Joker Game

Despite a premise with a lot of potential, Joker Game not only does little with its WWII setting but fails at something as basic as establishing to the viewer what its narrative structure will be. It lacks clarity in signalling what the promise of the show is, whether it is going to be some form of grand strategy narrative with the spies as pieces, if it is going to be a dive into the nature of spy craft, or if it is just a mystery thriller with a WWII veneer. The last one I only managed to establish as a possibility after I went out of my way to see what kind of source material it had. The problem is that Joker Game never really fulfils any of these very well and ends up as an attempt at style over substance that does not quite land. The tone is the only thing that is established fairly well in that it is going to be fairly gritty and dark, if still highly stylized. Essentially the only thing it rules out immediately is that it is a spy film in the vein of the earlier James Bond films but nothing more, leaving everything about it impossibly vague.

The first story that was adapted gives us an outside look into the spy organization from the perspective of the standard military. It is a reasonable introduction that creates an aura of mystique around spycraft since we are learning about everything in the midst of a counter-espionage operation. But outside of this, the show does not really communicate anything about the aims, structure or contents of the story is wishes to tell going forward. It does not even make it clear if this is a perspective we will be continuing with for the series or if this is merely meant to be a vignette to set the tone with most of the characters being discarded once it is over. What compounds this issue is that the opening narration that is supposed to frame the entire series portrays the agency to be the centre piece of the narrative that all stories will connect with or stem from.

Only halfway through the series does it become clear there is no real throughline for the stories. The show's opening exposition monologue implicitly sells this idea that Japan's spy agency will affect the course of the war in some way and that this lens on the strategic level will be used to give coherence and context to the various stories presented to the viewer. Most of the time, we are never told why agents are in the scenarios they are in or how the information they gain or deny to the enemy affects anything in the larger picture. This in itself is not necessarily an issue if the show was established as only thematically connected short stories set during WWII that were meant to mostly stand alone. The problem comes from the failure to communicate this premise of the show accurately, and worst of all, it is only possible to figure this out with external research on the original source material. What we are left with is the agency taking a backseat since there are only a few episodes where any of the spies are working as a group. Even then, most stories focus on an individual spy and all of them suffer from a lack of any memorable characterisation since most do not explore them in any detail. The few characters that do get some depth rarely, if ever, appear again making all their development or insight we get into them moot. The only real recurring character is Yuuki, but that only really fmatters in for his own extended story, Double Joker, since his role as head of the agency barely factors in as anything more than a loose framing device in most other episodes.

On the other hand, the issue with this show as a mystery-thriller is that the mysteries are largely unsolvable from the viewer's perspective and are more so spy action-dramas than something you would find in Agatha Christie or Sherlock Holmes. Simply put, the mysteries rely on information withheld from the viewer which can be dramatic but often ends up feeling cheap and obtuse with how often it is used to resolve things. Some of them are interesting and well-constructed enough to be somewhat enjoyable, such as the Asia Express and Double Joker. They were structured well with a clear objective for our point of view character, some knowledge of what is at stake, and a healthy amount of intrigue at how they will resolve the situation. However, most of the time, there is a complete lack of information given to the viewer, and occasionally, there is even a complete lack of context, the worst examples of which are Miscalculation and Robinson. Much of the intrigue is generated by having an excessive number of unknowns or even a complete lack of context instead of titbits of important information that the viewer can piece together to glean something meaningful to the narrative. For the large part, it means watching events unfold in an arbitrary manner with the viewer having to resort to genre-savviness to even remotely guess where things are headed instead of the text providing any natural clues or indicators. This would not be too detrimental if the viewer could still fall back on being entertained by compelling characters, but the show's failure to remotely develop anyone makes this saving grace impossible. The lack of a central narrative leaves viewers with no idea of who the various spies are before any of the stories occur, making it difficult to empathise with them or anticipate what they would do. What we do get is incredibly one-note and generic that, at times, it is even hard to keep track of who is who, much less remember their names or if they have appeared in a story before.

Joker Game was, in part, particularly disappointing as someone interested in historical fiction since it never seems to embrace its setting. Much of their WWII-era setting is just window dressing or flavouring to the stories instead of being about anything central to it. There are some scenarios and stories derived from actual events, like HMS Liverpool stopping to board the Asama Maru and creating a diplomatic incident, but they are still barely relevant beyond a setting to tell a story. Much of the series be changed to the Cold War and most of it would remain intact with only minor alterations to the aesthetics and location. This also means they largely sidestep any controversy or issues regarding historical fiction of that period, especially given Japan's role in the war. While this is understandable, it begs the question of why the setting, which is sold as being central to the premise, is important at all. At the very least, it does not devolve into some ultra-nationalist fantasy or drivel, but that is mostly due to the whole series being so devoid of context that it never gets the chance to parade these spy stories as anything more than disjointed snippets. As a result, the show feels like it has nothing important or interesting to say as a piece of historical fiction since it never utilizes its setting.

If it is not about the premise, the narrative or the characters, then what is left?

Ultimately, Joker Game is a show that is run into the ground most of all by its very blatant failure to indicate what its most basic story structure is to the viewer. The whole spy agency premise is kept vague enough that it is tantalizing to viewers and keeps them hoping that it will somehow all tie together. It seems unlikely that the original short story collection had this problem and that this dishonest framing device is a function of a botched adaptation, either by playing it up too much or by inventing it in the first place. The episodes that are well done are strictly in the sense that they are self-contained short thrillers with a WWII flavour rather than anything really outstanding as a collective work or mystery. Most others come off as mystery for the sake of it since its resolution is obtuse to the viewer. It is easy to see how this would work as short fiction since it seems the main draw of these stories is to experience the internal workings of these characters as they go through the problem. That has always been the strength of writing as a medium, getting into the mind of the character, as opposed to the strength of animation in showing so much more of the world. It is then remarkable that the adaption seems to miss so much of this, choosing to highlight the suave, mysterious nature of most characters instead of giving the viewer more insight into their thoughts. With that said, Joker Game is a disappointing, if not dishonest, adaptation of what seems to be perfectly serviceable short stories that is hard to give more that a 4 out of 10. Only its few entertaining episodes prevent the entire series from being an entirely botched affair that would push it even lower.