App postan
Player Name: Leafy
Timezone: EST
Character: Seiya Ichijou (tends to go by "Ichijou.")
Fandom/Series: Kaiji
Original or Alternate Universe: Original
Canon Used: Manga
Canon Point:
The end of chapter 130; the conclusion of The Swamp.
Age: Approx. 24
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Appearance: … He has 3 different official color schemes. 1+2 3. I'll try to stick with #3, since it's the most recent.
The only special thing I can think to mention here is that he's supposed to be ridiculously gorgeous. Sometimes it's hard to tell with the canon's style.
Strengths/Abilities:
…
… Being pretty counts as a strength, right? Does being able to pass as an attractive woman with minimal effort count as a physical strength?
Weaknesses:
Regular ol' human weaknesses. Even by human standards he's not all that strong, judging from how many times he gets shoved around and football-tackled in canon and the fact that he's constantly surrounding
Personality: In short, Ichijou is an annoying snob; fans often portray him as an aloof cat. He's constantly trying to convince himself and others that he's a member of some elite upper class even though he totally isn't. This generally involves a lot of butting into actual upper class people's business and sucking up to them in order to rise in rank. Ichijou is pretty sure that he succeeds in this with flying colors, but in reality pretty much everyone hates him. It seems like the only reason he hadn't been fired or otherwise ditched early on is because he hadn't actually done anything wrong.
Ichijou's attitudes toward most other people are boldly stained with a thick layer of insincerity. This is amazingly difficult to break - no matter what kind of humiliation Ichijou's boss put him through, for example, he always went through the motions with an unbreakable cheerful look. This is because Ichijou is amazingly patient. As long as he believes that there will be some kind of reward for him in the long run, there is very little abuse that he won't tolerate. That includes things like getting down on his hands and knees and letting someone sit on his back. No, seriously, that happened.
While he's good at faking interactions in most situations, Ichijou gets stressed easily. To make matters worse, he becomes absolutely terrifying under stress, mostly because it forces such a great contrast from his usual cool disposition. These moments will often completely break his normal speech patterns, bringing the dramatic shift from, for example, "Pardon me, sir, is everything alright?" to "Just what the fuck is wrong, anyway!?" Tact often just completely flies out the window. The most prominent constant in these times is that his usually beautiful face produces some bizarrely frightening expressions (affectionately dubbed “crazyface” by fans.).
That isn't where the creepy ends, though. Through seven years of abuse from his crazy boss, Ichijou's sanity seems to have crumbled to some degree. He's always been annoying (as confirmed by some of his former classmates), but it took some training for him to become dangerously disconnected from reality. This essentially created Ichijou's worldview - that crazy boss taught Ichijou several years ago that there was an impending world-ending war, and that only the upper class would be able to protect itself. Ichijou currently clings to that belief as an elaborate revenge fantasy - if he becomes “king” of a safe haven, he can deny entry to all of the people who mocked him in the past (which is a long list.). In other words, Ichijou dreams of creating his own little utopia where the only people are those who respect him and he can live safely with no bullying or teasing whatsoever.
While most of the time this wouldn't exactly be a threat, Ichijou is smart enough that for a while this revenge plot of his seems to be a real possibility. He was noted as being a great student in school (likely to please authority figures, which is a consistent pattern in his behavior), and is deemed even by the narrator to be “superior” to most in terms of both luck and intelligence. His boss agrees, despite their mutual loathing for each other, that Ichijou is really quite clever. As far as uncommon skills, Ichijou is reasonably talented when it comes to assembling and modifying small electronics such as cameras, audio recorders, and various types of remote control. The stuff he puts together isn't huge or complicated and is only made with conventional parts, so it's not like he'd MacGyver together a supercomputer using a picture frame and three spoons.
The aforementioned brand of insanity combined with his powerful desire to punish everyone who's ever picked on him leads to all sorts of odd tendencies - starting with Ichijou's insistence on having a perfect appearance. He is predictably shallow and strives most obviously to look prettier than anyone else, often judging the less attractive. Ichijou likes to show off his appearance and tends to speak and move in a flamboyant manner - talking with his hands and making a lot of dramatic pauses while occasionally repeating himself for emphasis. He also has a tendency to spy on others out of regular old curiosity. He's mostly interested in seeing what kinds of things people say about him behind his back. Third, and most disturbingly, he has no qualms about utilizing bizarre torture techniques (as long as no one who's likely to snitch is watching.). His most famous scene is his so-called “Blood Manicure,” which is just as unpleasant as it sounds. He'll only pull those out if there's a good reason for it though (such as being directly threatened.).
