After having read Kaiji and afterwards, Akagi, I had a hard time before convincing myself to read Ten, since it seemed to be a lot rougher (being Fukumoto's first work) and a lot more focused on Mahjong (which wasn't what I loved in Akagi). Everyone here was telling me to read it because of the final arc.
Boy, were they right. I crying like a bitch last night while reading the last arc. I ended up skipping up on sleep and underperforming at work because of it, but it was worth it. So much of Akagi's way of seeing existence, and the problems each of the EastWest players were facing, were resonating so strongly with my current psychological dilemmas. Thank you Yea Forums, for convincing me to plow through it, it was definitely a fantastic and enriching experience.
>tfw no high stakes game anime/manga to watch anymore
anyone else feeling fkmt withdrawals?
Aaron White
Blog in: In my case, I have been going through psychotherapy, and my most recent breakthrough has been that I feel an existential drive to live by my own standards and accept myself as someone that is an outcast and that cannot easily find meaningful connections with other human beings.
Basically, the end of Ten seemed to drop on my life exactly during this specific breakthrough period. Akagi basically affirms what I still am working on accepting for myself: that we can be different, an outlier and not be ashamed of it, and that we should, in fact, live by our own values and ideals and not be ashamed of it. Blog out
Alexander Scott
I'm always looking forward to Kaiji, but I am a bit tired of Mahjong, to be honest.
Colton Wright
Well, Akagi himself is an outcast dealing with existential crisis (the opening/ending of the anime shows it pretty well), so I'm not too surprised you saw bits of yourself in it.
The ending of Ten has a bit of everyone's problems. >Most people will identify with Hiroyuki and his fears >A lot of people will connect with Harada being entrapped by success >Ginji's fear of death is a standard theme >Soga's functional beauty is also something people can get behind
The ending of Ten really encapsulates existence/consciousness. Made me cry several times.
Ian Reed
All those you mentioned hit me extremely hard. I don't know what the hell happened to Fukumoto during the period he wrote that arc in, but it was as close to raw humanity as I have ever seen in manga. Not the ugly kind of raw humanity, pure depth of the human soul, even though the wording is quite simple, which inly.makes it more beautiful in my eyes.
William Roberts
It really spoke to me. Actually it also helped a few friends and family members since they came to me for advice when they were feeling really bad and retelling them what I took from Ten helped them a lot. Fun fact, Japanese fans celebrate Akagi's death every year on September. They also made a bunch of MADs for this. youtube.com/watch?v=223weYs8pnA youtube.com/watch?v=uBy-sB6XOtw
I am sorry fukumoto but I will say it Fkmt had a ghost writer during the end of ten, nothing he has written even come close to ten's ending (and no don't say kurosawa because it's not even close)
Evan Brooks
It took me a while to start it. Also, the East-West portion is extremely heavy on Mahjong, which can make it a difficult section to get through. However, this all pays off in the end.
Andrew Jackson
Interesting. Is that your own conjecture? That could be the case, since I think he was working on Akagi in parallel at the time. However wrote it, wrote a truly beautiful thing.
Gabriel Moore
Nah guy is bullshiting. The end of Akagi is great in a way that's similar to the end of Ten. Plus the end of Ten is similar to FKMT's usual writing style. It's just that it comes to conclude the story of a character he wrote for 30 years and built up so many things around, so of course it comes with deep themes and takes. But make no mistake, Akagi's philosophy (the primary appeal of the ending of Ten) kept the same in both series from volume 1 to the end.
Andrew Howard
Haven't read Ten yet but doesn't this remind of Kurosawa's last chapter? You know, with the whole "failing is fine, aslong as you keep your passion and fight until the end" thing?
Ryan Thompson
Yeah, it's very similar. There's a nuance in that Akagi/Ten also say that "death" is salvation too. But for the most part, FKMT's philosophy is the same between all of his works, Kaiji, Kurosawa, Akagi, they're just focused on different stuff based on the MC. For example, Kaiji allows FKMT to talk about addiction.
Wait there's more to Akagi than the 26 episode anime? Where the fuck do i watch this?
Samuel Moore
I read Ten without knowing Akagi was in it. It was really cool when he suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
There was Kakegurui last season, but I guess you don't like it.
