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I am making this thread in response to this thread because I disagree with the conclusions reached. I will address three primary points:
1. Academics
2. All Bet Final Score Feat
3. Underestimation
Point 1: Academics
As OP didn’t show what was referring to about Yuuichi being “not even close to the cognitive abilities of someone like Kei Shinomiya. He has poor grades, and he doesn't show impressive learning ability.” I will assume that OP is referring to these two pages when he talked to Reiko in chapter 29.
Before addressing the claim about Yuuichi's grades, it is important to understand his character. Unlike most kids, Yuuichi never had a normal childhood. He was raised under Taizen Shiba, where he learned about the value of money, survival and human nature but also the value of friends by his mother. After they both died, he was left to survive on his own.
With that context in mind, there are two possible interpretations of Yuuichi's statements regarding his academics.
The first interpretation is to take his words at face value. Even if Yuuichi's grades are genuinely poor, this does not automatically indicate a lack of intelligence. Throughout the series, Yuuichi is shown or referenced working multiple part-time jobs simply to pay bills and support himself. In Chapter 1, he is already working a newspaper delivery job in the morning while trying to save enough money for a school trip with his friends that he promised them to attend. His priorities are survival and financial stability, not academic performance. As a result, he has zero motivation to study or care about school.
In the same chapter, it is shown that Makoto offered to pay for Yuuichi trip but he declined A poor kid who is already struggling financially is willing to spend money he cannot easily afford simply to keep a promise to his friends. So, I leave you with this what’s the difference between a poor kid and a rich kid when it comes to school. The answer is obvious.
In short, Yuuichi low school grades are a narrative consequence of his poverty and the lack of interest in school rather than evidence of low intellectual ability
We now move to interpretation two.
Throughout the series, Yuuichi's main tactic is to downplay and degrade himself in order to make others underestimate him. We also know that his ultimate goal is to destroy Tomodachi Game itself, meaning he views the administrators as enemies rather than observers.
His conversation with Reiko can be interpreted differently. Since Reiko is associated with Tomodachi Game, it is possible that Yuuichi is deliberately downplaying his own abilities as part of a long-term deception strategy. I am not claiming that everything he says about Kei, Tenji or his academics is false. Rather, his statements may be exaggerated in a way that encourages the administrators to lower their guard and underestimate him.
This interpretation becomes relevant later in Point 3.
point 2: All bet final score feat
The OP claims that Yuuichi “does not have a level of intellect comparable to a real-world polymath, and he is never shown to be superhuman in terms of intelligence” I disagree, as one of the strongest examples can be found in the All Bet final score feat
To understand the feat, a brief explanation of the game is necessary. In All bet participants are assigned a monetary value and can be sold and be rebought again by the teams. Players must also pay a one-million-yen fee at the final destination once the game is finished if not, they face a one-hundred-million-yen penalty. During the game, teams are free to use various forms of gambling in order to accumulate capital and improve their position.
Now for the feat. Throughout all bet since the very first poker match in chapter 49 against the other team members, Yuuichi deliberately lost so the others label him as a weakling and underestimate him after that the plan was set.
Later in chapter 55 this is when Yuuichi creates a contract that all teams agree upon. By doing so he makes a no rule game into set rules that would determine the outcome of the game.
Yuuichi planed for victory and defeat using the hedge bet strategy, as the best gamble is to never truly gamble, he created a situation where he could benefit regardless of whether he won or lost against Satone.
The climax for his plan was his prediction of the final score to the last digit for all four teams, whose decisions were influenced by pride, greed, fear and panic. in other words, Yuuichi Katagiri turned human emotion into an equation.
This demonstrates polymathic reasoning as it requires:
To put this feat into a real-world perspective, fields such as game theory, behavioural economics, quantitative finance, and strategic risk management all require combing multiple knowledges in complex and constantly changing system. Organisations invest millions of dollars into advanced models and computing systems to predict market behaviour, yet these systems can still fail due to unpredictable human emotions such as greed, fear and panic.
