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 Joker Game is Production IG's adaptation of Koji Yanagi's award-winning novel series. Not a light novel, it's a real book for grown-ups without pictures. It follows Lt. Sakuma, a soldier of the Japanese army who has been assigned to monitor a classified black-ops group of 8 spies known as D Agency and quickly finds himself engulfed in a world of espionage and double crosses. Staff: Director: Kazuya Nomura Series Composition: Taku Kishimoto Music: Kenji Kawai Original creator: Kōji Yanagi Original Character Design: Shirow Miwa Character Design: Toshiyuki Yahagi Art Director: Yoshio Tanioka Chief Animation Director: Toshiyuki Yahagi Dramatis Personae:  Lt. Colonel Yuuki (Kenyuu Horuichi) The director of D Agency who has more up his sleeve than initially apparent.  Lieutenant Sakuma (Tomokazu Seki) Has been sent to monitor D Agency. A model soldier, he's out of his element in the world of espionage. The Spies of D Agency  Miyoshi (Hiro Shimono)  Kaminaga (Ryohei Kimura)  Odagiri (Yoshimasa Hosoya)  Amari (Toshiyuki Morikawa)  Hatano (Yuki Kaji)  Jitsui (Jun Fukuyama)  Fukumoto (Kazuya Nakai)  Tazaki (Takahiro Sakurai) How is it? Joker Game is pretty good! It's more of a mental series so far, and it's got a pretty neat sense of style. You don't see a lot of spy fiction in anime, and it's a nice change of pace from the usual fare. Deffo coolio. A note about the setting Yes, this is 1937 Japan. Yes, they are about to do A Lot Of Bad Things And War Crimes. Yes, these actions are still a point of contention even to this day. Yes, Lt. Sakuma is devoted to his country. Joker Game does not seem to intend to touch these issues with a ten foot pole, however, so in the interest of keeping the discussion focused and sane, please restrict talking about such issues until they are actually addressed by the series, if at all. Keep it to cool spies doing cool double-crosses. Thnx. Joker Game streams on Crunchyroll Tuesdays at 1:00 PM Eastern.
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Apr 12, 2016 22:44
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 00:23 |
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I'm totally down for some slick spy shenanigans.
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Apr 12, 2016 22:47
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The first episode was super intense and I hope this show is really good!
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Apr 12, 2016 22:49
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it's hosed up how much scenes they repeat and how heavily they spell out everything in the second episode, how dumb do they think the audience is
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Apr 12, 2016 22:57
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The first ep was cool and I hope there's some good gay fanart coming
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Apr 12, 2016 22:59
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The first episode was great. I particularly love how moody and smoky everything is. The foreigner's accent (in Japanese) was good. It sounded like an American actually trying to speak Japanese well rather than the OTT caricature that most foreigners in anime get.
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Apr 12, 2016 23:18
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Foreign Japanese accents own, imo.
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Apr 12, 2016 23:22
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Hatano and Jitsui are just babies, they shouldn't be spies. 'S dangerous.
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Apr 12, 2016 23:30
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Waffleman_ posted:A note about the setting It seems like they are addressing those things already. The Military Police being incapable of thinking to look behind the emperor's portrait seemed pretty pointed, as did the scene with Sakuma being indoctrinated.
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Apr 12, 2016 23:38
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Well I'm growing to like Sakuma at least, he came a long way in the span of a single episode.
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Apr 12, 2016 23:40
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It's kind of interesting how they're drawing a careful line between the D-Agency, the fictional civilian spy agency, and the Kempeitai, Japan's real spy agency. The Kempeitai were actually an organisation with a pretty broad remit - they were the Imperial Japanese Army's military police, chiefly tasked with enforcing discipline and the rule of law within it, but also served as a paramilitary alongside the main IJA, a secret police in occupied territories (as opposed to the domestic secret police, the Tokko), and as Japan's primary intelligence service. Kind of like the Japanese SS, and like the SS, they were seriously bad dudes, responsible for a disproportionate amount of Japan's war crimes when they weren't turning their intelligence networks into vast organised-crime syndicates. Joker Game's put a face on them with Sakuma's rear end in a top hat colonel, and presented them as brutal, sleazy fanatics, which is honestly pretty historically accurate (although being a national spy agency, they did pull off a few brilliant coups of the sort that this show will probably be handing to the D-Agency). It's going to be interesting to see how the show uses them going forwards - they're obviously amongst the show's villains, but it's a question of how prominent they'll be from now on. The show's advertising suggests the story will soon be going international, which may well mean that the Kempeitai get left behind as the D-Agency start getting up close and personal with Allied spies far from Japan, playing their very formalised, insular little 'Joker Game' with the war as a distant backdrop, though it's possible that there'll also be Kempeitai overseas agents loving things up for them from the other direction. If they do remain as a presence, then despite what the OP says, I do suspect that there will be war crimes, and it'll be the Kempeitai doing them. This episode in particular contrasted the tide of nationalistic fanaticism that Japan's getting swept up in with the D-Agency's smart, pragmatic, and apolitical attitude (and made it obvious which one we're supposed to root for), and that whole 'don't die, don't kill' thing suggests a brotherhood of spies that transcends national boundaries. Sakuma's old organisation showing up and being monstrous assholes seems like a perfect recipe for a crisis of faith about who he wants to be and what he wants to do - how should be best serve his country, and is serving his country even all that important in the first place? Yes, the main aim here is obviously to make a cool spy story, but it's pretty common for cool spy stories to deal with issues of identity, and whether/how you preserve yours in a murky, compromised world, and they've set up a pretty compelling potential conflict in that vein here.
