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* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ0_ywZIm-0 The intro to season 2]] is one giant CMOA. The video manages to capture ''everything'' great about Fukumoto's works. They even managed to put in a cameo of [[Manga/StrongestLegendKurosawa Kurosawa]]!
* Every time Kaiji wins a game, or has luck on his side... Even if it usually won't [[HopeSpot last long]].
* Ishida's death is a tragic example. In a world where everyone is willing to backstab one another to further themselves except Kaiji, Ishida, on his literal last legs, gives Kaiji his ticket for 20 million yen and asks that he uses it to help his wife. Afterwards, as he falls to his death, he gives his entire might to prevent himself from screaming, enduring unfathomable mental pressure to keep quiet as he plummets to his death all so that Kaiji might have a better chance. It is this moment that proves integral to Kaiji's future faith in humanity and his own decency. A more subdued example, but perhaps the most beautiful and tragic version of a determinator we see in the series. Because even if he gave in to his fear and fell to his death, he had the will to at least make his death as dignified as possible.
* The final two rounds of E-Card.
** In the first, Kaiji has realized that the device that pushes a drill deeper into his ear with each loss is also sending his vital signs to Tonegawa, allowing Tonegawa to predict his moves. After a violent fit in the bathroom, Kaiji returns to the game clutching his bandaged ear, the device still mostly transmitting data. Tonegawa, at a point where Kaiji is visibly panicked but it doesn't match up with his vitals, assumes he is bluffing. He is not. Kaiji cut his ear off and the vital signs he was seeing was of the man who was holding it for him, costing Tonegawa the match.
** In the second, Tonegawa removes the watch that displayed those vital signs and relies on pure skill. However, as the game continues, he notices some of Kaiji's cards have bloodstains on them. He quickly deduces that the ones with stains are the ones he played in the previous round, and that therefore the Slave card will have blood on it. Just as he is about to play a Citizen, which would kill the slave, he hesitates. At that point, he remembers a move Kaiji had made to suggest that he had swapped the Slave with one of his Citizens. Doing this to trick Tonegawa into thinking that the Slave was out when it was really a Citizen. Elated, Tonegawa plays the Emperor...only for it to be revealed that it really was the Slave and that Kaiji had FAKED swapping the cards. When Tonegawa, [[VillainousBreakdown who is on the verge of losing his shit]] angrily demands to know why Kaiji did that, Kaiji replies that [[IKnowYouKnowIKnow Tonegawa, who prides himself on being above people like Kaiji, would never have missed the moves Kaiji had made.]]
* Tonegawa gets a villainous one. After losing to Kaiji in E-card, he is forced to kneel on a heated steel plate for ten seconds. It is established that no one has been able to do this under their own power, and usually has to be forced to do it by an outside force. Tonegawa throws off the men who were about to force him down, and proceeds to kneel on the plate by himself for the whole ten seconds. The guy is a monster, but you have to admire the willpower that took.
* The finale to Underground Chinchiro. [[AwesomeByAnalysis By realizing Ohtsuki would be looking at Kaiji's hands, waiting for him to grab the 4-5-6 dice since he would naturally think Kaiji would grab the dice if he knew they were cheats, Kaiji discerns that the first two dice rolls were made using legitimate dice since Ohtsuki was looking at Kaiji's eyes.]] Even after Kaiji grabs the dice and exposes the 4-5-6 dice on the third roll, he gives in to Ohtsuki's desperation to [[ExactWords "play using loaded dice" and "sharing with each other"]]. Ohtsuki accepts, thinking he'll at most lose 1 million Perica. Then Kaiji and gang busts out their ''own'' trio of dice: completely covered in ones, meaning '''Ohtsuki has to pay quintuple'''. One 2.5 million Perica payout later and he tries to limp away to lick his wounds...Until Kaiji reminds him that ''the dealer deals twice in Underground Chinchiro.'' [[HoistByHisOwnPetard A rule Ohtsuki implemented to help him cheat.]] In one night, Kaiji earns 18 million Perica, completely and utterly ruining Ohtsuki. When it's do or die, '''you do '''''not''''' FUCK with Kaiji.'''
-->''"Sit the fuck down. You're dealing again."''
* The Bog pachinko machine promises an enormous payout but is ultimately a RiggedContest designed to take away the gamblers' money. So Kaiji's strategy to beat it involves a very elaborate plan that needs days to execute.
** The machine itself has pins arranged so neatly that they ''just'' let a small number of balls toward the jackpot, which is then guarded by flippers that can be computer-controlled to deny the entry of any balls. To counter this, he uses a two-fold KansasCityShuffle: He gets Sakazaki to damage the machine and cause a ruckus so that he can sneak into the staff office. Ichijou thinks that Kaiji's after the money, but Kaiji was after information -- the knowledge that the maintenance tools are conveniently under an air vent. By damaging the machine and forcing maintenance, he can swap the replacement flippers with faulty ones and gradually sabotage the maintenance tools, turning Ichijou and the staff into {{Unwitting Pawn}}s who would rig the machine in his favor.
