Usogui - Vol. 43 Ch. 468 - Usogui

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Another comment, yet again Manabe proves to be so incredibly sharp.
 
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Lalo Vincent really got mindfucked by Madarame Baku; what a fucking madman
 
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The only complaint I can come up with for this Air Poker arc is that there wasn't enough Marco lol. The plot, the pace, the tension, the tricks, the art, all top-notch. I dropped this manga after the first part of the broadcast arc because I felt the author was really pulling things out of his a** just to make Madarame look cool. But since the start of Hal's story I have been hooked again.
 
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It's one thing for the author to be able to fool the characters in the story who aren't privy to all the information. It's another to drag a bunch of readers who can see everything and communicate/theorize into the mire of Baku's mindgames.

Sako had us right where he wanted us. We knew Baku so well and knew the depths he was willing to go to in order to pay the price for his mindgames. By now we're conditioned to comb the manga for any possible foreshadowings and try to analyze what they mean, and believe that Baku would do these insane things because we've seen him do it time and again. In the end we were just like the referees, lured by Baku into believing that he truly was that insane to pull off saving air while drowning, but as usual Baku was one step ahead.

The scary thing is Baku very well could have saved air since round 1 and soundly defeated Lalo using that in conjunction with his plan with Hal. As Manabe and Shion discuss, there would have been nothing Lalo could do. In that scenario Baku would have won either way and simply floated away from Lalo. But Baku didn't do that because it would have given Lalo peace and acceptance. Instead he did what he did purely to make Lalo suffer and die in agony and regret. It sends chills down your spine.

This arc was a masterwork.
 
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@OverSky Not true, it was noticed by RapidLord in the previous chapter 431 already.

Two things I learned from this gamble:
Never underestimate Usogui
And... Never underestimate Usogui's comment section 😀

There wasn't a single thing that wasn't called by someone in the comment section before it was revealed. Not a single one.
 
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@Rooster ye I knew that some noticed the 'crack' sound in 431 and theorised. But then 432 confirmed it immediately & seemed like no one paid any mind 😅
 
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@OverSky The crack is one thing, but RapidLord already noticed the broken glass object in chapter 431. Read the second comment on chapter 432 from xkcdhawk:
"RapidLord I guess this chapter confirmed your thoughts. Looking at that first page, what you saw in the previous chapter was most definitely what was on this chapter's first page."
 
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So let me get this straight,Usogui's 1 full air bios outlasted Lalo's 4 reserved air-bios, but he would lose against those same 4 reserved air bios with 2 full air-bios?
Can someone explain this?

Edit: Another thing is, if Manabe could figure all of this why couldn't Lalo? They had the same information after Lalo found the broken glass piece.
 
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@Rooster ah you're right. I must've skipped over his comment. Thanks.

@troita the Lalo reserved bios vs Baku 2 bios is only a thought experiment by Lalo & the refs, since Baku couldn't know exactly how much air Lalo actually managed to save. It turns out it wasn't much. For the second point, I think cause Lalo was at the receiving end of Baku antics for awhile now unlike Manabe, a recent ref, so his judgment is clouded.
 
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@OverSky
But if Baku wasn't sure how much air Lalo had saved, why did he intentionally get grabbed? He would only have one air-bios to use. Seems like a riskier move than calling in the fifth round.
The explanation for the second point, while not very satisfactory, is still consistent so thanks for that.
 
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@troita in this chapter Manabe made the exact same observation. He asked why would Baku did something so risky when he already won. And for that at the time Baku made the decision to call or raise, raise would be a safer move, just like Manabe said in 467. Then later he saw Lalo oblivious to his own blunder, he couldn't stand it and made the risky bait to make Lalo suffer.
 
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@troita
Back in the 5th round, Lalo was breathing his 7th bios and Baku was breathing his 8th.
Meaning Baku, who never reserve any air, consumes oxygen way faster than Lalo, who's been reserving air.
In that case, Baku would've died to a 16B vs 18B situation.
 
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Haven't seen tack in a while, I always figured his pic was from the final gamble, but I guess not.

I'm kinda dissatisfied at this ending. For plot purposes, I still think Lalo deserved better (admittedly I didn't care all that much about him mostly 'cause I didn't get enough of his thought processes until the very end.) He had too many decent options. To continue my thought process as to why he didn't strap himself to the chair and die that way, I guess it was to keep his options open as tacitly admitting defeat like that would still be a gamble if he could drag Baku down with him. But once he had him, the fact that he didn't immediately go for Baku's last Bios is kinda disappointing. If you're anchored, how hard could it be to drag someone else under? He had good chances to swipe it, or at least hamper the respirator, in my opinion. I think he still would have failed (i.e. they'd purge Lalo and Baku would make it out alive anyway), but Baku's final move of trying to condemn Lalo would not have gotten any traction, and as the penultimate boss (and ultimate pure antagonist - Hachina is a friend so the conflict is different), I think he should have been spared that Usogui quirk.

