If you’ve been following us for a while, you probably already know by now that I own (or “co-own”, if you’re pedantic) a business.
I’d like to say that my success was the result of years and years of hard work and dedication, but the truth is, I lucked out by investing in Dogecoin very early on and knowing the right people in the right industries to make everything else happen. Without that luck, I’d probably still be working a miserable job in medical manufacturing and taking shit from a bunch of nepotistic tough guys and a bratty little attention whore.
That said, there’s more to starting a business than just having a lot of money and knowing people. There’s still a lot of work involved that takes a mixture of skill, perception, and heart.
Maybe that’s why Trillion Game resonated with me so much.
Trillion Game is the story of Gaku and Haru, two friends who decide that they’re going to start their own company. The series follows the two young high school graduates as they embark on a journey of entrepreneurship and strive to build their business empire. Their ultimate goal is to make a trillion dollars, so in the spirit of this objective they name their company “Trillion Game Inc”. Using Haru’s charm and charisma, as well as Gaku’s computer skills, the two secure funding for their endeavor, and from this they begin building their business empire.
What does Trillion Game Inc do exactly, you ask? Even they don’t know at first. Gaku and Haru go into their plan completely blind, with Haru saying that they’ll figure things out along the way.
And figure things out they do. They open their gambit by selling AI shopping software to a flower shop. This “AI software” is actually their company president, a young woman named Rinrin with a background in floral arrangements. The owner of the flower shop suspects something’s up, but doesn’t care because the service is bringing in all kinds of money.
Their success attracts the attention of Dragon Bank, one of the largest companies in Japan. After Dragon Bank releases their own AI shopping service and crushes Trillion Game’s service, Haru decides it’s time to fight back against the giant company. From there, the two companies go head to head in a battle of business wits, trying to out-maneuver and outsmart each other.
People laud anime like Jujutsu Kaisen and Dragon Ball for the intensity of their battles. Trillion Game’s battles might not be physical, but they’re just as intense as any fight scene from JJK or Dragon Ball. The ingenuity of both sides is downright amazing.
I think my favorite example comes from the beginning, where Gaku and Haru enter the hacking competition.
After Kirika, the daughter of Dragon Bank’s president, tries to give them a crappy investment offer that would make her the majority shareholder, the two decide to secure investment elsewhere. They decide that entering a hacking competition would bring attention to them.
From the very get-go the duo comes out strong, taking advantage of the contest’s registration having no character limit by naming their team “Princess Kirika is offering us 100 million for 51% of our company! We are urgently seeking other investment conditions! For inquiries, please contact us at Trilliongame 21 @ gmail.com”, essentially scoring themselves free advertising.
Most of the other teams have four people, which put the two at a disadvantage. On top of that, Haru doesn’t actually know anything about computers, which means it’s basically just Gaku vs everyone else. But rather than sit on the sidelines and be useless, Haru uses unconventional thinking to help Gaku in other ways, like setting up a fake access point and using aluminum foil shavings to interfere with the other teams’ connections. Gaku wins the contest, but the duo is disqualified after their tricks are revealed. Still, an investor takes notice and gives them a much better offer than Dragon Bank.
Trillion Game is full of demonstrations of ingenuity like this. The business world is cold, hard, and merciless, and you can’t always play by the rules if you want to get ahead. For example, I may or may not know of a business consultation firm that may or may not have poached employees and clients from a larger firm. Similarly, Trillion Game Inc poaches Dragon Bank’s lead mobile game developer, and eventually their entire dev team. While this is going on, Haru and an investor convince share holders of a large media company to sell their shares using blackmail involving the company’s attempt to cover up a scandal. Both endeavors succeed, and soon Trillion Game Inc not only has the top mobile gatcha game in Japan, but they also have the majority share in God Production, a media company that manages much of Japan’s top talent.
At this point, Dragon Bank’s president is fuming. As Trillion Game Inc decides to start its own streaming service, Dragon Bank vows to crush them. They do, at first, partnering up with American streaming behemoths like Hulu and Netflix (or rather, fake versions of these companies with slightly different names). But Trillion Game Inc isn’t going down that easily. They realize that, while Dragon Bank might have a hold on entertainment streaming, they don’t have a hold on the news. With Haru’s charm, Trillion Game Inc acquires a local news station, and the company uses that to go head to head against Dragon Bank. The end result is Trillion Game Inc and Dragon Bank being on equal footing, and Gaku and Haru becoming the first Japanese people in the top 10 of the World’s Billionaire List.
I think that one of the best ways to describe this series is if someone took Walter White’s “I’m in the empire business” quote and turned it into an anime series. Gaku and Haru aren’t in the mobile game business, they’re not in the media business, they’re in the empire business. At the end of the day, that’s what Trillion Game is about: Two young men building an empire from virtually nothing. This is more than your average tale of rags-to-riches. Though it may be heavily exaggerated (let’s be honest here, you and I aren’t pulling off most of this stuff in the real world), this show captures the true entrepreneurial spirit through its riveting story and its cunning characters with their impeccable ingenuity.
As an anime fan and as a business owner, I give Trillion Game an 8/10. I can’t wait for the next season.
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