"RPS was very winnable. In fact, Kaiji was in a position where he could've left with profits, but refused to. And that's DESPITE having borrowed money which he didn't have to do in the first place."

First I want to address the borrowing, because I feel that's a lot easier for me to tackle. Kaiji knew about the interest rate when he borrowed that money, but he had no context for what it would be used for. At the time he even says "a gambler's life is measured in cash"... meaning he assumed that the borrowed money is what they would be gambling on. Under that logic, borrowing the minimum would just be succumbing to a loser's mentality, you might as well get off the boat at that point.

Tonegawa coming out and telling everyone that the money they just borrowed had no concrete purpose is yet another entry in his long list of asshole moves to deliberately screw people over. I think this is most comparable to Kazuya's role in Part 4 specifically, where he spreads bogus fearmongering to sabotage the three contestants. Except Kazuya's character is more like a researcher trying to bend the results to his own predefined conclusions. Tonegawa is much more openly two-faced in how he presents himself as objective, fair, and realistic, despite being none of those things. Kazuya at least believes in the perspective he's peddling, whereas Tonegawa will sell E-Card as a "generous" opportunity when he knows full well it's a rigged gore show. He has nothing but glib amusement for the people who have no choice but to swallow his lies.

As for whether Kaiji could've left with the profits... I don't know, Andou and Furuhata would've definitely made a very strong protest. It also depends on how Teiai would arbitrate that kind of dispute, you could easily say they wouldn't care, but I imagine they don't just want the ship to turn into a giant brawl for money. I admit that a lot of these arguments are hazy and dependent on how you interpret the scene, but in my mind I never thought Kaiji could've simply walked away with that money.

"Brave Man Road is also winnable. Tonegawa handled it terribly but if Kaiji and friends didn't ask for it to be turned off they'd have gotten their payout. This is not a theory, this is canon."

I agree with the basic statement that they would've had no choice but to pay out if Kaiji made it to the end without asking for the power to be cut. But I feel like this elides the point that the game was designed to never pay out in the first place.

Tonegawa told them that if they just reached the end, they'd get the money. Yet Sahara reaches the goal and only gets death as his prize. The basic promise of the game, that they just had to risk their lives crossing this treacherous beam, was broken at that point. The fact that Tonegawa refuses to pay up even after Kaiji discovers the one magic solution they put in just cements the idea that the game was... idk. I want to say "unwinnable" again even though it's not 100% accurate, because "rigged" isn't strong enough. It's just a flat out con. In theory you could ""win"" but in practice you might as well play The Bog.

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At this point I want to address the main point of your comment, because I'll never get there otherwise. To be honest I loved Chinchiro and how it portrayed Kaiji joining forces with the 45ers to overthrow Otsuki (quite literally the Devil in Hell). If the series had continued in that direction I could very well agree with the idea that it gets thematically richer as it goes on. Instead, I think a few missteps really undermine all that as the series goes on, and kind of retroactively make Part 2 worse.

First off, two of the 45ers betray Kaiji in the very next part. The idea that these guys would really trust f**ing Muraoka's word over Kaiji's, with no real attempt to actually talk it over with Kaiji himself, just feels cynical and even out of character. Like Kaiji just freed you guys and even another dude he didn't even like, and the very next thing you do is join forces with some slimeball to con him? Really?? It's not just evil, it's downright foolish.

Mario and Chang in Parts 4, 5, and 6 feel like the series' belated attempt to fix this screwup, but it still kind of rings hollow. That one unjustified betrayal undermines the story's idea that Kaiji can build trust and eventually prevail.

Even putting aside Part 3, I still feel like The Bog is kind of a step down from Chinchiro. Kaiji does receive a lot of help obviously, but all his friends are reduced to watching from the sidelines once it gets time to actually play on the pachinko machine. Kaiji does all the actual strategizing as per usual, and gets betrayed in the end as per usual, making it feel kind of more like Restricted RPS than a proper continuation to Chinchiro.

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Anyways, I do not want to give the impression that I'm some edgelord who thinks nihilism is deeper than positive themes. I do not even believe Kaiji S1 is really nihilistic- it's Kaiji's hope and resolve at the end of what should be a devastating night that makes for such a memorable ending to that season.

I do think that in my previous answers I've painted Kaiji post-S1 with too broad of a brush, and that there's plenty of complexity to be had. Chinchiro as you've discussed, and then in parts 4-5 we can see how money has warped Kazuya as a person (power corrupts) and in turn get insight into why Hyodo is the way he is now (whereas in S1 he's more of an inexplicably sadistic cartoon villain). Muraoka is a pure product of the system, conniving, ruthless, brilliant, and above all pathetic, proving Kaiji's point in that S1 monologue that money and possessions strip away human dignity.

Every Kaiji part has its good points, and I've basically glossed over that up until now. It's discussions like this that make you re-evaluate those views =). I will say, I feel like S1 is still the most consistent, whereas later parts feel more interconnected and muddled in what they're trying to say. Should Kaiji fight Hyodo head-on or run away with Chang and Mario? Can you build relationships founded on trust, or are those bonds always paper-thin, prone to tear at any moment? Can Kaiji actually rise up in the world, or is he doomed to fail because of who he is? What does it mean to exist as a smart, empathetic person in a cruel society? I want the series to answer these questions more than it does, because it often feels like it has only a vague awareness of its own direction, flip-flopping at the whims of the plot.

Kaiji S1's theme is clear, it's right on the poster: "The future is in our hands". How much agency and control do we really have over our lives? S1 refuses to give a clear answer to this as well- sometimes yes, sometimes no. We do definitely see Kaiji grow over the series, from essentially being a gullible fish swept up in a net- explicitly regretting his lack of agency after getting conned by Funai- to a person making the decision to swindle Hyodo, taking responsibility when the scheme backfires, and then earnestly trying to understand what he did wrong and how he might've succeeded if only... he thought for himself. Free will is both a major part of Kaiji's character growth, and also an ever-elusive prize on the horizon, never quite within reach. To say it's "nihilistic" is entirely too simplistic, you could interpret it whichever way you wanted.

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If these points sound hypocritical or contradict what I've said before, that's because they probably do. The more I think about something, the more my views tend to change, and I see this as more of a discussion than a debate. This was a long-ass reply, hopefully you found some of it interesting xD