As promised, here's the long due analysis. In season one, I would write a volume analysis after each volume we completed, but for this season I had no time. I will only cover the Kabuking domination part for now, since I realized after I started writing that if I went into Lyndon Lyndon as well, this post would be waaaaay too long. I will cover Lyndon Lyndon next week, with my speculations on all the mysteries of that parlor and its inhabitants.
So where season one left us off was with Rinji winning his showdown against Arino, proving he's a strong enough player and father to take care of Koume. Hanako was about to have her operation, and we never found out what Tsukiko meant when she asked Rinji to contact her if he ever encounters a "Majin" in Kabukichou. All we knew was that she lost her daughter and that she's blaming Majin for her death.
We start season two off with a slice-of-life look on Rinji and Koume's life. But right from the start, something feels wrong. It's revealed that it's April and the Christmas tree Koume decorated is still there. She refuses to put it away until "She shows it to mommy".
Next we see she's reading "The Sleeping Beauty". In season one Rinji bought her "The Ant and the Grasshopper" and the general theme of the series was of that fairy-tale. The conflict being "hard-working ant" Arino vs. "playful, irresponsible grasshopper" Rinji. With that fairy-tale concluded, we are introduced to a new one "The Sleeping Beauty". One detail I'd like to point out is how in Japanese the fairy-tale is lit. called "The Sleeping Princess of the Forest", and as we'll see later, the "Forest" or "Jungle" part will play a big role.
Next we see Rinji playing at Kabuking in Kabukichou. Even though he's winning, he's still angry. We learn the sad truth about gambling for a living. Even though he wins a lot, he still loses a fair bit to table rakes, so Koume and him are just barely living above the poverty line. And unlike in normal jobs, if Rinji slips up even once, it's all over. Even though he loves mahjong, it's a brutal job where he has to keep his composure at all times, as shown when he lost the last game to Saruta due to his greediness.
Later on they go to the hospital, and what everyone feared was confirmed: Hanako is in a coma. It's revealed that she didn't wake up after her operation and that she's been in a comatose state for 6 months. I found it particularly touching how Koume doesn't understand what a coma is, and how she reads Hanako a picture-book. Koume is starting to learn to read, which is a detail that will come into play later on. Arino says they can't figure out why she can't wake up, and makes the analogy that it's just like the sleeping beauty, she's in a castle in a forest surrounded by thorns. That's where the chapter title comes from and with that the theme for this season has been established.
Next we see Rinji playing at Three Monkeys, seems like he has become friends with Sakiyo and the others, since he's been going there for more than six months now. As they chat, Misawa realizes that Rinji's apartment is far away from Kabukichou and Hanako's hospital, so he offers him to help him move to a nearer place, since he's a real-estate agent (I regret not translating the "Misawa Real-Estate Agency" sign in season one when we first released the chapter where Rinji comes to Three Monkeys for the first time. If I did, this might have been more foreshadowed. I didn't know it would be relevant later on. But we fixed that in Kirinji Summer Cleaning).
When they're done playing, Rinji goes to Tsukiko's house to pick Koume up. We see a very touching image of Koume sleeping in Tsukiko's bosom. A mother who has lost her daughter and a little girl whose mother is in a coma. It seems they've developed some kind of relationship, and I wonder where that will go in the future.
Here Rinji daydreams about being a "Rep-Player". He wants to play at higher-rates since he learned that Kandata was actually right in season one when he told him that a gambler can't make more than 200,000 yen monthly. Rep-playing is a common theme of many mahjong manga, movies, but Rinji doesn't believe it still exists in modern Japan. Tsukiko lets him know that they do exist, just, now they aren't Yakuza anymore, like in the Showa period, now they're celebrities playing for rich people.
That makes sense, Japan embracing capitalism after WW2, I can imagine there's a lot of multi-billionaires who like to play mahjong for fun in modern Japan. But when the games get hot, when pride is at stake, the rates go so high that they want to call for a very good player to protect their money and pride. The Showa period was a post-war period, full of corruption, police was often part of the underground, so it makes sense that back then the Yakuza would pick up really good players as their rep-players for illegal, underground, high-stake games. The manga "Akagi" pictures that well, as it takes place in the Showa period. Seems nowadays it's rich CEOs of multi-billion corporations.
As they part, Tsukiko lets Rinji know that in order to become a rep-player, he has to be known in Kabukichou as the strongest player. As Rinji says he's up to the task, Tsukiko notices a change in Rinji's eyes, and it reminds her of... someone. More on that later.
He consults Kandata about how to approach this new goal. Here season two gets completely established. There are five tenpin (highest legal stakes) parlors in Kabukichou. Rinji has to dominate every single one. This is where the "Kabukichou Domination Arc" comes from. Furthermore, we learn that the gamblers of Kabukichou classify themselves into four kind of "animals".
