Kaiji

Three years after moving to Tokyo, Itou Kaiji is a bum wasting his life away on cheap liquor and cheap gambles. His dull world is turned upside-down when he is paid a visit by a man named Endou, a loan shark coming to collect on a loan Kaiji once co-signed as a favor to a friend. He learns his friend defaulted on the 3 million yen loan and the responsibility now falls to Kaiji! Broke and d...

Boarding the ship of hope, the Espoir, Kaiji prepares to play a unique game called "Restricted Rock-Paper-Scissors." The MC, Tonegawa, explains that everyone is given twelve cards and three stars. If you can play all twelve cards and keep three stars, you may leave the ship with your debt forgiven, but fail and a fate worse than death awaits...

Kaiji, his old friend Furuhata and newcomer Andou band together to try and conquer the Espoir with the power of teamwork. Kaiji devises a strategy for victory, but when Andou makes a move on his own, will Kaiji cast him aside?

Pooling their resources, Kaiji's team begins buying up all the "Rock" cards on the floor. If things go according to plan, they could walk away with enough stars to win the game and have leftovers to sell! But have they tipped their hand too soon?

Kaiji is caught off guard when he realizes too late that another player, Kitami, has been buying "Paper" cards to counter Kaiji's "Rocks". With time running out, and Kitami about to retire from the game, can Kaiji find a way to escape defeat?

After soundly defeating Kitami, Kaiji weasels his way into getting their pool of "Paper" cards as well. Now with 30 Rocks, 34 Papers and 5 Scissors, Kaiji's team has a huge deck to draw on. But can they use it to get the stars they need to escape the ship?

With the other players too afraid to move and the clock winding down, Kaiji's group seems trapped. Their only option is to go along with Funai, the man who swindled Kaiji at the start, and his plan to shuffle everyone's cards so that everyone starts from a clean slate.

No one can find the three missing "Scissors" cards for a good reason - someone tried to sneak out of playing by flushing them down the toilet. Now with an odd number of cards, someone in Kaiji's group will have to be the odd man out and fall into the loser's pen...but will the other two come to his rescue?

Furuhata and Andou's true colors emerge as they leave Kaiji to rot with the other losers, sentencing him to a fate worse than death. As a fellow prisoner mocks his doom, Kaiji frantically searches for a way to escape…

Four months after the Espoir, Kaiji is working part-time at a convenience store, barely able to even pay off the interest on his massive debt. Things only get worse when the store owner starts suspecting him of stealing.

Stepping foot into the Starside Hotel, Kaiji is greeted with a familiar face from the ship of hope. He once again falls into the world of bizzare gambles, this time as a contestant in what the hotel bills as a "Human Derby."

Kaiji and 11 other men are forced into a footrace across a narrow beam high off the ground. But with no way to pass the person in front of him, will Kaiji give into the temptation to push him off?

With the Human Derby over, Kaiji and the rest of the contestants are led to another set of beams so high above the surface, they can see nothing but darkness below. Now, the real race begins.

As the desperate group of men begin plummeting off the beams to their deaths, Kaiji screams for Tonegawa to cut the power to the elecrified iron beams. But when his pleas are ignored, can he muster the courage to press forward?

Kaiji and his friend Sasahara are the last two men clinging to their lives 74 meters above the ground. Sasahara finally traverses the beam to the window on the other side, but the smiling faces of the rich elite behind the glass have Kaiji confused…and terrified.

Cheated out of his prize on a technicality, Kaiji is given one last chance to make some money before leaving the Starside Hotel - a psychological battle with Tonegawa himself, "E-Card."

Tonegawa continuously presses Kaiji, questioning him, trying to get inside his head. Meanwhile, Kaiji is wracking his brain trying to decide the perfect moment to strike, badly needing to survive his turn playing the Slave with minimal losses.

With his sense of hearing on the line, Kaiji becomes more and more panicked as Tonegawa begins to read him like a book. Can he survive E-Card with his hearing intact, or is Tonegawa simply too experienced to outwit?

Even with the overwhelming advantage of playing Emperor, Kaiji is to scared to risk more than the minimum bet of one millimeter. But with his paralyzing fear of Tonegawa turn into an unexpected benefit?

Round 11 of E-Card sees Kaiji resort to his most extreme, most desperate, and most brilliant plan to date. Does he have what it takes to defeat Tonegawa once and for all?

The madness of E-Card continues as Kaiji is now up 11 million yen. Now betting 18 millimeters and risking death or brain damage, Kaiji strives to humiliate Tonegawa and avenge the deaths of his friends.

The final round of E-Card has finally come. Tonegawa, Hyoudou, the Teiai suits, and the losers from the Human Derby all look on as Kaiji plays his final card.

Unsatisfied with besting the corporate puppet Tonegawa, Kaiji challenges the President of Teiai himself, Hyoudou himself. His brilliant plan to make Teiai pay and walk away with a fortune? A simple tissue box raffle.

Hyoudou readily accepts Kaiji's challenge, but after a lifetime of dominating others financially, the twisted President is not satisfied with simply taking Kaiji's money. Instead, he demands something much more valuable…

Kaiji is fully confident his rigged tissue box will trick Hyoudou and net him over 100 million yen. But does the sly President know more than he lets on?