So yeah, it’s been 12 episodes and three months since I’ve done a Trillion Game post. As such a little explanation is in order. In the first place, this was the first time I’ve ever made an ongoing series eligible for the Patron Pick vote (which it obviously won). I did this because this meh season had so few real bubble candidates. But of course also because I really like Trillion Game and would have been happy to cover it. In point of fact I would have covered it in the first place if it hadn’t aired on an insanely busy day – I had five series I was committed to cover as it was.

That said, my opinion of the show has risen even more since then. It’s consistently gotten better and proved itself to be really fascinating. I know it’s written by the Dr. Stone guy (Inagaki Riichirou), and that’s a series I frankly found to be pretty inane. But not this one. The plot has evolved in consistently interesting fashion and the cast has grown to be a particular strength (as have the seiyuu playing them). In many ways this feels like a distinctly un-Japanese take on capitalism – but I think that’s quite intentional, and one of Trillion Game’s charms.

Everything of course revolves around the dynamic between Haru and Gaku, the odd couple at the core of Trillion Game. If you know anything of the tech boom, startups, and venture capitalism (living in the Bay Area for a decade I was pretty immersed in it) you know it’s a dynamic common to many startups. One guy is a natural businessman (and/or con artist) and the other the genius behind the product or service itself. As the series has progressed it’s become increasingly clear that Haru has no scruples at all. Not only regarding the law, but general ethics and morality. He has no issue screwing innocent people if it gets him where he wants to go.

Gaku was never really comfortable with that. But once Sakura and the game developer crew entered the picture, this got much more personal for him. These are his natural soulmates in life, and Haru used them and was ready to toss them aside. It was really the first time we’ve seen Gaku “rebel” against Haru, even if he did it in a very indirect way. Gaku has really emerged as the main character as Haru has become more and more outrageous and Machiavellian, and the two of them have more or less charted separate courses for the past couple of arcs.

Another character I really enjoy is Hebijima-san, the game creator responsible for Dragon Bank’s monster hit “Dragon Musume”. Seki Toshihiko is killing it with the role, and Hebijima gives Trilion Game a chance to explore some ethical issues through a pretty unsparing lens. This series is no uncritical celebration of unvarnished capitalism – it calls a spade a spade. And once it got into the issue of how shabbily creators are treated in Japanese business (game creators literally, but the message about the anime industry is unmistakable), the social commentary became especially pointed.

Hebijima, Sakura, and the creation of “Popping Land” have effectively become the heart of Trillion Game, preventing it from sliding into a depressing bacchanal of corporate malfeasance. You get the feeling that Haru us sort of indulging Gaku here – this sidebar isn’t necessary to his grand plan, much more centered on the talent agency God Promotion (and in that area too Trillion Game has been pretty brutal in its commentary). But Gaku is necessary – and Haru is a genius at reading people to say the least. He knows how far he can push Gaku, and when it makes sense to let him have some play on the lead. And that too is an interesting element of the story.

So in sum, there’s a lot of good stuff happening here. The presence of Kedouin-san (Touchi Hiroki is also killing it) in the GoPro storyline does a lot to elevate it, and the game development side is consistently the best part of the show. The ongoing David and Goliath chess match with Dragon Bank, and Kirihime’s enigmatic role in it, is another interesting layer in the story. Trillion Game is just good, plain and simple – a rousingly entertaining romp that toes the line of farce without ever fully crossing it. If you’d told me it would be the Fall Madhouse series I most look forward to every week, until very recently I would have laughed at you. But sometimes things don’t work out the way we expect.