has, Kaiji fervently claws his way through each near-death and near-ruin "game" in an attempt to not only better his own life, but in a bid to take down the mastermind behind them once and for all.
Fans of Squid Game likely already see the similarities between Kaiji Ito's and Seong Gi-hun's (Lee Jung-jae) lifestyles and subsequent predicaments. The connecting threads between the two series are enough to keep the attention of fans looking for something to fill the post-binge emptiness that comes after finishing an awesome series, while still being unique enough to offer a freshly thrilling experience. While the shows are set in different countries, with Squid Game being set in South Korea and Kaiji being set in Japan, both share a surprisingly similar core, critiquing each country's wealth gap and economic downfalls through the situations of the main characters. Brutality, violence, and the unflinching eyes of the game masters surround our deeply flawed and at-times-unlikeable protagonists, but we end up rooting for both as they fight their way through towards a seemingly brighter future.
While Squid Game's main draw is putting its characters through twisted versions of childhood games, Kaiji instead puts its characters through modified and sometimes made-up games such as 'Restricted Rock Paper Scissors', 'Electrified Steel-Beam Crossing', and 'E-Card'. These games are often more complex than the more straightforward games featured in Squid Game, challenging the viewer to pay just as much attention to the gamble as Kaiji does. As a result, much like Squid Game, when Kaiji wins or loses, the viewer is hit with just as hard of an emotional impact as he is, be that in the form of a white-knuckle grip as Kaiji is forced to gamble away his fingers, or an uncontrollable whoop of relief as he outmaneuvers and finally bests his opponent during a tense game. The stakes in these games are constantly high, with Kaiji's financial future and/or physical wellbeing often on the line. Multiple character deaths and injuries that not even the main protagonist can escape from give the presented scenarios a chilling and almost crushing weight.
While Kaiji is an anime and not live-action, its visuals are just as striking as Squid Game, featuring thick outlines, sharp angles, dramatic cinematography, and interesting character designs with unusually exaggerated facial features for the art form. The artwork in this series allows for bold expressions and visually rich storytelling that captures the both attention and imagination of the viewer. The voice acting is brilliant, the pace, though sometimes slowing to a crawl during certain scenes before picking up into a mad sprint in others, never feels too slow or too fast to keep up with, and every twist and turn is masterfully executed for a fantastic experience. So for those of you feeling the post-show void, for those longing for something that can stack up to Squid Game's high stakes and gut-wrenching plotlines, and maybe even those of you who wish there was something along the lines of a Squid Game anime, Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor will fill that empty spot in your soul- and your watchlist.