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Episode 7 – Innocent Demon
The end approaches. Ichikawa has accepted Akagi’s offer to cut their points down to a tenth, and they are both now playing with less than 10,000 points. The game continues. Ichikawa stops Akagi from winning by dealing into a side player’s hand, and Akagi does likewise. End result: Ichikawa is at 4,600, and Akagi, 4,500. It’s experience versus innate talent. They’re evenly matched, neck and neck.
During the next game, Akagi draws a Hatsu and deals it, thinking that it doesn’t matter. Unfortunately for him, Ichikawa Kans it and mentions an obscure Mahjong rule so that Akagi can’t whine about it after the fact. Basically, if Ichikawa draws from the dead wall and makes a Tsumo win from it (since you have to draw a tile from the dead wall after you Kan), Akagi must pay the entire amount for dealing the live tile. It’s very, very unlikely, but, you know, just in case…
And wouldn’t you know it, Ichikawa draws from the dead wall, lightly disturbing the wall in front of him on the way back, and, surprise surprise, it’s his winning tile! What an amazing, unexpected coincidence. So sorry, Akagi-kun. Akagi now has to flip one last Dora indicator. If Ichikawa gets even one Dora, our hero is dead. Akagi reaches for the wall, hesitates for a beat, and then flips the Dora indicator tile.
No new Dora tiles for Ichikawa. Akagi lives… for now. But only just.
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Akagi smiles. He knows that Ichikawa cheated. The old man switched his dead wall tile with one from the wall in front of him. He had that wall memorised since he was the one who put it together at the start of the game. This means that he can choose to draw any tile he likes from any of the eighteen in his wall. All he has to do is swap it after he draws.
Apparently, all this excitement is getting to Akagi and he asks if he can step out for some air. Ichikawa consents to this, so Akagi, Nangou, and Yasuoka all head out for a quick “we are so screwed” strategy meeting. Is it over? Are they doomed because Akagi gave Ichikawa an excuse to cheat? Perhaps. Akagi gazes at the nighttime scenery as he explains that it all depends on the next game’s dice roll. The dice roll is used to determine where the wall will be broken. If Ichikawa’s wall is untouched after everyone is finished gathering their starting hands, then the blind master will probably win by Turn 4. It will mean that the heavens have forsaken them. However, if Ichikawa is in a situation that prevents him from cheating like that, then Akagi will have the advantage. It will mean that the heavens have chosen him. Akagi looks up at the moon. In that case… the heavens are telling him to win.
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They go back inside and the death match continues. Akagi takes the dice. His fate is in his own hands. In one swift motion, Akagi forcefully throws out the dice, rolling a 3. Ichikawa’s wall is broken. The old man doesn’t worry about it, though. He can finish off Akagi in the next game, as long as he avoids dealing into the boy’s hand now. If his wall is intact for the next game, a win for Ichikawa is guaranteed.
A few turns later, Akagi starts calling tiles. It looks like he’s going for a cheap three-colour straight with just one Dora. Ichikawa isn’t impressed. That hand isn’t enough to kill Ichikawa. The game progresses and Akagi discards a Haku. This is important, as evidenced by the sudden screen shift to Akagi’s plotting face. Ichikawa thinks nothing of the Haku or of Akagi’s cheap hand and decides to take the offensive. He calls a tile and is now in Ten Pai. This is his chance to kill Akagi…
…but Ichikawa suddenly freezes, tile in hand. He’s drawn a Pei. Miyauchi realises what the problem is. Discarding the Pei wouldn’t normally be an issue, but Ichikawa may end up paying for a Man Gan hand if three things happen to coincide. If Akagi wins from the discard, it’s not a problem. What would be a problem, though, would be if Akagi made a Kan from it, the same way Ichikawa did earlier. Ichikawa would be in big trouble if Akagi called a Kan (Coincidence #1), won with the dead wall Tsumo (Coincidence #2), and got at least two more Dora tiles (Coincidence #3, flipped because of the Kan). Ichikawa would lose if that happened. Of course, the likelihood of all these things happening at the same time is very, very low. It would be a miracle.
