Gaku and Haru have been friends since middle school, even though they make a bit of an odd pair. It all started when tall, handsome, charismatic Haru stepped in to beat up a group of delinquents who were about to steal the diminutive bespectacled Gaku’s brand new laptop—the one he’d saved up for ten years to buy. When Gaku returns the favor by hacking into the CCTV and deleting the evidence of Haru’s violence to prevent him from being expelled, the nerdy boy knows that he’s just sealed his own fate. Their “trillion dollar game,” as he calls it, has begun. The goal? Become the richest men in the world through a combination of charm and bluffing from Haru and genuine programming skill from Gaku. You see, to be a successful start-up, you need both. This is something that clever heiress Kirika (Kirihime to her fans) knows very well. So when the board of directors she’s working with proves too short-sighted to hire the pair and only chooses Haru (falling for all his sweet lies when she sees straight through them, while yet valuing the scheming mind behind them) well, let’s just say that the fates of all three are about to get interesting. But when their first business takes place in a gym and involves insane amounts of lifting, well, that’s a kind of interesting even we didn’t see coming! What more will be in store for these three outliers who seem so perfectly suited to do business together?
Madhouse is back, this time with a business cat and mouse series? A little weird, but ok! The first two episodes dropped today and I’m glad there were two, because otherwise, the inadequacy of Haru’s smarmy self-confidence and Gaku’s bumbling nervousness to carry a series would have had me dropping this pretty quickly after that first episode. That, and the rather lumpy character designs (especially during close-ups; are they all recovering from blows to the face?). The animation style feels a tad dated, as does the OP and ED music, recalling Madhouse’s heyday, perhaps? But the saving grace is Kirihime (see, I’m already her fan, using her fan name). Here’s a character who is smarter than everyone else in the room, but who doesn’t feel the need to demonstrate it at every opportunity. I respect the restraint. Once we get the three of them together, butting heads and bouncing off one another’s personalities in the latter half of the second epsiode, it’s even better. I could see myself sticking around for their dynamic, as long as it doesn’t start wandering down trope-riddled paths reducing their interactions to “sexual tension”. There’s a lot that feels rather vapid so far about the two leads, their motivations, their business (what do they actually do?), and rather oddly, the shots of the cityscape, which feel off somehow—but if future episodes see the three working together more and actually doing something, then this could be fun! Also, it’s nice to have an adult cast for a change, so they get an extra episode from me to prove themselves.
EDIT: Or…maybe not. Episode 3 is rated 18+ so I’m out. Oh well!
Escape while you still can, Gaku!
Trillion Game is streaming on Crunchyroll.
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