A somewhat more normal behavior caused by Ichijou's being bullied frequently is his tendency to cling to those who are (generally physically, but sometimes mentally) stronger than he is. He's often seen accompanied by a plethora of security personnel or occasionally just his most favored staff member, Murakami. Murakami appears to be the only person who Ichijou maintains a mutual friendly relationship with, and for good reason - Murakami often gives Ichijou ideas and protects him from harm while Ichijou prevents Murakami from being overly zealous and getting himself into dangerous situations.
When he's not being used as furniture or thinking up various revenge fantasies, Ichijou is surprisingly normal. We see him doing average things like buying groceries, reading, going out and having the occasional glass of booze, and so-on. The average day at his job involves less terrifying villainy and more making sure everything is clean and organized in his casino, judging ugly people who show up on the security camera feeds, doing his nails in a back room, making coffee, welcoming guests, having tea while chatting with his security personnel, and thinking about how much he hates his boss. On the average day Ichijou could be described as a really vain guy who likes to act like he's more important than he really is, not an evil genius as is sometimes implied by other characters.
himself with security personnel.
History:
Ichijou was always kind of an annoying guy according to his former classmates. It was said that in highschool (that's as far back as we get to know) he never really had any friends, was teased and bullied frequently, but he was always getting great marks on his schoolwork. Yes, Ichijou always knew that he was destined for greatness!
… Or not. Straight out of highschool he was hired by the Teiai corporation, a company that, well, it does a lot of things. We mostly just see it dicking over poor people though. But even companies specializing in dicking over poor people need to be clean, and so Ichijou was employed as a janitor in a little hidden casino. Behind the scenes he often attended meetings with his boss which were really more like weird indoctrination sessions. These sessions involved listening to his boss spout his weird philosophies as well as having to pass various tests of loyalty - in other words, they were generally very bizarre and degrading. One of the first sessions involved a quiz where Ichijou and another employee were asked, “What makes a man rich?” Both named a sum of money and were corrected: according to their boss, a rich man is one who can remain safe under any circumstance imaginable. Other sessions involved giving their boss a footbath with red wine, then having to lap it up out of a bowl.
While Ichijou regards most of these incidents with contempt, the speech about being “rich” stuck. This theory served as a beacon of hope, especially when Ichijou happened to run into a bunch of guys he went to highschool with. They invited him to have tea and almost immediately started openly making fun of him because he didn't go to college like most of his classmates had. He reacted shyly and slipped away, leaving a recorder behind to catch whatever was said behind his back. The playback was harsh - the former classmates started laughing and going on about how much of a failure Ichijou was, that they never liked him, and that it's great to see him in such a crappy situation.
The main story in which Ichijou serves as the antagonist takes place 7 years after he was first hired by Teiai, and his rise in rank has been surprisingly negligible - he's still stuck in the same dull casino, although at least he's a manager now. That's kind of an improvement since he at least has staff under him. Ichijou also has some favor with the influential figure Kurosaki, second-in-command of the Teiai company. Ichijou regards Kurosaki as a sort of adviser and a ticket to a higher rank. Unfortunately, Ichijou lacks the nerves of steel and even temper that Kurosaki has.
The most important of Ichijou's duties involves adjusting the casino's famous pachinko machine named “The Bog” or “The Swamp.” Calibrating this machine is the first thing that Ichijou does each day, and it is essentially his job to make sure that nobody except Teiai higher-ups win it. The Bog has a massive jackpot payout which attracts many people and adds a hell of a lot of revenue to the company. Generally there is no concern about someone “accidentally” winning the jackpot since Ichijou has complete control over all of its settings and even designed some of the parts of it, which is especially helpful-
-That is, until he loses that control over everything. The single greatest threat to the Teiai corporation is Kaiji Ito, a gambling addict who has already defeated one of the higher executives in the company in a card game. Kaiji teams up with a pitiful fellow named Sakazaki to try to take down Ichijou's pachinko machine. They first try to take on the machine in a straightforward manner and fail miserably. Shortly after that they try to cheat using a hidden magnet, but Ichijou uses brass pachinko balls to prevent just such a thing. Kaiji then forces his way into a backroom in the casino, where Ichijou tries to pay him to go away. With hookers! But Kaiji refuses. A day or so later as Ichijou sits around in his office filing his nails, Sakazaki returns and started making a whole lot of noise and pretending to be some kind of religious maniac. Ichijou correctly guesses that he's bluffing, then leaves to confirm it in person. While he out of his office, Kaiji sneaks in. Sakazaki slams the machine and breaks a section of it just as Ichijou realizes that Sakazaki was only creating a distraction to coax him out of his office.