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Ichikawa still hesitates. It may be unlikely, but he’s playing against Akagi, who can, if you haven’t noticed, make the impossible possible. He considers the possibility. The Mahjong master knows that the dead wall draw will be a 3 Sou, and that Akagi may very well win from it. He visualises Akagi’s pond and “sees” the Haku that he discarded earlier. Ichikawa comes up with a plan.
He discards the Pei. Akagi smiles. Coincidence #1. Kan.
Ichikawa’s hand meanders across the table. He’d palmed one of his three Chun tiles while dealing the Pei, just in case. He would switch Akagi’s upcoming 3 Sou draw from the dead wall with a Chun, stopping Coincidence #2. Or so he thinks. Akagi slaps Ichikawa’s wandering hand away from that part of the dead wall, stopping him from switching his potential Tsumo draw. The old man grimaces and ends up swapping a different tile.
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Akagi draws and clenches the tile tightly in his right fist. He slams it down. 3 Sou. Akagi’s 2 and 4 Sou reveal themselves, falling over on their own accord, as if possessed. Coincidence #2. Tsumo.
Ichikawa is afraid of Akagi’s luck, but it’s okay. He managed to switch the new Dora indicator with the Chun when Akagi stopped his first choice. As long as Akagi doesn’t have more than two Dora, Ichikawa is safe. The Chun tile indicates that the new Dora is Haku (since the Dora is the tile that comes after the Dora indicator in the tileset). Since Akagi already has a Haku in his pond, he won’t get any more Dora tiles. Terrifyingly enough, the tile that Ichikawa switched out was a Xia. If he hadn’t done it, then Akagi’s four Pei tiles would’ve become the new Dora. Close call!
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Everyone is silent. Akagi then asks the guy to his left to flip the new Dora indicator. It’s a Chun. The new Dora is Haku. Akagi says that this is odd, since the flow of the game would seem to indicate that the new Dora would be Pei. Ichikawa growls. Underboss Kurosaki (the guy with big lips) gets indignant, saying that not everything will go the way Akagi wants.
Akagi chuckles. It’s all the same. He reveals the rest of his hand. His two remaining tiles fall to the table.
Haku pair. Coincidence #3. Man Gan.
Akagi has won.
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Ichikawa reaches across the table, feeling the tiles, unable to believe that Akagi has the Haku as his pair. He must’ve dealt the Haku from a three of a kind. How could Akagi throw away his bonus tile? How could he do something so irrational? Akagi grins. Rationality does not apply to him. As Akagi says, “Entrusting yourself to irrationality is the essence of gambling.” Ichikawa realises that Akagi dealt the Haku to bait him, to make him switch tiles. Akagi did it all on purpose.
The Mahjong master now knows the truth: he’d been dancing on Akagi’s palm the whole time.
The match is over. Kurosaki hands over the 8 million yen, but Akagi refuses to take it, wanting to double up yet again. It was supposed to be a match to the death, and neither of them are dead yet. He wants to keep going until one of them dies, just like they agreed back in the yakuza den/small eatery. Nangou and Yasuoka are mortified. Doesn’t Akagi know when to quit?! Unfortunately for Akagi, Kurosaki refuses to rise to the challenge. He says that he doesn’t have another player ready because he didn’t expect Ichikawa to lose. Akagi doesn’t understand, and asks why he can’t do a rematch with Ichikawa. They were evenly matched, right? We pan over to Ichikawa, sitting there, broken and motionless, at the Mahjong table. It’s over for the Mahjong master, and he will never be able to beat Akagi for the rest of his days. Kurosaki is done with their death match and he’s not going to budge. Yasuoka cuts in and tells Akagi to let it go. He can set up this kind of thing for Akagi whenever he wants. Isn’t that okay?
