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Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor falls into a category of storytelling I call "Stresscore." American films like After Hours, Good Time, and Sorcerer all capture this white-knuckle feeling of unrelenting anxiety, where every decision is maddeningly critical, and every inch you move could mean the end of everything. The kind of situations where if you even think for a second about how much soul-crushing pressure is laid squarely upon yourself and only yourself, you'll lose your mind and blow it all sky high.

So basically, Kaiji is the fucking shit.

A phenomenal adaptation of Nobuyuki Fukumoto's idiosyncratic approach to style and storytelling, one of the great strengths of Ultimate ... Survivor is that it buckles you into the passenger's seat with one of the most endearing, tragic, horrifying characters in Anime. Kaiji Itou is a compulsive gambler, with an easily corrupted heart of gold. His empathy and sincerity are the only lights shining in the bleak snake-pit of high-stakes gambling... but even Kaiji's compassion is only second to his addiction. He will save your life, and then use it to gain an advantage. He will double-down, win the pot, and lose everything again in an all-in.

Building on themes of class inequality and greed, Kaiji's art style, music, writing, and voice performances all flawlessly build this nasty, nihilistic, absurd underworld where the rich have everything to gain, and the poor have everything to lose.... or at least that's what the odds say.

Through hare-brained schemes and strategies, cataclysmic emotional disasters, betrayals, psychological manipulation, and secret revelations, Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor earns its way into my top 5 favorite Anime of all time. That's some real shit right there, man.

Kachou Ouji is an anime about the life of a salaryman, space warfare, and rock and roll.

Sounds awesome, right? Hold on, I forgot to lay out the, uhh, proportional makeup of those things.

Kachou Ouji is an anime that is 98% the life of a salaryman, 1% space warfare, and 1% rock and roll.

So, yeah, this show is pretty boring, fairly generic and shallow in the exploration of its themes, and not even very funny when it's joking around. The art style leaves a bit to be desired, and the characters aren't really vibrant enough to follow or care about. It does, however, have an incredible ... theme song. YOU ARE MY INSTIGATOR!!! YOU ARE MY AGGRAVATOR!!! Watch the OP a few times and you've got all you need from the Legend of Black Heaven.

Steins;Gate is not only one of the worst time travel stories i've ever experienced, it's one of the most disappointing anime i've ever seen. Maybe i fell for hype, maybe i missed something, but right now i feel like that meme where everybody's pissing in the pool and laughing at the only guy who's not clouded in piss.

Tenet, Primer, Coherence - even the shakiest of timeline-blending brain-benders hangs together better than Steins;Gate. I'm kind of so mad i barely know where to start. Ok here how about this. Let me talk about pacing.

The first 12 episodes of this show are completely valueless slice-of-life drivel. Picture ... the 100 episodes of filler that comprise the back half of Naruto. An infuriating waste of time full of characters that range from flat to totally irritating. If i never had to hear "Tuturu" again, i would still have heard it 100 times too many. Kyouma and Co. spend this time making various changes to the past by sending "D-mails" - timeline-altering text messages which are flung back in time to alter the present. They evoke the "butterfly effect" here, and establish a rule: "When you send a D-mail, a side effect occurs, altering the present in an unexpected way." Keep this rule in mind.

The cast spends the second half of Steins;gate negotiating interpersonal drama and sending more D-mails to undo the original D-mails. That's the core mechanic of the show. But you see why it doesn't make sense, right? they're sending MORE D-MAILS to prevent the original D-mails. The key problem is that these new D-mails don't have side effects. They strictly guide events back to the original timeline, which blatantly ignores our established "butterfly effect." So, like, on a core level, the main plot device DOES NOT WORK. They just ignore the rules when it's convenient.

Speaking of plot convenience - Kyouma is our hero for one reason: he has the "Reading Steiner." This ability allows him to retain memories even after he alters the past and jumps world lines. But i counted three times in which other characters retain some memory of a previous world line, in order to move the plot along. This isn't explained. Cuz it's more convenient that way. Okay.

Here's something random that bugged me. There's a moment right in the middle of the show, where Part Time Warrior sacrifices her herself to go back to the past and search for the Macguffin IBM computer. With this heroic action, she believes she'll never see her friends again. But we've established the IBM probably won't be there. So, like, staying with her friends in 2010 and continuing the search for any other IBM Macguffin is just an objectively better plan. Just thought that was dumb. Whatever.

Ok so, in terms of twists... listen. I'm not a very smart guy. I'm not mister brain genius. But if i'm sitting there thinking "Hm i hope this thing i just thought of doesn't happen, that would be way too obvious" and then it immediately happens...... not a good sign. Part Time Warrior being John Titor... fat guy being her dad.... glasses girl being evil.... Kyouma being the one who stabs Kurisu the first time.... using his own blood the second time..... this is all childrens book shit. "There's A Monster At the End Of this Book" level foreshadowing. If you fell for any of that, you are Double Stupid - because i'm at least Single Stupid.

The last two episodes finally deliver on the hard-sci-fi execution of things. Repeating a known sequence of events in a granular way, to unveil the narratively juicy angles that only a time-travel story can do. Okay, great. 2 meaningful episodes in a 25 episode show.

Fuck steins gate, and you know what, fuck you too. Tuturu.