JIGOKU YUGI: Only The Last Gambler Standing Returns to Life

DEAD. BROKE. AND THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS. Kuzumi Rōta, 29, delivery boy, owes money to half the neighbourhood. He finally scratches a winning ticket worth a million yen… and slips on it. He wakes up at a red felt table in the Ninth Gambling Den of the Underworld, next to 99 other dead people who are just as confused and far worse groomed. The host, the demon croupier Gokumon Hiruko, explains the rules with a golden-toothed grin: 100 dead souls go in, 32 games are played… and only one comes back to life.

The rules are always announced. They are never explained in full.32 INFERNAL GAMES. 32 HIDDEN TRAPS. Every game hides a trick. Clues show up little by little: on the rules card, from the narrator, while you think, from the dead in the stands and every time you lose. Expose the trap and the whole table turns in your favour. Miss it and you'll be a casino chip before dinner. Mind games: Judgment Lottery, The Scale of Karma, The Liars' Elevator, Memory Auction, Blood Contract, Sin Poker, Jury of the Damned, The Coffin Dilemma, The Cursed Inheritance, Liar's Bone Dice, Enma's Exam.

Body games: The Mountain of Needles, The Communal Cauldron, Tug of War vs. the Oni, Fishing the Sanzu River, Tombstone Tower, Fire Cart Race, The Hungry Oni Baby, Limbo Under the Scythe, Musical Chairs of Judgment, Coffin Tetris.…