I Wear My Sunglasses at Night

Okay, so the people who don’t follow Kaiji probably wonder why the hell I keep posting that Ichijou guy’s face every week.

It’s because it’s a good example of just how far people are driven or destroyed by monetary gain and loss. It also - just as interestingly - shows quickly an ego could be stripped away from even the most arrogant and sadistic person in the face of ultimate ruin.

Ichjou was introduced as a self-serving, smooth-talking, and preening dick that was all too confident that he could win and simply sweep the whole ordeal under the rug and move on with his set-for-success life. With each week, he loses more and more of his initial confidence and plummets further into despair and it’s kind of fun to just put that all together in a visual manner. Though I guess it can be seen as just pure fangirling (which is also part of it).

Other bloggers have touched on this subject already but many fans feel that Ichijou’s not The Big Bad Boss in this season. He’s a guy who’s struggled from being the lowest pawn to one with higher status with the goal of becoming The Big Boss. But a pawn is a pawn and can be discarded at any point. The pressure is on.  

If Ichijou wins, Kaiji goes back to slaving away underground for the rest of his life. If Kaiji wins, Ichijou will lose his whole career and his freedom and will suffer in Kaiji’s place. There’s no middle ground. The Bog is “All or Nothing”. 

It’s hard to figure out whom to feel sorry for or to root for since everyone in this show is so messed up and yet so easy to relate to.

TL;DR: Val is probably a sadistic person and likes to see people knocked around like marbles week after week and documents it.