Ian Scott
Fukumoto talks about topics that are naturally on the mind of everyone who questions his existence, and they all seem to convergence on this very feasible psychological concept that we have two internal forces inside us: the desire to live and the desire to die. This is not an exotic concept, it's actually something very studied by anyone who works with the human psyche.
Daniel Nelson
>but I guess you don't like it
yeah you're right,I dont get how can someone be a fkmt and kakegurui fan at the same time
Christian Cooper
Read the manga, that's the only way to go further.
Lincoln Myers
>Kaiji allows FKMT to talk about addiction
where exactly?dod you mean addiction to gambling?
Cameron Cruz
Not him, but yes, but not just that. Basically, being addicted to putting themselves in situations where they feel saved from death/destruction.
Levi Gray
This. The true tragedy of Kaiji is not if he winnes or loses his gambles, but the fact that he can't have a happy and peaceful life, that's too dull for him, he's become addicted to the thrill of the game, he can't live without the adrenaline and satisfaction of being face to face with death and being able to escape. In the most recent arc, for example, he believes all that money will take him out of the boring existance he was living in Sakazaki's house, when in reality even if he manages to escape, i can tell you for sure those 1.2 billion won't be spent responsibly and he will broke again in a year tops. If this cycle of treading water waiting for the next chance to feel the exhilaration is not broken, it will only lead to his eventual death, no one can keep getting lucky forever.
Samuel Phillips
East-West Battle is still FKMT's peak in term of mahjong.
Akagi Washizu sessions are much more memorable and tactical
Bentley Anderson
Zero?
Ryder Mitchell
There's plenty of memorable moments in Washizu, but it always felt lacking in the tactics department because Washizu's luck is borderline supernatural without having the game sense to back it up until the last hanchans. There are some really ballsy plays (Akagi going for a noten riichi when any draw of blood would kill him is a personal favorite) but overall it's just a back and forth of Washizu getting cocky and falling into Akagi's traps. Because ultimately, the mahjong in Washizu's is just a tool for their relationship to develop, which is completely fine.
East-West is much better on the tactics side because the players are for the most part even on skill but have all quirks to their strategies and flow that make for very dynamic games. It also understands that mahjong is a 4 player game, whereas Yasuoka and Washizu's white amount very rarely do more than support work. On top of that, there's just more variety since they use iirc 4 different rulesets to settle the various stage of it, while still allowing characters to express and progress in natural ways. Hiroyuki's fire, Akagi's resolve and Harada's passion are all presented in an enjoyable, concise manner, which is something Fukumoto kind of forgot in his latter works imo
Also, while Akagi's night vigil is definitely the peak in FKMT's writing and philosophy, I feel like most kinda underappreciate some of the character moments before it. I'd be surprised if no one related to pic related once in their life. The high of "victory" feels like such a primal need for us that I never get tired of seeing characters struggling with it.
well maybe I have to reread Ten,but that 1 sou and 1 pin Washizu waits,the no ten Akagi richi,the last tile han that made Akagis hand a mangan after passing 2 wins,Washizu monster yakuman hands,all those are easily memorable and look like pure poetry
transparent tiles also helped keep the tension high
Henry Hall
I think the night's vigil ends up being pretty heavy handed in some moments, it's also a problem in certain parts of Kaiji, especially the famous argument Tonegawa makes about what it means to live, which I feel makes 90% of people completely misunderstand who Tonegawa actually is and the faults in his own philosophy (which I think is either the real point or a more subtle kind of counterpoint of that entire part), but this is something for another thread. Going back to the vigil, there's some pretty good parts, Kinji's and Ten's visits are perhaps the most touching and well written and peak FKMT, but I can't help but feel that parts like Harada's are just totally heavy handed bullshit that FKMT just pushed in order to make Akagi look cool and trying to distract you from the fact that he's using him as a mouthpiece for his own ideas, making them feel more attractive than what they actually are by virtue of being spoken by Akagi.
Don't get me wrong though, I like FKMT's stuff, but I can't help but feel that a lot of times when it comes to the more dialogue heavy parts he gets preachy as shit and it's fucking insufferable, especially since the points he tends to make fly over most people's heads.