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Apr 12, 2016 23:53
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Erg posted:The first ep was cool and I hope there's some good gay fanart coming I looked but haven't found anything good yet e: hi   
Everything Burrito fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Apr 13, 2016 |
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Apr 13, 2016 02:08
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That exposition road scene at the end of ep2 was somewhat disappointing, but the actual spy stuff was great.
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Apr 13, 2016 03:12
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Davincie posted:it's hosed up how much scenes they repeat and how heavily they spell out everything in the second episode, how dumb do they think the audience is That was filler, they were stretching the content they had to in order to fill the entire episode. I hope they don't make a habit of it!
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Apr 13, 2016 15:43
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Everything Burrito posted:I looked but haven't found anything good yet well hello there abs
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Apr 13, 2016 15:52
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Lt Col Yuuki is cool as hell. Unlike Mr Sakurai, he's not just a menacing presence in the background, he's a full fledged wet work man. His cold ugly visage is just one of his faces. But what else does he have up his sleeve? As a character, he could work perfectly well as a vicious overlord, but just what makes him espouse his cynical philosophy? I'm liking the MC alot more now. I'm not really liking the rest of the spies, little distinguishes one another, they all seem interchangable at this stage. We need alot more episodes. Night Raid 1931 pulled off alot more characterisation in a mere 2 episodes, because its cast was more economical.
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Apr 13, 2016 16:59
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Phobophilia posted:Lt Col Yuuki is cool as hell. Unlike Mr Sakurai, he's not just a menacing presence in the background, he's a full fledged wet work man. His cold ugly visage is just one of his faces. But what else does he have up his sleeve? As a character, he could work perfectly well as a vicious overlord, but just what makes him espouse his cynical philosophy? Well, given the nature of the show, when you've got so many fairly interchangeable spies, I think we can expect a pretty high casualty count by the end of episode twelve (or however many they're making this season).
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Apr 13, 2016 17:18
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Yeah, the only spy who's been given a significant amount of screentime by himself is Miyoshi, but I'm going to assume we'll be introduced to each of the other ones in full.
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Apr 13, 2016 18:43
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Was linked to the OP of this in IRC a while ago, thought it looked amazing, then looked the show up and found out that rather than some gambling/heist show like the OP made me think it was it's a spy thing in WW2-era Japan. Which admittedly had me worried since, you know, WW2 and Japan, but I decided I'd give it a chance anyway. Nice to see that there's finally a thread for it; I checked for one a few times over the past couple of days. Man, that is a very good OP, though.
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Apr 14, 2016 00:03
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The show is very obviously critical of the patriotic fervor that was gripping Japan in the lead up to WW2 and critical of blind patriotism in general. It's also pretty good so far, looking forward to more. 
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Apr 14, 2016 00:19
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AVeryLargeRadish posted:The show is very obviously critical of the patriotic fervor that was gripping Japan in the lead up to WW2 and critical of blind patriotism in general. If anyone starts accusing the show of nationalism/jingoism, this post basically sums up all arguments agains that. Unless the show does a U-turn somewhere down the line.
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Apr 14, 2016 05:20
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     pixiv
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Apr 16, 2016 00:00
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Apr 16, 2016 00:02
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"GREATEST MYSTERY" i loving love it lol
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Apr 16, 2016 01:32
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Finally caught up on this. It's very good. And yeah, the second episode makes it very clear that this is not a particularly nationalistic show.
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Apr 17, 2016 05:35
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Just caught up as well, could someone explain why Sakuma is about to commit harakiri at the start of the episode? I get that he's honourable, but apparently we're expected to believe that he was really going to kill himself because someone else said that he had promised to? Is there something I'm missing, or did other posters call bullshit and false drama as well? Then again, he could be super dumb. He was really bad at arguing his case in the first episode as well.
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Apr 17, 2016 13:38
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Open Source Idiom posted:Just caught up as well, could someone explain why Sakuma is about to commit harakiri at the start of the episode? I get that he's honourable, but apparently we're expected to believe that he was really going to kill himself because someone else said that he had promised to? Is there something I'm missing, or did other posters call bullshit and false drama as well? The thing you are missing is what Japanese culture was like during the time this is set in, "Duty is as heavy as a mountain, death as light as a feather." and all that.
