(ESS) Kazuya-hen chapters 15-16 discussion

I just read these and the very possibilities of this new gamble is just making my head spin. I kinda wish it wasn't a double release, as I'd liked to have speculated about the nature of the game a bit given what we learn just in 15, but oh man, this is exciting.

I'm gonna try breaking down a bit how I figure this will all work:
-If the savior is on the top, like in this chapter, all he needs to do is be confident 30 seconds have passed. Easy.
-If the savior is in the middle, he needs to wait what he thinks will be long enough for the top player to have the opportunity to think 30 seconds have passed. But he also needs to go before the bottom player has waited long enough that he thinks the second player has been given enough time to think that the top player has waited enough time and still hasn't acted.
-If the savior is on the bottom, he needs to wait long enough for the top player to be sure 30 seconds has passed, has done nothing, and that the second player thinks enough time has passed for that to happen, and also do nothing.

Whew! Complicated stuff. The basic structure is similar to a riddle I liked as a kid... I can't remember exactly how it went, but you're in a line where you can only see people in front of you, and you have a colored hat, and you know there's X number of each color, and you can use this sort of logic of "if the person behind saw that my hat was whatever, then he'd be able to see all of the whatevers, and thus know his own color, but since he doesn't say his color, etc, etc". The same sort of logic actually crops up in mahjong sometimes. But now we have the element of time, too! Fukumoto really knows how to make the passage of time, ticking clocks, etc, etc very suspenseful even in the really non-temporal medium of comics.

Of course, I figure there'll be one more twist, because there's always something. One anonymous commentator on the blog suggested that the savior probably gets all the money if he doesn't press the button (at the cost, of course, of his friends lives). This makes a lot of sense to me, it adds the element of betrayal that Kazuya finds so appealing to the already intense issue of just trusting in your friends to be smart enough to do the right things at the right times.

I figure our Asian trio is going to lose after demonstrating a variety of strategies that don't work. Then Kaiji's going to step in with... Sakazaki and his daughter? Miyoshi and Maeda? No idea. Kazuya has the power to drag just about anybody out and make them play this game.

I'm getting really excited! I wrote way more than I planned to. Don't feel like you have to like... analyze what I wrote or anything. I'm just hyped up and rambling. I'd love to hear any other theories about how this gamble will go down, though (so long as you don't read raws and actually know).

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking as well.

Anyway, it seems quite clear to me that the Asian trio aren't genuine friends, they just need each other for a plan to make some money (or something along those lines). I can't help but to think that someone will betray the others.

Alternatively, they manage to play until the last round and bottom player ends up as the savior. He takes his time (while waiting the 45+ seconds it takes to make sure others aren't saviors and debating if he wants to betray others) and doesn't make his decision to save them until it's too late, making the whole experiment inconclusive (he might have walked to the button but would he have actually pressed it if he had a bit more time?).

About them not being friends. We all know how Fukumoto loves his foreshadowing and i think we got something about this particular case right here

http://www.batoto.net/read/_/160753/tobaku-datenroku-kaiji-kazuya-hen_v2_ch13_by_fkmtkrazy/18

Chang says they are done for when he disappears, implying that atleast his reason is not necessarly out of genuine concern.

When I first saw that weird elevated seat thing, I immediately thought of was the Prisoners and Hats Puzzle (what the OP was thinking of), and it looks like I was right. Well, the original is also life and death, but I'm expecting that the trio, having read the rules, would come up with a system to determine if "enough time passed" before realizing that someone not in the back is the savior; they don't really need to bother with the puzzle thing, but their answer conveniently coincides with the Puzzle's answer.

I bet that music thing Kazuya has playing in their helmet will conveniently let the guy in the back row panic while watching one of the guys in front betray them or something.

The gamble will likely involve a "betraying for a greater reward" rule, in my opinion.

On a personal note, I would really rather have 100 million and two friends than 200 million and no friends. I mean. Even with ~33 million each, one could live a very lush life. Besides, I feel that the the appeal of having money with friends is much greater; just think of all the shenanigans you can pull with ~33 million and two buddies of yours.

penguin71 wrote:

The gamble will likely involve a "betraying for a greater reward" rule, in my opinion.

On a personal note, I would really rather have 100 million and two friends than 200 million and no friends. I mean. Even with ~33 million each, one could live a very lush life. Besides, I feel that the the appeal of having money with friends is much greater; just think of all the shenanigans you can pull with ~33 million and two buddies of yours.

Yeah, but here we have the prisoners dilemma at full force.
Sure, you yourself won't betray your friends, but can you really say the same thing about them? Maybe they aren't that trustworthy after all and remember you will end up dead if they betray you. Maybe you should betray them first just to be on the safe side.

What's also noteworthy is that you can only betray your friends like this if you're sitting in the top seat and you're the savior.