Kaiji: The Path to Defying Fate

Lin Mo, a modern office drone who has read the entire Kaiji series, transmigrates after an accident into a world filled with gambling and desperate situations. From the start, he's saddled with three million yen in debt and forced by loan sharks onto the Hope. He thinks his “foreknowledge” will let him repeat Kaiji's comeback, but seasoned players outwit him in Restricted Rock-Paper-Scissors and steal his stars. In the E-Card game, a professional gambler's “unpredictable plays” leave him reeling, and even his clever little tricks while digging tunnels to repay his debt give the overseers an excuse to make his punishment harsher. “The original story was never my script.” After losing his chips for the umpteenth time and being cornered in an alley by debt collectors, Lin Mo finally shatters his illusion of having an “author's perspective.” He starts keeping notes on every failure: how he gives himself away by touching his ear when nervous, how he slips up calculating odds, and what it costs to trust people too easily. He trains his memory by memorizing game boards, builds connections with ordinary people to trade for information, and even swallows his pride to lay plans under Tonegawa's oppressive rule. From the hellish ship to Teiai's high-stakes games, from tunnel-digging slave to facing the chairman in the ultimate game of rock-paper-scissors, Lin Mo's stake changes from “foresight” to “himself.” He stops gambling on “how much he can win” and bets only on “whether he can hold out until the next round.” When he finally holds the choice of whether to take control of the Teiai Group, he turns and walks into a little noodle shop instead. More than any throne, the ordinary man who learned to “stand on his own” through countless failures is the true destination of his fight against fate.