Kaiji, like most of my friends, is depressed. The world seems rigged against him. Alienation under capitalism has driven him to the brink. He wiles away his days with cheap booze, and he takes out his frustration by vandalizing the cars of bankers. In another life, he might make a great working class fighter. Unfortunately for him, he finds himself saddled with debt to the yakuza and his best chance of paying it off is a shady gambling cruise. After falling for some high level psychological attacks from a loan shark, Kaiji agrees to embark on the cruise. Here he will compete against other debtors for a chance to clear his debts. If he fails he will be sent to a labor camp. The stakes are high, but given both that the series is clearly *about* gambling and that he is the titular character, it seems unlikely that he'll end up in the labor camp next episode.
(Also, Kaiji has the sharpest nose, and that's gotta give him an edge.)
How successful the show will be will probably hinge on how interesting it can make betting 10 million yen on rock-paper-scissors matches, something I can't yet judge. I would say this was a good first episode, with solid pacing and a sympathetic protagonist. I intend to give it another episode sometime.
Recommend: Sure!