What makes Yuuichi feat immersive is that he performed similar form of reasoning in a life-or-death scenario where it’s not just finical loss but being sold based on one’s value. Rather than predicting the number alone, Yuuichi predicted how people will behave under extreme pressure and incorporated those human emotions into his final calculation
This brings us back to point 1. Regardless what interpretation I gave if Yuuichi was narratively dumb than he could not perform this feat of this nature it will be impossible. Predicting the final score to the last digit while accounting for multiple teams, changing incentives and human behaviour requires a high level of cognitive processing, planning and analytical reasoning.
Point 3: underestimation:
Op states that Yuuichi “strategies and manipulation efforts often succeed because his opponents underestimate him rather than because he actually outsmarts them”.
To an extent, this is true. Throughout the series, one of Yuuichi's most common tactics is to deliberately downplay himself. He frequently presents himself as weak, desperate, emotional or irrational in order to encourage others to lower their guard. This was already discussed in Point 1, where I explained how Yuuichi often benefits from creating a false image of himself.
However, this becomes increasingly insufficient once the story enters Adult Tomodachi Game.
Adult Tomodachi Game is not simply more difficult because of the games themselves. The people participating are significantly more dangerous and experienced. The participants include professional swindlers, underworld figures, cult leaders and even hitmen. They understand the value of money, manipulation and deception, and are willing to betray, exploit and sacrifice others in order to win. Even Maria, one of the administrators, states that Yuuichi should have been participating in Adult Tomodachi Game from the very beginning.
Now for the sake of argument let’s say making someone underestimate you and believe what you are saying as the truth in life-or-death situations is not impressive manipulation feat.
The first Adult Tomodachi Game was Prison Game, and it is one of the best examples of why he only wins with underestimation argument becomes false.
I won’t go on a deep break down like how I did with all bet but I will give you a simple explanation,
So, Prison Game places twelve participants inside a prison and tasks them all with surviving a “20-year sentence” without breaking the set rules. There are two primary ways to win: either serve the full sentence collectively or complete the objective of stacking 120,000 dominoes together. Prisoners can also obtain a key that allows one of them to escape and get a massive payout, there is an exile system that enables prisoners to vote others out via the majority vote and leaving them with an enormous debt. All of these rules become important later.
What makes Prison Game different from normal TG games is that it is essentially Wolf Game combined with meta knowledge. The participants were deliberately selected so that many of them already knew each other to some extent. In Yuuichi's case, this was a significant disadvantage. Kei was there and already understood many of Yuuichi's methods and strategies due to his pervious lost in game 3, while Kuroki held a personal grudge against him and actively sought revenge due to him getting humiliated by Yuuichi multiple times in the story. As a result, Yuuichi's usual tactic of creating a false first impression becomes far more difficult to utilise effectively in this game.
Even with this, Yuuichi wins at the end while working with Kei as both obtained a key early in the game, but his main objective was never to escape and collect money. His real goal was to minimise the profits of Tomodachi Game itself. If he had escaped after obtaining the key, Tomodachi Game would have gotten the best outcome where they get the most money. Instead, Yuuichi systematically worked towards eliminating players through the exile system in order to prevent the TG from profiting.
Tsukino (an admin) state that this outcome was not the result of luck and that nobody had previously achieved what Yuuichi accomplished and was unheard of. It is important to note that the probability of Yuuichi and Kei obtaining the key was no greater than any other participant obtaining it, also sated by Tsukino. More importantly, it was never Yuuichi vs the opponent it was always Yuuichi vs the system his goal is way bigger than any other player wanting money he wants to destroy TG, that’s his main goal.