@BossCrab I might disagree with your assessment a little bit. Ever since the air-saving strategy was re-proposed, it (not immediately) reminded me of the one strategy that was proposed very early on right after the rules were finalized, of what if someone gained a lead and simply took a breath out of each bios to prevent them from being available to bet? The rules to dictate what happens when someone runs out of bios to bet before all 5 games were up was never really clarified; I can't recall anything aside from "referee judgment" if there was ever a way to prevent this loophole. I should call in @catx3 to answer that one I guess, but again, the fact that it was allowed at all, perhaps only in reasonable quantity(?) opens up some avenues for trickery that, if not clarified absolutely, is a bit disappointing in a manga such as this.

Also disappointed that I never got to see the dream team (Caracal, Voja, ____, _____) in action. Would have made the 'Baku Gonna Win' principle even more entertaining.

Still a good fight throughout the game itself, is the batch continuing until Baku's perspective is finally revealed?
 
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@OverSky@a2j04vm0
I just don't get this,
2 air bios vs reserved air bios: too risky to the point where everyone including lalo still think that if lalo had folded he would have won
1 air bios vs reserved air bios: baku outlasts lalo comfortably
I don't understand why Lalo is regretting calling, he can't win against a single air bios, so he definitely would have lost against two.

Another thing I'm confused about is why did Lalo bet one air bios in the first place.
If Baku called, its 63 vs 25.
If baku raised then Lalo would have still thought that Baku was trying to make him fold and and that Baku had reserved air,in which case Lalo would call and it's 63 vs 25 again.
So, Lalo is not left with any choice of folding. He should have been able to predict this line of events.

Thanks for the responses guys, I really appreciate it!
 
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@troita
"1 air bios vs reserved air bios: baku outlasts lalo comfortably"
That doesn't mean Baku won't lose a 18 Air-bios vs 16 Air-bios fight.
Let's assume that Baku can use 1 Air-bios for 4 minutes, and Lalo can use 1 Air-bios for 5 minutes, and can use his reserved air-bios for 3 minutes.
Baku lasts 1 more minute than Lalo does in a "1 Air-bios vs reserved Air-bios" fight,
but when it comes to a "18 Air-bios vs 16 Air-bios" fight, Baku can breathe for 18*4= 72 minutes, and Lalo can breathe for 16*5=80 minutes, Lalo wins.
 
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@troita
About the second question.
Lalo can still fold if he thinks Baku didn't reserve any air.
There were 2 possibilities,
1. Baku reserved some air.
Meaning Baku's breathing pace is not much different from Lalo's(Although Baku was breathing his 8th air-bios while Lalo was breathing his 7th, that could simply mean Baku reserved more air than Lalo did + Baku started reserving air earlier than Lalo(mentioned in ch.467, p.7))
In that case, Lalo may lose to a 16 air-bios vs 16 air-bios fight, so he decided to test if Baku reserved air or not by betting 1 air-bios.

2. Baku didn't reserve air.
Meaning Baku, who never reserve any air, consumes oxygen way faster than Lalo, who's been reserving air.
In that case, Baku would've died to a 16 air-bios vs 18 air-bios fight.
 
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@a2j04vm0
Wow,I'm such an idiot.
I was ignoring the difference in breathing pace when it was the single biggest factor.
So I did the math and if we assume that Baku uses 1 air bios for 4 minutes and Lalo's reserved air bios lasted him for 3 minutes, which is a reasonable assumption I think, then it turns out Lalo can use 1 air bios for 5.75 minutes. That means if Lalo had folded, his air bios would have lasted him 95 minutes, while Baku's bios would have lasted him 72 minutes. That is a huge difference! That means Baku's breathing pace is 43.75% more than Lalo's. This sort of hints that Baku uses more brainpower than Lalo.

And this is the genius of Air Poker.
This is the only gamble I've seen in any manga where the protagonist's intelligence presents such a huge and real problem to him. Baku effectively had less air-bios than Lalo due to his vastly more breathing pace. But he had to use his advantage of being more intelligent to overcome his disadvantage.
This manga is truly a masterpiece.

Also,about your answer to the second question, it does make sense. If Lalo hadn't found the broken glass piece, he would have likely folded. Because Lalo would have thought that Baku's raise does not mean that he had reserved air since he had seen the meter go to zero, so if he had broken the regulator, there had to be the broken glass.

So, thanks a lot, that was really helpful :)
 
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I wasnt sure what to think when we first got isekai'd into an RPG world, but this was a really long and grueling arc (in a good way).
 

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