This ends very poorly for both Kaiji and Sakazaki in the short term as Ichijou has his security personnel beat Sakazaki while he deals with Kaiji. This is where the well-known manicure scene takes place - this process consists of some security personnel holding Kaiji in place while Ichijou places a little device on Kaiji's fingers, one at a time, which drives a pin under Kaiji's fingernail as Ichijou twists it. Ichijou describes the sensation as resembling “the painful experience of cutting your fingernails too short.” He also believes that the result, a bloody line down the center of each fingernail, is “extremely stylish.”
Following this, the Bog is down for a few days as it gets repaired and things go back to normal for a while, until one morning Ichijou is lounging around drinking coffee with Murakami and gets interrupted by none other than Kaiji. Kaiji decides to make a last stand against the Bog, and Ichijou reluctantly lets him do so. This goes completely awry as Kaiji had replaced the part of the machine that Sakazaki broke with a very easily breakable replica, and also tipped the building that the casino is housed in. Yes, the entire building - the building is largely abandoned to keep the casino hidden, but its construction allows it to move slightly as an earthquake-proofing measure. Kaiji takes advantage of this by placing several huge containers of water at one corner of the building. He also uses a vent in Ichijou's office to sneak in and switch around some of the tools that he uses to adjust the Bog's settings.
Kurosaki gives Ichijou a phone call and informs him in no uncertain terms that the Teiai corporation will give him the worst death they can possibly manage if Kaiji wins, which automatically sets the tone for the entire showdown. Everything seems to go wrong, Ichijou cracks under the pressure, and things only continue to go downhill. As Kaiji quickly approaches victory, Ichijou receives another call from the head of the Teiai corporation who, once again, threatens to murder Ichijou if Kaiji wins. It's implied that the corporation will have him drowned.
These shenanigans go on for hours until Kaiji performs what he calls a "magic trick" and clogs the pachinko machine using the tilt and a flood of pachinko balls, then wins as Ichijou is literally on the floor crying. Instead of death by drowning, Ichijou is sentenced to 1,050 years of slavery in a hidden location. As he's being dragged away, Kaiji tries to reassure him that he'll figure out some way to earn his freedom.
Timezone: EST
Character: Seiya Ichijou (tends to go by "Ichijou.")
Fandom/Series: Kaiji
Original or Alternate Universe: Original
Canon Used: Manga
Canon Point:
The end of chapter 130; the conclusion of The Swamp.
Age: Approx. 24
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Appearance: … He has 3 different official color schemes. 1+2 3. I'll try to stick with #3, since it's the most recent.
The only special thing I can think to mention here is that he's supposed to be ridiculously gorgeous. Sometimes it's hard to tell with the canon's style.
Strengths/Abilities:
…
… Being pretty counts as a strength, right? Does being able to pass as an attractive woman with minimal effort count as a physical strength?
Weaknesses:
Regular ol' human weaknesses. Even by human standards he's not all that strong, judging from how many times he gets shoved around and football-tackled in canon and the fact that he's constantly surrounding
Personality: In short, Ichijou is an annoying snob; fans often portray him as an aloof cat. He's constantly trying to convince himself and others that he's a member of some elite upper class even though he totally isn't. This generally involves a lot of butting into actual upper class people's business and sucking up to them in order to rise in rank. Ichijou is pretty sure that he succeeds in this with flying colors, but in reality pretty much everyone hates him. It seems like the only reason he hadn't been fired or otherwise ditched early on is because he hadn't actually done anything wrong.
Ichijou's attitudes toward most other people are boldly stained with a thick layer of insincerity. This is amazingly difficult to break - no matter what kind of humiliation Ichijou's boss put him through, for example, he always went through the motions with an unbreakable cheerful look. This is because Ichijou is amazingly patient. As long as he believes that there will be some kind of reward for him in the long run, there is very little abuse that he won't tolerate. That includes things like getting down on his hands and knees and letting someone sit on his back. No, seriously, that happened.
While he's good at faking interactions in most situations, Ichijou gets stressed easily. To make matters worse, he becomes absolutely terrifying under stress, mostly because it forces such a great contrast from his usual cool disposition. These moments will often completely break his normal speech patterns, bringing the dramatic shift from, for example, "Pardon me, sir, is everything alright?" to "Just what the fuck is wrong, anyway!?" Tact often just completely flies out the window. The most prominent constant in these times is that his usually beautiful face produces some bizarrely frightening expressions (affectionately dubbed “crazyface” by fans.).