I'm not sure if this is a real thing in Kabukichou, but it's really accurate and fitting way to describe the "ecosystem" of gambling in that town. I don't know if anyone has noticed, but the "Tiger" was foreshadowed in season one. At one point Gouno said "Careful with that, you're holding the cub of a tiger". Even though it was through a Japanese expression, he did call Rinji a tiger indirectly. Obviously Rinji wears a sweater with a stripe pattern, furthermore foreshadowing the birth of a tiger.
One month later, Rinji enters Kabuking during the night for the first time, we get introduced to some new characters. From here on there'll be a lot of mahjong, which is really fun and interesting if you know the game, but I will focus on the story.
First we meet Suzunari, known as Chime. He's a young, arrogant kid from the rural north, who spent a lot of time on online mahjong. Next we meet Kabuking's manager, Utada, known as Utan. He's expecting his eighth child and is a smooth talker. Lastly, Hatomura enters, known as Hatojii. A sweet, innocent old man, who just wants to kill some time with mahjong.
Chime seems to have been winning quite a bit in the three days he's been visiting Kabuking. Utan, as the protector of the forest, joined the game to personally destroy him, and bring balance to the force. Chime starts off winning against this line-up, but unbeknownst to him, the beasts around him just had a poker face on the whole time.
As the game goes on, everyone starts showing their true colors. Hatojii is actually Kabuking's nighttime snake, Rinji is the daytime snake, and Utan is a huge orangutan, protecting his parlor. And Chime? Just a naive, little bird.
The veterans teach the poor little bird the hard way. Meanwhile we see Koume showing interest in mahjong while she's staying over at the Matsubaras. The night goes on with Chime realizing how each of his opponents is strong in their own way, realizing that he's actually the helpless, weakest one.
A new challenger appears. Tetsuo, a happy-go-lucky, young man from the south, who came empty-handed to Kabukichou. He's confident enough that he can feed himself in Kabukichou through his mahjong, but because he has no money for the deposit to play, he wants a job in Kabuking as an employee, and play mahjong that way. Utan wants to test him by asking him to tell who's the best player out of those three, in just one match.
As Chime is on the verge of giving up, he gets some support from the two online mahjong players who belittled him, showing that they do actually care about him and wishing him luck. This is Chime's turning point, he knows he is a bird and he knows he's surrounded by beasts. But he doesn't run away, he faces himself. Meanwhile, Tsukiko told Koume a Japanese proverb about any small bird being able to turn into a large phoenix if they have large enough aspirations. Chime materializes that proverb by going for a big hand that had little chances of winning. Exactly because he went for such a big, rare hand, Hatojii misreads his wait and deals in. Even though Chime was an arrogant, snarky, overconfident brat when he entered, one night in Kabuking put his feet on the ground. With what he learned in Kabuking, the little bird was ready for its path to becoming a phoenix.
Rinji and Chime part, with Rinji answering Chime's question from way before. He believes that once you reach the top of mahjong, another starting hand is waiting, a really difficult one, and that you have to keep winning. This is important, since it's the total opposite of what Majin said about reaching the top of mahjong later on, so I'll get back on this.
This concludes the first night in Kabuking, it was a nice introduction to this arc. We see that becoming the best player in a parlor won't be that easy, since Kabukichou is full of all kind of beasts. Koume is starting to learn mahjong. Tetsuo gets a job in Kabuking even though the manager never intended to employ him. Thing is, Tetsuo wasn't watching their mahjong, but rather how they handled the money, believing that greedy mahjong for profit is weaker than mahjong that's played for improving and for the love of the game. It turned out that he was right, and Utan employed him.
The following week Rinji proceeds to completely destroy Hatomura, and for the first time we see Rinji in a different light. Even though his mahjong is pure white, i.e. straightforward with no tricks, his intentions are pitch black. They're black because he's on a path of destroying a lot of people in order to get where he wants. Ruthless. But his underlying motivation is getting enough money to give Hanako a chance of recovery. Is his brutality justified by his motivation? Ah yes, the philosophy. I will let you make your own conclusion on that, and we'll see how far into the abyss Rinji is going to gaze.
As Hatomura is about to die, we see his Showa period brutal past, and how he adopted Shirohebi. This was such a nicely foreshadowed reveal, that Shirohebi (White snake) is the adopted son of the "Gray Snake". This is what I love about this manga so much, every character's actions and motivations are explained beautifully and we get to understand them and see them in a different light from our initial one. It always introduces characters whose actions are questionable and whom we dislike at first, but then shows us an angle from which we can understand them.
Shirohebi is like a loan-shark, giving loans to gamblers on purpose, hoping they will fall into the hell of debts. At first you'd think he's just an emotionless bastard preying on people with problems, but look. His mother threw him away when he was a little kid, he had no home. Hatomura who had a similar past is ready to pick him up, but letting him know that if he follows Hatomura, he will grow up in an eat-or-get-eaten kind of world, where beasts prey on the weak.
