Usogui - Vol. 24 Ch. 262 - The Weird Feeling In Violence, Bullets And Deceit

[MangaDex]

 

[KeepTheFeather]

Always worth staying awake for this!

 

[Benzo24]

i feel like i understand everything yet nothing at the same time

 

[Dancoulion]

Soooo, can anyone explain to me what happened in this arc.

 

[DQM]

Wait, so does that mean that... Sutegama could feel the human emotions but somehow cannot show it in his face.

 

[299792458]

Hmm, interesting. I don't think that Ranko really is going to betray Usogui, though. Since she should know his number of beads so there would be no need to ask Suteguma unless: 1) she doesn't believe that that's his real number or 2) she's just asking to test Suteguma. Anyway, everything up until now was expected, except for the Fukurou match being fixed, and Ideal being behind Suteguma, that was interesting. Oh and also Suteguma being unable to show/express emotions, which kind of makes sense considering his childhood. The biggest surprise was honestly that Marco was able to remember Usogui's plan but not the wrongly inputted number, haha.

 

[Lithe]

Props to Caracal for attempting to play both Kurama and Usogui.

Still waiting on that corpse in full-view.

 

[299792458]

@Lithe he was cut up pretty bad and the saw went between his eyes, I don't the author is gonna pull a fast one on us like that.

 

[Lithe]

@299792458 I'd agree with you if he killed Lee & Ron. When Lee made an appearance in this arc I think he opened the wrong doors for possibilities.

 

[299792458]

@Lithe I mean yeah, that was pretty weird. Don't know how people can recover from having their necks turned 180 degrees... Oh well, I guess we'll see.

 

[Veshv]

@tack215 Is there a hint towards what Baku's bead count actually is as of this chapter? I know it has to be one of 8, 9, or 10, since everything from 10 to 16 has been tried and failed. I think it'd probably be a good idea to have the answer, whether yes or no, as spoiler tagged.

 

[tack215]

@Veshv

Spoiler

I would say yes. The fact that Usogui chose 13 as the bluff is a clue as to what Baku's number is. Coincidentally, this was the biggest gamble for Baku as well, and I think you can understand why after deducing Baku's number.

Man, even though I've understood this arc to a degree, it still hurts my brain to think about
1. Baku's number, his intentions and Suteguma's own numbers from Suteguma's viewpoint.
2. Suteguma's number, his intentions and Baku's own number from Baku's viewpoint.
3. The outsider's(us readers, Nowa, and everybody else) viewpoint.
For me, this arc was the arc that cemented Baku as the smartest character in manga with a close second being Akagi. And we still have Tatsuki vs Yakou as well.

 

[Veshv]

The fact that Baku read the Fukuro vs Suteguma video being a fake absolutely boggles my mind as well @tack215. I was talking earlier about how that was a main point for me, he noticed the reaction to 5, and 5 was definitely the number Suteguma wanted Baku to determine that round, but what did Baku determine from that tell?
But for Baku's conclusion there to be that "The video was scripted" is a jump I could not have figured out myself. That's just one of the things in this arc that completely caught me off guard.

Suteguma is amazing at hiding/faking his emotions too, considering that even now it's exactly what he's doing.

 

[darkknight42062]

i know this question doesn't make sense to be asked right now, but does anyone remember what happened to kyara. I think the last scene of him I remember was on him, caracal and yakou's brother fighting. After the fight what happened to kyara or his story is yet to progress?

 

[Veshv]

@darkknight42062 Check out chapters 166, and 173-174 for a refresher. Kyara safely escaped to Yakou's cafe after that fight, and then had a bet with Yakou about who could make better coffee (Karl won it). Past that came the Bull arc with Kaji, but Kyara's part in that story is in the chapters listed above.

 

[catx3]

@darkknight42062
@Veshv

It's implied that Baku thinks he's dead in the dream sequence (due to the skull that shows up). But we know that he made it back to the cafe, just heavily injured. I think he left without saying anything to Baku/Kaji so they think he's dead/missing. I imagine he probably went to recover his wounds alone; since he's so prideful, I don't think he wants Kaji to see him injured lol.

@299792458
That Fukurou twist was a good one. I definitely got baited by the author, every match until now has had some sort of 'ability/cheat', so I expected for Suteguma to have the same, but he was just going in with raw strategy and intelligence. I did not think he was that kind of a man. Looking back, it seemed like Tatsuki understood the game was a fraud in one of the panels as well when he looks into the camera, maybe that's why his back was against the match the whole time, since he didn't feel invested in a fake match.