That isn't where the creepy ends, though. Through seven years of abuse from his crazy boss, Ichijou's sanity seems to have crumbled to some degree. He's always been annoying (as confirmed by some of his former classmates), but it took some training for him to become dangerously disconnected from reality. This essentially created Ichijou's worldview - that crazy boss taught Ichijou several years ago that there was an impending world-ending war, and that only the upper class would be able to protect itself. Ichijou currently clings to that belief as an elaborate revenge fantasy - if he becomes “king” of a safe haven, he can deny entry to all of the people who mocked him in the past (which is a long list.). In other words, Ichijou dreams of creating his own little utopia where the only people are those who respect him and he can live safely with no bullying or teasing whatsoever.
While most of the time this wouldn't exactly be a threat, Ichijou is smart enough that for a while this revenge plot of his seems to be a real possibility. He was noted as being a great student in school (likely to please authority figures, which is a consistent pattern in his behavior), and is deemed even by the narrator to be “superior” to most in terms of both luck and intelligence. His boss agrees, despite their mutual loathing for each other, that Ichijou is really quite clever. As far as uncommon skills, Ichijou is reasonably talented when it comes to assembling and modifying small electronics such as cameras, audio recorders, and various types of remote control. The stuff he puts together isn't huge or complicated and is only made with conventional parts, so it's not like he'd MacGyver together a supercomputer using a picture frame and three spoons.
The aforementioned brand of insanity combined with his powerful desire to punish everyone who's ever picked on him leads to all sorts of odd tendencies - starting with Ichijou's insistence on having a perfect appearance. He is predictably shallow and strives most obviously to look prettier than anyone else, often judging the less attractive. Ichijou likes to show off his appearance and tends to speak and move in a flamboyant manner - talking with his hands and making a lot of dramatic pauses while occasionally repeating himself for emphasis. He also has a tendency to spy on others out of regular old curiosity. He's mostly interested in seeing what kinds of things people say about him behind his back. Third, and most disturbingly, he has no qualms about utilizing bizarre torture techniques (as long as no one who's likely to snitch is watching.). His most famous scene is his so-called “Blood Manicure,” which is just as unpleasant as it sounds. He'll only pull those out if there's a good reason for it though (such as being directly threatened.).
A somewhat more normal behavior caused by Ichijou's being bullied frequently is his tendency to cling to those who are (generally physically, but sometimes mentally) stronger than he is. He's often seen accompanied by a plethora of security personnel or occasionally just his most favored staff member, Murakami. Murakami appears to be the only person who Ichijou maintains a mutual friendly relationship with, and for good reason - Murakami often gives Ichijou ideas and protects him from harm while Ichijou prevents Murakami from being overly zealous and getting himself into dangerous situations.
When he's not being used as furniture or thinking up various revenge fantasies, Ichijou is surprisingly normal. We see him doing average things like buying groceries, reading, going out and having the occasional glass of booze, and so-on. The average day at his job involves less terrifying villainy and more making sure everything is clean and organized in his casino, judging ugly people who show up on the security camera feeds, doing his nails in a back room, making coffee, welcoming guests, having tea while chatting with his security personnel, and thinking about how much he hates his boss. On the average day Ichijou could be described as a really vain guy who likes to act like he's more important than he really is, not an evil genius as is sometimes implied by other characters.
himself with security personnel.
History:
Ichijou was always kind of an annoying guy according to his former classmates. It was said that in highschool (that's as far back as we get to know) he never really had any friends, was teased and bullied frequently, but he was always getting great marks on his schoolwork. Yes, Ichijou always knew that he was destined for greatness!
… Or not. Straight out of highschool he was hired by the Teiai corporation, a company that, well, it does a lot of things. We mostly just see it dicking over poor people though. But even companies specializing in dicking over poor people need to be clean, and so Ichijou was employed as a janitor in a little hidden casino. Behind the scenes he often attended meetings with his boss which were really more like weird indoctrination sessions. These sessions involved listening to his boss spout his weird philosophies as well as having to pass various tests of loyalty - in other words, they were generally very bizarre and degrading. One of the first sessions involved a quiz where Ichijou and another employee were asked, “What makes a man rich?” Both named a sum of money and were corrected: according to their boss, a rich man is one who can remain safe under any circumstance imaginable. Other sessions involved giving their boss a footbath with red wine, then having to lap it up out of a bowl.