Not just in prison game his whole underestimation tactic gets harder from here on out. You have later in the story where it turns out that kokorogi is a traitor and betrays the group and for her master plan she uses Gaku Sabura (A former self defence official turn Pro Hitman who single handedly beat all of All Bet.) to destroy Yuuichi. You don’t use a hitman in your plan if you simply underestimate them. In her group there is also Yuuichi brother Shinji Taizen who knows all the tricks from Taizen Shiba and knows Yuuichi. Finally leading to the final game Makoto leaves Yuuuchi and joins kokorogi group. The arguments that he simply wins via underestimation than just outsmarting gets weaker the more the story progresses
Conclusion:
Yuuichi's poor academic performance is not the result of low intelligence but rather how the narrative presents his life. He grew up in severe poverty, worked multiple jobs simply to support himself and consistently prioritised survival over academics. A lack of interest in school and a lack of time to study do not equate to a lack of intellectual ability.
This becomes even clearer when comparing school to Tomodachi Game itself. In school, the stakes are zero. In Tomodachi Game, the stakes involve not only Yuuichi's life but also his friends aswell. It is in these life and death environments that Yuuichi brain switches on and consistently demonstrates advanced planning, manipulation, strategic reasoning and adaptability.
Regardless whatever Interpretation you think is correct what Yuuichi showed throughout the series does not support that Yuuichi lack the intellectual ability to compete with highly intelligent characters. Rather, his actions repeatedly demonstrate the opposite.
Proposed Change: Restore Yuuichi to "At Least Genius"
1. Academics
2. All Bet Final Score Feat
3. Underestimation
Point 1: Academics
As OP didn’t show what was referring to about Yuuichi being “not even close to the cognitive abilities of someone like Kei Shinomiya. He has poor grades, and he doesn't show impressive learning ability.” I will assume that OP is referring to these two pages when he talked to Reiko in chapter 29.
Before addressing the claim about Yuuichi's grades, it is important to understand his character. Unlike most kids, Yuuichi never had a normal childhood. He was raised under Taizen Shiba, where he learned about the value of money, survival and human nature but also the value of friends by his mother. After they both died, he was left to survive on his own.
With that context in mind, there are two possible interpretations of Yuuichi's statements regarding his academics.
The first interpretation is to take his words at face value. Even if Yuuichi's grades are genuinely poor, this does not automatically indicate a lack of intelligence. Throughout the series, Yuuichi is shown or referenced working multiple part-time jobs simply to pay bills and support himself. In Chapter 1, he is already working a newspaper delivery job in the morning while trying to save enough money for a school trip with his friends that he promised them to attend. His priorities are survival and financial stability, not academic performance. As a result, he has zero motivation to study or care about school.
In the same chapter, it is shown that Makoto offered to pay for Yuuichi trip but he declined A poor kid who is already struggling financially is willing to spend money he cannot easily afford simply to keep a promise to his friends. So, I leave you with this what’s the difference between a poor kid and a rich kid when it comes to school. The answer is obvious.
In short, Yuuichi low school grades are a narrative consequence of his poverty and the lack of interest in school rather than evidence of low intellectual ability
We now move to interpretation two.
Throughout the series, Yuuichi's main tactic is to downplay and degrade himself in order to make others underestimate him. We also know that his ultimate goal is to destroy Tomodachi Game itself, meaning he views the administrators as enemies rather than observers.
His conversation with Reiko can be interpreted differently. Since Reiko is associated with Tomodachi Game, it is possible that Yuuichi is deliberately downplaying his own abilities as part of a long-term deception strategy. I am not claiming that everything he says about Kei, Tenji or his academics is false. Rather, his statements may be exaggerated in a way that encourages the administrators to lower their guard and underestimate him.
This interpretation becomes relevant later in Point 3.
point 2: All bet final score feat
The OP claims that Yuuichi “does not have a level of intellect comparable to a real-world polymath, and he is never shown to be superhuman in terms of intelligence” I disagree, as one of the strongest examples can be found in the All Bet final score feat
To understand the feat, a brief explanation of the game is necessary. In All bet participants are assigned a monetary value and can be sold and be rebought again by the teams. Players must also pay a one-million-yen fee at the final destination once the game is finished if not, they face a one-hundred-million-yen penalty. During the game, teams are free to use various forms of gambling in order to accumulate capital and improve their position.