@tack215
Before I read Usogui, Akagi was one of my favorite manga. But Usogui easily took the spot for me. The defining difference to me is that Akagi's main character and gambles usually rely on a ton of luck, and they sort of go along with it as if it's some sort of ability or fate. But Usogui gambles tend to be about minimizing luck as much as possible. Another quality I like is that Usogui gambles are very dynamic, nothing ever goes perfectly to plan, and there are always split-second decisions that have to be made based on new unexpected information. I wonder if there are any other manga or works that give the same feel as Usogui.

 

[299792458]

@catx3 I wonder if that implies that Kyara won against Jonglyo, even though it seems most likely. Well, Suteguma still had an ability, it just wasn't used to "cheat" precisely, and actually played a big part in his demise. I kind of agree with what you said about Akagi too. It was fun seeing the classic Fukumoto protagonist luck in an over the top way and seeing Akagi dominate with mind games and luck, but seeing a more realistic approach to the "genius gambler" trope with Usogui is much more interesting (well, at least realistic when it comes to the mind games themselves, to a certain extent. Since I wouldn't say the action is realistic anymore).

@tack215

I don't know if Baku is smarter than Akagi, but the defining difference between the two is that one of Akagi's abilities that made him so formidable, aside from his intelligence, was his extraordinary luck. The same can be said for Kaiji as well, even though he's not on the same intellectual level as Akagi, they're on similar levels when it comes to luck, only that Kaiji's luck only seems to activate when he most needs it. Because of this I'd say it's easier to compare Baku with another one of Fukumoto's protagonists, Rei. He relies mainly on his intelligence and knowledge when approaching gambles, and is definitely close to if not even higher than Akagi when it comes to intelligence, even though I'd feel inclined to go with Baku when choosing the more intelligent one (I'd choose Rei when it comes to knowledgeable), especially when it comes to gambles since Rei is not as ruthless as Baku, even though he can be.

Spoiler

When you put it like that it makes me think that Baku's number is 10 after all. There's still one thing that bothers me and still hasn't been directly addressed (AFAIK), and that is whether or not the Dotty considers numbers chosen with one of the two numbers being an excluded number due to a previous input as valid. In other words, is Baku's 13 input a valid input (with Baku's bead number being 10) considering that Suteguma chose 14 previously, thus eliminating 3 as one of his possible bead numbers (Eliminating 10+3 as a possible combination)? Or does the Dotty automatically take the eliminated possible numbers into account and expect the enemy to keep that in mind when entering their choice, making it an invalid input? I'd say that most likely the Dotty doesn't go that far, and only considers whether your input is valid in consideration of YOUR number only, which would make Baku's input of 13 valid even with 10 beads. This plays into what @Veshv mentioned about Suteguma's 14 input also "locking away" 13 as a possible choice for Usogui if he has 10 beads. Since although it was not explicitly stated that this sort of "impossible" input is valid in the Dotty, the price you pay for being wrong and gambling on it would be too great to attempt. Which would make perfect sense for Baku to gamble on just that! So yeah, if Baku's number is 10 then his 13 pick was an insane double layered gamble. If it turns out to be 8 or 9 then I don't really see why it would be a risky move, except for the part where he's trying to let Suteguma believe his number is 6 or 7, which would happen anyway.

 

[299792458]

@Veshv I think one of the things that made Baku realize that the Fukurou game was rigged was that when he noticed the minimal tell that was supposed to help him determine Suteguma's number, his intuition told him that he was wrong/being mislead, trusting his intuition, he came to the conclusion that the tell was planted and from there realized that the whole Fukurou match was fake, since it was super weird in general. Obviously it's still an insane leap and the intuition itself (that ended up saving him) is insane. Also I don't think Suteguma is particularly good at hiding his emotions, I think he's extremely bad at expressing them (and also doesn't feel some of them), which obviously makes the former easier. Like Kurama said in this chapter, his only purpose is to survive and he just executes whatever plan he needs to in order to achieve that. He feels no guilt. I love the author's great characterization for even side characters.

 

[Rooster]

@299792458

About Baku's number of beads, another reason why it's most likely 10, is because Ranko seems fairly certain she knows it. That only makes sense if Marco showed her 10 beads. If he showed her 9, she would have no way of knowing if those are in fact all of Usogui's beads.

 

[299792458]

@Rooster True! I didn't think about that. Man, the author considered so much when coming up with this story... You saying that kinda defeats the purpose of our spoilers tags though, haha. Although it'll probably be revealed next chapter anyway.