Joker Game

Episodes 5-6

Now that the year is 1939, and we've found ourselves following a newly Axis-allied D-Agency, Joker Game has taken on a decidedly different tone of transition. Yuuki's men are largely fulfilling their missions in the dark, clinging to the war for a sense of purpose while begrudgingly accepting that they have no place in its politics or any real understanding of their boss' objectives. The bad news is that this leaves us with two stories about espionage for its own sake, in lieu of the social commentary Joker Game's earlier episodes indulged. The good news is that it's still an entertaining show, even if "cool spies being cool" as an end in and of itself isn't as captivating on a deeper level. Oh, and of course there's still no character development. We might as well accept at this point that we're not going to get much insight into these spies as individuals (with the possible exception of Yuuki), and then we can just be pleasantly surprised later if we get a little more than that. In the meantime, at least we can still see them kick a lot of butt in stylish suits!

Episode 5 plants us in London with a gentleman named Izawa who finds himself in the hottest water possible. British Intelligence has buckets of indisputable proof that he's a Japanese spy, leaving him with only two choices: defect or die. Despite the persistent suspense and stray details of Izawa's interrogation, episode 5 is pretty simple under the surface. Once again, rather than developing our central spy, this adventure is more interested in giving us a better idea of Yuuki's character, revealing that he personally put his men through the kinds of torture practices (truth serum, intense questioning, the works) they could expect to face if caught. Izawa spent such a long time strengthening his subconscious mind to protect the mission even if all other circumstances failed him that he can even win the trust of his interrogators by "breaking" right in front of them (and thus getting the opportunity to send an SOS back to Yuuki).

Speaking of those interrogators, episode 5 also introduces the only new face distinct enough to be a potential recurring character. The British spymaster, Lieutenant Colonel Howard Marks, looks like a villain from a Roald Dahl book, and he leaves a surprisingly strong impression for playing such a minor role in the series. With his bulbous head, scarred cheek, and unusually intimate understanding of Colonel Yuuki's personality, Marks almost seems like he'd play the Moriarty to Yuuki's Sherlock in a different show, but unless Joker Game comes back to London relatively soon, I can't imagine we'll have reason to see more of this ghoulish dude. Anyway, I hope he comes back. This series could benefit from a little more continuity in its intrigue.

In the end, Izawa escapes his gruesome fate as an imprisoned information sponge through a convenient literary reference in that corny sort of way that only happens in fiction. Before he was (literally) shipped out on assignment, Izawa received a copy of Robinson Crusoe from Colonel Yuuki, which turns out to have been his only warning about his impending capture. Apparently, Yuuki always intended to sell Izawa out, but only in order to get him out of the country safely while leaving the British with no way to reveal or utilize the information they got from his interrogation, due to some red-tape-heavy scheme that, I'll be honest, I didn't fully understand. All that really matters is that Izawa was set up as Robinson Crusoe, and he's waiting in custody for his "Friday," an ally who will be marked by the astrological symbol for Venus and give Izawa the opportunity to escape when the time is right. To ensure the success of the mission, not even Yuuki could know the identity of this sleeper agent, so in keeping with the whole subconscious-over-conscious-mind theme, he needed only plant the idea in Izawa's head that a sleeper agent could exist through the story of Robinson Crusoe, and the rest would happen on instinct.

It's a decent spy story, but I think it's mostly hampered by Izawa's complete lack of personality even in his direst moment. I don't expect him to show so much emotion that he becomes unprofessional as a super-spy, but a little more giddy-up in his get-along of some kind would have made Izawa more interesting to watch. He definitely gets upstaged by the effervescent antics of episode 6's star spy, Tazaki, who needs a little magic on his side when his rendezvous with a spy from the USSR aboard the Asia Express goes awry thanks to an unexpected assassination.

If you don't know anything about the Asia and its role in the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, that's okay. There's a trio of pint-sized train otaku in this episode ready to tell you all about its history, as they help Tazaki solve the mystery of his unsavory contact's death. Even before we know the full details behind why he was murdered, Anton Morozoff seems like kind of a wormy fellow. He's leaking information to the D-Agency in exchange for not only hush money, but also a discreet cover-up of his long-standing affair with a Harbin nightclub girl. So when Tazaki receives an encoded message from Morozoff requesting a large sum of money, he figures it must be because the guy has some really juicy intel to share with them that would be best relayed in person. Unfortunately, he's grossly overestimating his poor schmuck informant, leading to a fiasco on the rails.

When Tazaki pops into the washroom to question Morozoff, he finds his fellow spy lying dead with a tarot card, The Hanged Man, in his pocket. Tazaki assumes it must be a message from SMERSH, which makes it pretty obvious who killed him and why. ("Death to all spies!") But who could have ratted Morozoff out, is Tazaki himself in danger while he's trapped on this train for six more hours, and can he uncover the truth and relay it to Yuuki before the fastest mode of transportation on land reaches its destination and the truth is lost forever? It seems impossible, but that's where Tazaki's magic touch enters the picture.

Tazaki stands out as the most handsome of all the spies in Joker Game's opening, and he seems to know it, since his whole adventure revolves around charming women and children to do the work that he cannot. First, he gets three young boys to find the passenger who stole Morozoff's encoded message and return his tarot card...or should I say her. As it turns out, Morozoff wanted that gross sum of money to escape with his burlesque sweetheart to America, which caused him to overstep his boundaries in stealing information from the soviets. Feeling trapped and manipulated, his girlfriend ratted him out to SMERSH, and Tazaki uses this information to draw the assassin back out, knock him unconscious, and regretfully inform Morozoff's lady love that she should probably start learning Japanese as she trades one unwanted foreign destination for another. Now how does he get all this messy info out to Yuuki ahead of the Asia Express?

Well, in true stage magician fashion, he's got himself a pigeon in his coat! (Try not to think about how much bird poop there must be caked on the lining of his suit jacket.) The only thing faster than the Asia is a carrier pigeon, making Tazaki's mission successful in a sort of roundabout way. Episode 6 is a shallow but entertaining super-spy story that's just a little more compelling than episode 5, thanks to its more charismatic star player. While these start-of-WWII-oh-no-what-do-we-do diversions have been entertaining in their own right, I'll be eager to get back to the heart of the D-Agency's goals as an organization, what conflict Yuuki and his men might face in their counter-imperialist agenda, or if they can even keep it up as government oversight of the D-Agency becomes more draconian thanks to the burgeoning war effort.

Rating: B

Joker Game is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Jake has been an anime fan since childhood, and likes to chat about cartoons, pop culture, and visual novel dev on Twitter.