Now for the feat. Throughout all bet since the very first poker match in chapter 49 against the other team members, Yuuichi deliberately lost so the others label him as a weakling and underestimate him after that the plan was set.
Later in chapter 55 this is when Yuuichi creates a contract that all teams agree upon. By doing so he makes a no rule game into set rules that would determine the outcome of the game.
Yuuichi planed for victory and defeat using the hedge bet strategy, as the best gamble is to never truly gamble, he created a situation where he could benefit regardless of whether he won or lost against Satone.
The climax for his plan was his prediction of the final score to the last digit for all four teams, whose decisions were influenced by pride, greed, fear and panic. in other words, Yuuichi Katagiri turned human emotion into an equation.
This demonstrates polymathic reasoning as it requires:
- Mathematical reasoning: Yuuichi predicted the final score of all four team to the last digits despite the outcome constantly changing in the game
- Strategic and Long-Term Contingency Planning: yuuichi constructed a multi-stage plan spanning the entire game while preparing for multiple possible outcomes, including both victory and defeat.
- Risk management: Yuuichi uses hedge bet which minimises loss while also maximizing success regardless of the result.
- Game theory: Predicting the decisions and incentives of all 4 competing teams acting independently for their own interests.
- Contract exploitation: Creating a contractual frame work that all teams agreed upon than later exploiting said contract to the ones who were sold leading to his win.
- Behavioral prediction: Yuuichi anticipated how each team member would react under pressure, financial incentives and changing circumstances.
- Information control. Yuuichi deliberately appearing incompetent and managing what information other participants knew about him, therefore deciding what information should be revealed, concealed or manipulated throughout the game.
- Emotional modelling: yuuichi incorporated multiple human emotions such as pride, greed, fear and panic into his calculations and treating it as predictable variables.
- Adaptive thinking: Adjusting plans in response to changing circumstances and unexpected developments, such as reconsidering Kei's role after Kei repeatedly risked his life for kokorogi, while also adapting to the evolving situation surrounding Kokorogi and Saika Kamishiro.
- Interdisciplinary reasoning: Combining mathematical, strategic, contractual and psychological reasoning simultaneously rather than relying on a single intellectual discipline under life and death situations.
To put this feat into a real-world perspective, fields such as game theory, behavioural economics, quantitative finance, and strategic risk management all require combing multiple knowledges in complex and constantly changing system. Organisations invest millions of dollars into advanced models and computing systems to predict market behaviour, yet these systems can still fail due to unpredictable human emotions such as greed, fear and panic.
What makes Yuuichi feat immersive is that he performed similar form of reasoning in a life-or-death scenario where it’s not just finical loss but being sold based on one’s value. Rather than predicting the number alone, Yuuichi predicted how people will behave under extreme pressure and incorporated those human emotions into his final calculation
This brings us back to point 1. Regardless what interpretation I gave if Yuuichi was narratively dumb than he could not perform this feat of this nature it will be impossible. Predicting the final score to the last digit while accounting for multiple teams, changing incentives and human behaviour requires a high level of cognitive processing, planning and analytical reasoning.
Point 3: underestimation:
Op states that Yuuichi “strategies and manipulation efforts often succeed because his opponents underestimate him rather than because he actually outsmarts them”.
To an extent, this is true. Throughout the series, one of Yuuichi's most common tactics is to deliberately downplay himself. He frequently presents himself as weak, desperate, emotional or irrational in order to encourage others to lower their guard. This was already discussed in Point 1, where I explained how Yuuichi often benefits from creating a false image of himself.
However, this becomes increasingly insufficient once the story enters Adult Tomodachi Game.