Of course he'd be sick of that world and hold a grudge against gamblers. He became a banker preying on gamblers, using what he learned from Hatomura in his own way. By calling himself the "White Snake", he obviously believes that his feeding on gamblers is a just cause.
With the nighttime snake defeated, the showdown for the title of "Strongest player in Kabuking" was next. Utan was mad at Rinji, Tetsuo was happy he had a chance to play, and Saruta had no idea what was going on.
Hira and Gouno make an appearance. They want to get their revenge on Rinji for losing that night in Ant Colony. That's a pro's pride. Hira seems to be dating Liz's friend, but in the usual Gouno-Hira fashion, he gets cockblocked.
As the match goes on, the character motivations get established. Rinji wants to become a tiger, Tetsuo wants to as well, Utan has to protect his parlor for the sake of his family and his employees. Saruta remembered why he became a parlor employee in the first place, to reach the top of mahjong himself.
Things get more and more heated, and we get more and more background. Utan had a delinquent youth like Gouno, but once he learned that he's about to become a father, he decided to live an honest life. He realized that the only things he's good at in his life are mahjong and violence, so he decided to go the way of mahjong and started working as a parlor employee and worked his ass off until he managed to open his own parlor. Gouno realized that the feeling of teaching someone, even if it's just mahjong, is what fulfilled him, so he went the path of a mahjong pro. Two delinquents who fought and hated each other, learn that they are more alike than they were ready to admit, and promise to watch each other's back while they're on the path of an honest living.
Saruta actually cares for Rinji and doesn't want to see him go. After all, he's the one who was there at the very beginning, when Rinji was just a fidgeting mess. He has been playing him for something like a year, almost daily. We can see how Saruta, a side-character from the very first chapter of this series, has his own past, his own feelings, and fights for them earnestly.
When Rinji lost all of his hope, he remembers that Hanako is in a coma, and that he can't even apologize to her if he loses. He gets angry at himself for forgetting why he's playing there in the first place, for losing his way against adversity.
After all those motivations came to light and Rinji put everything he had on the last game, he emerged victorious. Similarly as in the final game of Ant Colony, Rinji won through pure logic and outplaying alone. Utan approved of his strength, and Rinji got the title of "The Strongest Player in Kabuking". It was revealed that Tetsuo is chasing after Majin because the girl who saved his life when he was a little boy, is at that man's side. Rinji and Tetsuo part, knowing they will run into each other again on their paths to the same destination. The palace above the sky.
Yui reveals that she's with Majin's because he's completely broken. I think that Yui is a good person and she's with Majin to try and calm him down. I mean, the guy is accused of child murder and is infamous in all of Kabukichou, who knows what kind of monster he is and what he's capable off. I can't wait until we finally see him.
Before Rinji visits the second parlor on his conquest, he has a talk with both Arino and Kandata. Arino lets him know that something is growing in Hanako's brain stem, and that they're running out of time. He attacks Rinji for neglecting Koume and trying to become a rep-player, calling it just a pipe-dream.
Kandata, on the other hand, gives him hope. Unlike Arino, Kandata has seen the power of mahjong and how it can change people and their lives. Kandata was a lonely, miserable gambler. Through mahjong he was able to get in touch with his son and find some meaning his life.
At this point I'd just like to mention how I love the overarching parenthood theme in this series and how we see all kinds of different parent-child relationships:
-Kandachi left his wife and son in order to be a gambler. Later on, after Rinji defeated him, Rinji told him that he believes that a bond between a child and parent can never be broken. That inspired him to get in touch with his son, and they started healing their wounds. Kandachi had a character arc, thus he's supporting Rinji right now.
-Tsukiko has lost her daughter and she has a grudge against gamblers since she accuses her ex-husband for her daughter's death, who was a gambler himself. Koume is filling the void in her heart that was created when she lost her daughter. Tsukiko just wants to use Rinji to get revenge, she had no arc.
-Arino was thrown away by his mother and never experienced a family life as a child, he wants Hanako and Koume to heal those wounds. He had no arc *yet*.
-Hatomura was thrown away as a child and relates to Shirohebi. He ends up adopting him and we see Shirohebi caring for him now that he's old and he even calls him "Daddy". He had his arc in his past.
-Utada changes his whole life when he learns that he's about to become a father. He's the strongest in Kabuking because he is a man responsible of eight children and his employees. He had his arc in his past.
-Hirubayashi was traumatized by Majin and turned into a hideous creature that's incapable of emotion. He doesn't know it yet, but he's about to become a father himself. Will he have an arc?
-To be continued in next analysis
Thanks for the analysist guys! Hope you are always be good! Good luck!
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