If ever a series were bubblicious, it’s Trillion Game. It doesn’t have anything about it that especially stands out. But it does deliver what it promises. Even when Madhouse isn’t trotting out their A game their shows have a look, and Trillion Game has it. And while nothing here is flamboyantly exceptional, everything here is unusual by anime standards. I don’t particularly like Dr. Stone (Inagami Riichirou’s far more famous manga), but this series strikes me as far less preening and much more at ease with itself.

That Inagaki is something of a geek comes across in all his work. He loves details and riddles and dramatic flourishes. There’s a lot of all that here, like the stuff about the vulnerability of QR codes and such. But the most interesting thing Trillion Game does is observe the human dynamic. Haru and Gaku being polar opposites certainly helps. Hell, it’s pretty much the point. But I enjoy seeing Haru self-deprecate even as he spots forests Gaku can’t see for trees. Behaviorally there could hardly be a less serious man than Haru. But make no mistake – Haru is a serious man.

The beerhall putsch Haru stages against the SEC is all part of the grand plan. He needs those people to get his preposterously-named team to the launchpad. But Gaku is the rocket and he’s the solid-fuel booster. The “Star Wars” problem (200 points) is a good example. The part of the competition that’s about understanding how people think (remember, hackers are people) is tailor-made for Haru. He’s the one who tells Gaku to lay off the tempting 777 point problem – to save it for last. And he’s the one who recognizes that 777 is not a coincidentally chosen value. It allows you to know immediately whether a team has solved that problem or not. And to infer from that what sort of problem it is.

It’s all a matter of perspective, really. Forests and trees. Gaku grinds the details, Haru sees how they fit together. The panorama and the zoom. And the cat-and-mouse with Kirihime is all part of the fun. Their “bet” on the 12-teams finals – she wins and she owns them for life, they win and they get her for a night – is full of nods and winks. She’s enjoying the hell out of this, and so is Haru. Showing up for the finals dressed as a Shinto priest is all part of the theater that Kirihime is paying for. And it’s interesting theatre to watch. I don’t know whether I’ll end up covering it but it’s certainly an entertaining piece of work.