While Ichijou regards most of these incidents with contempt, the speech about being “rich” stuck. This theory served as a beacon of hope, especially when Ichijou happened to run into a bunch of guys he went to highschool with. They invited him to have tea and almost immediately started openly making fun of him because he didn't go to college like most of his classmates had. He reacted shyly and slipped away, leaving a recorder behind to catch whatever was said behind his back. The playback was harsh - the former classmates started laughing and going on about how much of a failure Ichijou was, that they never liked him, and that it's great to see him in such a crappy situation.
The main story in which Ichijou serves as the antagonist takes place 7 years after he was first hired by Teiai, and his rise in rank has been surprisingly negligible - he's still stuck in the same dull casino, although at least he's a manager now. That's kind of an improvement since he at least has staff under him. Ichijou also has some favor with the influential figure Kurosaki, second-in-command of the Teiai company. Ichijou regards Kurosaki as a sort of adviser and a ticket to a higher rank. Unfortunately, Ichijou lacks the nerves of steel and even temper that Kurosaki has.
The most important of Ichijou's duties involves adjusting the casino's famous pachinko machine named “The Bog” or “The Swamp.” Calibrating this machine is the first thing that Ichijou does each day, and it is essentially his job to make sure that nobody except Teiai higher-ups win it. The Bog has a massive jackpot payout which attracts many people and adds a hell of a lot of revenue to the company. Generally there is no concern about someone “accidentally” winning the jackpot since Ichijou has complete control over all of its settings and even designed some of the parts of it, which is especially helpful-
-That is, until he loses that control over everything. The single greatest threat to the Teiai corporation is Kaiji Ito, a gambling addict who has already defeated one of the higher executives in the company in a card game. Kaiji teams up with a pitiful fellow named Sakazaki to try to take down Ichijou's pachinko machine. They first try to take on the machine in a straightforward manner and fail miserably. Shortly after that they try to cheat using a hidden magnet, but Ichijou uses brass pachinko balls to prevent just such a thing. Kaiji then forces his way into a backroom in the casino, where Ichijou tries to pay him to go away. With hookers! But Kaiji refuses. A day or so later as Ichijou sits around in his office filing his nails, Sakazaki returns and started making a whole lot of noise and pretending to be some kind of religious maniac. Ichijou correctly guesses that he's bluffing, then leaves to confirm it in person. While he out of his office, Kaiji sneaks in. Sakazaki slams the machine and breaks a section of it just as Ichijou realizes that Sakazaki was only creating a distraction to coax him out of his office.
This ends very poorly for both Kaiji and Sakazaki in the short term as Ichijou has his security personnel beat Sakazaki while he deals with Kaiji. This is where the well-known manicure scene takes place - this process consists of some security personnel holding Kaiji in place while Ichijou places a little device on Kaiji's fingers, one at a time, which drives a pin under Kaiji's fingernail as Ichijou twists it. Ichijou describes the sensation as resembling “the painful experience of cutting your fingernails too short.” He also believes that the result, a bloody line down the center of each fingernail, is “extremely stylish.”
Following this, the Bog is down for a few days as it gets repaired and things go back to normal for a while, until one morning Ichijou is lounging around drinking coffee with Murakami and gets interrupted by none other than Kaiji. Kaiji decides to make a last stand against the Bog, and Ichijou reluctantly lets him do so. This goes completely awry as Kaiji had replaced the part of the machine that Sakazaki broke with a very easily breakable replica, and also tipped the building that the casino is housed in. Yes, the entire building - the building is largely abandoned to keep the casino hidden, but its construction allows it to move slightly as an earthquake-proofing measure. Kaiji takes advantage of this by placing several huge containers of water at one corner of the building. He also uses a vent in Ichijou's office to sneak in and switch around some of the tools that he uses to adjust the Bog's settings.
Kurosaki gives Ichijou a phone call and informs him in no uncertain terms that the Teiai corporation will give him the worst death they can possibly manage if Kaiji wins, which automatically sets the tone for the entire showdown. Everything seems to go wrong, Ichijou cracks under the pressure, and things only continue to go downhill. As Kaiji quickly approaches victory, Ichijou receives another call from the head of the Teiai corporation who, once again, threatens to murder Ichijou if Kaiji wins. It's implied that the corporation will have him drowned.
These shenanigans go on for hours until Kaiji performs what he calls a "magic trick" and clogs the pachinko machine using the tilt and a flood of pachinko balls, then wins as Ichijou is literally on the floor crying. Instead of death by drowning, Ichijou is sentenced to 1,050 years of slavery in a hidden location. As he's being dragged away, Kaiji tries to reassure him that he'll figure out some way to earn his freedom.