** Beyond the flippers, the trays that guard the jackpot tilted in such a way that it's near-impossible for the balls to travel in the right trajectory that hits the end goal. Kaiji counters this by sneaking in a large collection of water canisters into a vacant room upstairs. With some fortunate nearby construction work going on, the weight of the canisters lets him tilt '''the entire building''' to offset the inherent tilt in the machine and even the odds! And the plan all starts from Kaiji noticing how some stray balls rolled on the floor during an earlier visit.
** Ichijou notices Kaiji's managed to tilt the building and decides to counter by tilting the trays the other way, throwing off the balls' trajectory and guaranteeing that they won't even come close to the end goal. Kaiji realizes this and is ready to give up, but then realizes that nothing's coming out of the reject chute. What's it mean? Their combined tilt has kept lost balls from being expelled, so they can just pile up and clog the losing holes, leaving the goal as the only way forward!
** The actual conclusion is incredibly intense: Kaiji runs out of ideas and is stuck in a deadlock, unable to pass through the curtain of air that surrounds the last hole. Right as the black suits of Teiai try to take him, he desperately yells out for someone, ''anyone'', to lend him money to keep playing. [[BigDamnHeroes In comes Sakazaki]], who delivers a [[ShutUpHannibal verbal smackdown to Ichijou]], and with enough money to allow Kaiji to literally flood the trays of the Bog. Despite the entire machine being rigged from start to finish, Kaiji manages to defeat it through sheer brute force and enough tenacity.
* In the series' third big-stakes poker game, Kaiji demonstrates how far he's come from the foolish gambler he was in the start of the series by doing what he couldn't before: seeing through his supposed 'allies' lies to realise when he's being betrayed and set up to take a massive fall so they can reap the rewards instead. He realises that the system that allows Muraoka to cheat his way through 17 Steps / Minefield Mahjong -- using the room's specific geography to have one of his subordinates hiding in a blind spot to peek on his opponent's hand -- is in fact a smokescreen for the ''real'' trap. Reasoning out that logically, nobody would [[SunkCostFallacy keep playing such a high-risk game after losing big through the first few rounds]] unless they believed they had a sure-fire way to win, Kaiji realises that he's merely ''assuming'' Maeda is sending Muraoka false information on his hand, and that Miyoshi made a mistake with the president's own hand that lead to him taking a big loss, and in actually, they are intentionally deceiving him and helping Muraoka cheat against Kaiji, banking on his blind faith in his 'friends' to lead him to gamble himself into ruinous debt. Even better, the reason he comes to understand this is Muraoka's brief expression of glee and anticipation when he's about to call his hand and [[OhCrap getting reminded]] of Tonegawa and Hyoudou's own sadistic expressions of delight when they trapped him in a seemingly-unwinnable gamble, and from there [[AwesomeByAnalysis logically deducing the true state of events]] from minor slip-ups in Maeda and Miyoshi's behaviour, showing how his past experiences have [[CharacterDevelopment made him a wiser and more capable person]].
** Arguably better is ''how'' he confirms their betrayal. Unable to decide one way or another if his prior two losses were intentional sabotage or bad luck, especially since Kaiji earnestly wants to believe in his past comrades from their forced servitude together in Hyoudou's underground construction site, but unable to forget how Furuhata and Andou betrayed him before at his lowest point, Kaiji opts instead for a risker private gamble -- by [[RefugeInAudacity abruptly leaving the table with the excuse of going to the bathroom]]. Fully aware that this will allow Muraoka ample time to check his tiles left behind on the gambling table and that nobody in the room will openly confirm to Kaiji that he did so, Kaiji is aware that this effectively destroys his hand, which contained a certain winning combination at the time. However, on returning to the table, Kaiji gets his confirmation of the duo's betrayal... because [[BatmanGambit he secretly left a small millimetre-wide gap between two of the tiles that got closed when Muraoka pushed the tiles back where they were]]. Imperceptible to a casual observer, the confirmation of the moved titles and the duo's lack of subtle reaction to warn him of this gives Kaiji what he needs to start making a comeback against Muraoka's trap.
* The third series' game, 17 Steps / Minefield Mahjong, features Kaiji at perhaps his most desperate yet. In order to fool Director Muraoka, a cowardly, hypocritical cheater, he decides to take a massive gamble by ''allowing'' him to cheat extensively and even take a picture of the whole game's tiles save for Kaiji's hand by going to the bathroom, knowing he wouldn't resist the opportunity to cheat. Kaiji then reveals he set up a ''fake Haku'' two rounds prior and mixed them into the game, again, knowing Muraoka would use process of elimination to find out what hand Kaiji had, and fooling him into dealing his own Haku, giving Kaiji the pair he needed to win 160 Million Yen. On top of that, he gets a massive Dora bonus through pure stroke of luck that triples his winnings. In doing so, he ends up winning 480 million yen, and [[VillainousBreakdown reducing Muraoka to a gibbering pile of nerves who wets his pants]]. The whole game is a massive case of IKnowYouKnowIKnow, as this last gamble is dangerous enough that a single mistake would have easily killed him.
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