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Apr 17, 2016 14:04
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AVeryLargeRadish posted:The thing you are missing is what Japanese culture was like during the time this is set in, "Duty is as heavy as a mountain, death as light as a feather." and all that. Not to mention that he was working for one of the most fanatical branches of the Japanese military at the time. It wouldn't be a huge exaggeration to call Showa-era Imperial Japan a gigantic death-cult, as the start of the second episode amply demonstrates.
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Apr 17, 2016 14:22
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Open Source Idiom posted:Just caught up as well, could someone explain why Sakuma is about to commit harakiri at the start of the episode? I get that he's honourable, but apparently we're expected to believe that he was really going to kill himself because someone else said that he had promised to? Is there something I'm missing, or did other posters call bullshit and false drama as well? It wasn't just someone else, dude; Sakuma himself said last episode that if he were a spy and was caught, he'd either kill himself or fight his way out like a badass, which all the other spies snickered at because it's a terrible attitude to have. So forcing him into the position where he has to either die by his own hand or break from his blind nationalism is actually kind of elegant; if he finds a way out he gets taught a lesson about making such broad statements, and if he doesn't, then the D-Agency gets rid of a Kempeitai snitch without lifting a finger. (Plus, Sakuma hasn't really been doing himself favors with the group so far, not associating with them and pretty much calling them cowards and monsters with every breath, so making him sweat must be some good old-fashioned fun; Miyoshi was clearly enjoying himself, anyway)
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Apr 17, 2016 14:31
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resurgam40 posted:It wasn't just someone else, dude; Sakuma himself said last episode that if he were a spy and was caught, he'd either kill himself or fight his way out like a badass, which all the other spies snickered at because it's a terrible attitude to have. So forcing him into the position where he has to either die by his own hand or break from his blind nationalism is actually kind of elegant; I got all that, I just don't understand how he was forced into that position. He just passively goes along with everything that other dude says, when he should have just straight up said, "No, that's not what I promised" or passed it off as a joke or something. He wouldn't have been killing himself over honour, he'd have been killing himself because a subordinate -- someone he doesn't even like -- lied and said he promised to. He's a spy, and he's already repeatedly lied. Why does he have to stick to what's been said in that situation when he's already so flexible with the truth? Or was the situation actually that extreme?
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Apr 17, 2016 16:44
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Open Source Idiom posted:Or was the situation actually that extreme? They were posing as the Kempei Tai. If he'd said "Haha, no, that was just a joke" the facade would've crumpled. The Kempei Tai don't joke around. It's like imagining a Gestapo officer cracking a joke.
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Apr 17, 2016 17:16
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There's also the part that Sakuma, you know, doesn't actually speak English. So there's no way he could have said "Stop!" or done something else to countermand that as it was being given, and by the time he caught wise, it was too late to back out without compromising the mission.
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Apr 17, 2016 17:37
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:They were posing as the Kempei Tai. If he'd said "Haha, no, that was just a joke" the facade would've crumpled. The Kempei Tai don't joke around. It's like imagining a Gestapo officer cracking a joke. Ah, fair enough then. I still think he could have done more to try and wriggle out of it, but it makes more sense to me now.
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Apr 17, 2016 17:40
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resurgam40 posted:There's also the part that Sakuma, you know, doesn't actually speak English. So there's no way he could have said "Stop!" or done something else to countermand that as it was being given, and by the time he caught wise, it was too late to back out without compromising the mission. he spoke English when he told them to check the imperial portrait.
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Apr 17, 2016 17:51
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dogsicle posted:he spoke English when he told them to check the imperial portrait. Yeah, and you heard how that turned out. He probably knows a few words, but not anything that would've actually helped him to get out of suicide as "No, I'm not going to cut my guts out" is likely not a phrase they teach at army school.
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Apr 17, 2016 22:29
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:Yeah, and you heard how that turned out. He probably knows a few words, but not anything that would've actually helped him to get out of suicide as "No, I'm not going to cut my guts out" is likely not a phrase they teach at army school. even the American spy's english is pretty iffy. i don't think you can really act like a Japanese VA (who was cast for their ability to act in Japanese) having shaky english has much bearing on the story or characters.
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Apr 17, 2016 22:34
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       Miyoshi is a pretty sociopath   
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Apr 18, 2016 00:31
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the fujoshi hunger
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Apr 18, 2016 03:16
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And then Hatano McGyvered his way out of trouble while suffering amnesia. Cool spy, cool doublecross.
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Apr 19, 2016 20:14
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This show is definitely one of my favorites of the season. I'm very excited for Kazuya Nakai next week.
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Apr 19, 2016 21:35
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