Adult Tomodachi Game is not simply more difficult because of the games themselves. The people participating are significantly more dangerous and experienced. The participants include professional swindlers, underworld figures, cult leaders and even hitmen. They understand the value of money, manipulation and deception, and are willing to betray, exploit and sacrifice others in order to win. Even Maria, one of the administrators, states that Yuuichi should have been participating in Adult Tomodachi Game from the very beginning.
Now for the sake of argument let’s say making someone underestimate you and believe what you are saying as the truth in life-or-death situations is not impressive manipulation feat.
The first Adult Tomodachi Game was Prison Game, and it is one of the best examples of why he only wins with underestimation argument becomes false.
I won’t go on a deep break down like how I did with all bet but I will give you a simple explanation,
So, Prison Game places twelve participants inside a prison and tasks them all with surviving a “20-year sentence” without breaking the set rules. There are two primary ways to win: either serve the full sentence collectively or complete the objective of stacking 120,000 dominoes together. Prisoners can also obtain a key that allows one of them to escape and get a massive payout, there is an exile system that enables prisoners to vote others out via the majority vote and leaving them with an enormous debt. All of these rules become important later.
What makes Prison Game different from normal TG games is that it is essentially Wolf Game combined with meta knowledge. The participants were deliberately selected so that many of them already knew each other to some extent. In Yuuichi's case, this was a significant disadvantage. Kei was there and already understood many of Yuuichi's methods and strategies due to his pervious lost in game 3, while Kuroki held a personal grudge against him and actively sought revenge due to him getting humiliated by Yuuichi multiple times in the story. As a result, Yuuichi's usual tactic of creating a false first impression becomes far more difficult to utilise effectively in this game.
Even with this, Yuuichi wins at the end while working with Kei as both obtained a key early in the game, but his main objective was never to escape and collect money. His real goal was to minimise the profits of Tomodachi Game itself. If he had escaped after obtaining the key, Tomodachi Game would have gotten the best outcome where they get the most money. Instead, Yuuichi systematically worked towards eliminating players through the exile system in order to prevent the TG from profiting.
Tsukino (an admin) state that this outcome was not the result of luck and that nobody had previously achieved what Yuuichi accomplished and was unheard of. It is important to note that the probability of Yuuichi and Kei obtaining the key was no greater than any other participant obtaining it, also sated by Tsukino. More importantly, it was never Yuuichi vs the opponent it was always Yuuichi vs the system his goal is way bigger than any other player wanting money he wants to destroy TG, that’s his main goal.
Not just in prison game his whole underestimation tactic gets harder from here on out. You have later in the story where it turns out that kokorogi is a traitor and betrays the group and for her master plan she uses Gaku Sabura (A former self defence official turn Pro Hitman who single handedly beat all of All Bet.) to destroy Yuuichi. You don’t use a hitman in your plan if you simply underestimate them. In her group there is also Yuuichi brother Shinji Taizen who knows all the tricks from Taizen Shiba and knows Yuuichi. Finally leading to the final game Makoto leaves Yuuuchi and joins kokorogi group. The arguments that he simply wins via underestimation than just outsmarting gets weaker the more the story progresses
Conclusion:
Yuuichi's poor academic performance is not the result of low intelligence but rather how the narrative presents his life. He grew up in severe poverty, worked multiple jobs simply to support himself and consistently prioritised survival over academics. A lack of interest in school and a lack of time to study do not equate to a lack of intellectual ability.
This becomes even clearer when comparing school to Tomodachi Game itself. In school, the stakes are zero. In Tomodachi Game, the stakes involve not only Yuuichi's life but also his friends aswell. It is in these life and death environments that Yuuichi brain switches on and consistently demonstrates advanced planning, manipulation, strategic reasoning and adaptability.
Regardless whatever Interpretation you think is correct what Yuuichi showed throughout the series does not support that Yuuichi lack the intellectual ability to compete with highly intelligent characters. Rather, his actions repeatedly demonstrate the opposite.
Proposed Change: Restore Yuuichi to "At Least Genius"
