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<\/a>Blah blah blah, Trillion Game<\/em> is great, blah blah. You know my views at this point \u2013 I\u2019ve come to love this show. And this was another great episode to be sure. But I want to start this week with Tsuda Kenjirou<\/a>. I find it absolutely hilarious that this guy is so huge as a seiyuu that anime can\u2019t contain him. He\u2019s playing Kunugi<\/a> in both the Trillion Game<\/em> anime and live-action drama (and it\u2019s interesting to note the differences in his performance). Seriously, this guy is the nitrogen of Japanese actors.<\/p>\n<\/a>Kunugi is one of two new power players (Shirotora Akari<\/a> \u2013 played by Lynn<\/a> \u2013 is the other) introduced this week. And Trillion Game<\/em> has something of that Golden Kamuy<\/em> quality to it \u2013 the one where even the secondary characters are written as if they\u2019re the protagonists of their own series. That leaves you with a cast full of larger than life figures who are never boring to watch, and the narrative never loses momentum even as it shifts among them.<\/p>\n<\/a>Kunugi and Akari are the key cogs in the machine Haru decides to build around news. Like social gaming and celebrity representation, he doesn\u2019t give a fig about the act itself. It\u2019s the game he cares about, and he\u2019s decided that news is the next piece on the board he needs to deploy against Kirihime. In her comprehensive swallowing up of Tokyo\u2019s TV streaming rights she ignored Kawara TV, a second-rate station with terrible entertainment options no one watches. But they have a decent news division and Shirotora Akari is ranked as the #10 presenter<\/a> (seriously, Japan ranks everything<\/em>) despite being on such a lowly channel.<\/p>\n<\/a>Kawara is a pretty common entity in corporate Japan. Doomed to mediocrity by the change-averse old men who run it in grey and uninspired fashion. Haru\u2019s courtship of Kawara is really a master class in his limitless bag of deceit. He puts on a different face for every object of desire \u2013 the board, Akari, news producer Kunugi. He offers the board a sweetheart deal only drudges like them could turn down \u2013 they prefer to remain in the 20th Century. Haru\u2019s next stage is to make it clear Trillion TV is looking elsewhere, which the competent news team at Kawara will quickly get wind of (along with his terms). And because they are<\/em> competent, they\u2019ll be pissed that their bosses turned those terms down.<\/p>\n<\/a>Akari and Kunugi are both forces of nature \u2013 like Hebijima \u2013 in totally different ways. But they complement and respect each other, despite Kunugi\u2019s tsundere protestations. Akari truly is the white tiger of news. She\u2019s relentlessly earnest and idealistic, seemingly incapable of deceit. She runs to cover a news story with the cliched toast in her mouth<\/a>, and goes on camera with jam on her cheek. But when the camera is on she\u2019s smooth and professional (and reassuring). Kunugi is cynical and acerbic and sees the implications in everything. But he\u2019s razor-sharp and looks past the obvious in ways that serve his effectiveness as a newsman<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/a>It definitely happens that people like this wind up working for companies they\u2019re way too good for. And people like Haru do get billionaire-wealthy by being able to spot them. He wins over Akari by appealing to her essential nature, then seduces Kunugi by appealing to his. As conservative and dull as the president<\/a> of Kawara is, he\u2019s not stupid. The way Haru wins him over is by proving he\u2019s able to win over\u00a0 Kunugi and<\/em> Shirotora, who never agree on anything. But Prez realises that to do this, Haru must be a skilled master of duplicity. He therefore insists Haru come clean on his real reason for wanting Kawara as a partner, not the BS one he\u2019s been peddling the others. And he agrees, because he knows if he doesn\u2019t those employees too good for him will take their talents elsewhere.<\/p>\n