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The yakuza file out of the room, physically helping the unresponsive Ichikawa out of his seat and practically carrying him out the door. Yasuoka divvies up the money, tossing out half of it to Nangou and dropping a 2 million bundle on the table in front of Akagi. The two older men laugh with glee, but Nangou trails off. He notices that Akagi is just sitting there, looking bored. Nangou studies him. Akagi’s eyes are pure, and the insanity that filled them during the game is gone. He’s just a kid in junior high now. Just a thirteen-year-old boy again. The older man finally understands the secret behind Akagi’s strength: true identity. Nangou knows that he’ll never be a great gambler because he’ll never be able to have that look in his eyes.
Five years later, Nangou is wandering around the streets at night. Yasuoka still gambles, but Nangou rarely does, and on the odd occasion that he does gamble, he never bets money. Nangou sits down by a fountain and lights a cigarette. He hasn’t heard anything about Akagi. The guy has disappeared. What’s become of him? Has he made himself filthy rich? Has he become consumed by gambling? Nangou looks up at the moon, thinking about that strange, strange boy from five years ago. “Akagi.”
This is not the last we’ll hear of Akagi, however. The world will again know of Akagi… in only one year.
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OPINION
And so ends the Ichikawa arc! I almost snorted when Akagi asked why he couldn’t have a rematch with Ichikawa. Just look at the man! Akagi’s practically killed him with his demonic Mahjong skills. It’s amazing how seriously these people take their Mahjong. I still think that there’s something about losing to Akagi that makes people completely fall apart at the seams. Pretty soon, nobody will want to play with him anymore. He keeps breaking his toys… It’s exciting to watch, but you sure wouldn’t want to be the other guy.
Akagi was just cool in this episode. He didn’t cheat at all, yet he managed to pull off such an incredibly unlikely game. And tiles just don’t fall like that in real life. Slamming one down hard enough for the vibrations to knock over two tiles in your hand… nice. Clenching a tile in your fist hard enough to hear cracking… wow. Well, either “wow” or “ridiculously over dramatic”. And I know I can’t roll dice like that without having them ricochet off the table in all directions. Showoff. It’s a bit of a waste, really; it’s not like Ichikawa can see Akagi being cool.
2 million yen… that’s about 20 million yen in modern times, which is about $200,000 CAD, according to my calculations (which are probably wrong). Still, I can’t help thinking that Akagi should have gotten more than that. He’s the one who did all the work, after all. Nangou just sat there making faces all the time. Oh well, at least our hero gets 2 million to play with.
…Which leaves us with one last burning question: What the hell is a thirteen-year-old boy going to do with 2 million yen?
Comments
Eris_sama
21 Oct 2006, 14:07
I wonder if the poor blind guy retired permanently after his match with Akagi. I wonder if Akagi was testing and playing with him from the very first macth.
I’d like to think Akagi gave the money to his sickly mom. Too bad his background has yet to be shown.
Erik
20 Apr 2007, 14:51
Maybe Ichikawa took a cue from Akagi and retired to playing Russian Roulette?
sir_seagill
28 Aug 2007, 17:43
I’d like to know how the heck does Ichikawa memories the tiles on his wall. I mean, he’s blind and he can’t feel the tiles while building his wall.
Also, while it’s possible he always builds his wall in that exact spot and practiced a million times so he can perform the tile switching technique, but how the heck does he know where the guy next to him (Shimo Cha? I forget) his wall is when he switched the Xia for a Chun? Anyways, ignoring that, I really like this ep too. :}
Caro
24 Mar 2008, 10:59
Yeah, I want to know what he does with the money…..
buy tonnes of ammunition and go out and kick street punk ass? (after example in ep 4) i wouldn’t put it past him.
I feel the tiniest bit sorry Ichikawa too. Must have scarred him for life that match. Years of experience nothing compared to the demonic skills of Akagi.
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