The first two games in this game are abridged.

2:11 Akagi's hand
456m 333p 99p 789s/ 3p

2:27 Akagi's hand
34p 678s 345m 678m 88m/ 5p

Without any additional circumstantial points, these are both very cheap hands.

2:48 Yagi's hand
778888s 145p 267m E

Dora bonus points are whatever the “dora indicator” tile is +1. What Yagi has done is shoved both 7s tiles into the area where the Dora indicator tile will show up. The first 7s means that his quad of 8s will count for 4 points. When he calls the closed quad of 8s, he'll flip the second 7s, which in turn means his 8s quad is worth 8 points. He doesn't even need to work that hard after that. At bare minimum he's betting he'll win on a 9 point hand. 8-10 points pushes his potential pay out to 8k if he self draws, or 16k if someone deals in. If he's super lucky, that quad of 8s will even hand him his winning tile from a dead wall draw.

And because this wasn't in the episode proper notes: Kamicha is the guy whose turn is before yous (left); Shimocha is the guy whose turn is after yours (right). It's clear sunglasses-at-night is coordinating with hawaiian shirt guy somehow if he's managed to deal in three different triplets. As far fetched as it sounds, this whole affair is an elaborate set up to force Akagi to draw the 3p and deal into Yagi's hand. But who is Akagi to call the yakuza out for cheating when he started it?

5:37 Yagi's hand
11s 8888s 2455p 567m /5p

NOW he calls the quad. Keeping the 6p from his dead wall draw wouldn't do much to increase the value of his hand.

7:05 Akagi's hand
122444688m 35p 8s G

With a starting hand like this the fasted way to go for broke is a half- or full flush. An open hand full flush is worth 5 points on its own; closed hand is worth 6 points.

Akagi calls 222m and 678m in quick succession, then 888m around mid game.

After three calls, Yagi assumes that Akagi is faking them out out on that full flush. Akagi only has 4444m in his hand. If he calls the quad now, he's got nothing to work with! The Detective is correct in that a normal person would split the quad into 444m and use the last 4m for a sequence (234/345/456), but as we all know, Akagi is not normal.

Calling 4 times and waiting on a single tile is a very noob level strategy, since you're practically giving your whole hand away. With pretty much all of his tiles exposed, including the one he “accidentally” knocks over, the other three yakuza totally fall for his bluff. They think they have to hoard character (man) tiles so as not to deal into Akagi's hand. That makes anything in the other two suits safe to discard.

And that is the beauty of this episode! The bluff.

Akagi's winning hand
4444m 4s /222m 888m 678m /4s

• All simples = 1 point
• Dora 2

At 3 han 50 fu he gets 6.4k chips off Yagi! A well earned pay day.

If he didn't bluff and he actually got that full flush he'd have gotten 8k, but that's not what's important here. What's important is fucking with Yagi.

And he absolutely wipes the floor with Yagi in the subsequent 8 games with cheap hands.

25 seconds in and Ryuuzaki calls “uno” (riichi) again. That seems to be his primary strategy, which is also recommended to noobs to JP mahjong: Shut the fuck up and let the tiles come to you. This is technically a circumstantial hand. Ryuuzaki places a 1000 chip bet that the hand his have is good enough to win without any additional changes. The bet itself is a guaranteed 1 point hand; if he win, he gets access to two types of circumstantial points.

What's ballsy here is his discard pile. The primary assumption of any player defending against a riichi is player who just called “uno” has at least two tiles they can win on. Therefore, in order not to deal into that hand, one can assume anything the player tossed already is 100% safe due to the soft lock rule (furiten). The next assumption is more of a rule of thumb: anything that's +/-3 from the discard pile is reasonably “safe” to throw out.

We saw this in ep 1 when Nangou was struggling to decide whether to discard 2p or 5p on his first hand—which is why shitty hawaiian shirt guy's strat was so good.
Ryuuzaki had already tossed a 2p, and hawaiian shirt guy had the other two 2p, so when the last 2p finally showed up, it'd be in hawaiian shirt guy's interest to wait for it, as there's a good chance that when one tile is discarded, other copies of it will also be discarded in late game. What's driving Nangou and the Detective Yasuoka nuts here is that Akagi is throwing the +/-3 assumption to the wind. With both 1p and 6p in the discard pile, 234578p are all unsafe to discard.

1 minute in and we're in South 1.

Akagi does it again with a 4p. By the guesstimate of +/-3, 6p is risky to discard. YET AKAGI DOES IT ANYWAYS.

Akagi's current hand:

2333m 34567p 2345s

And he just drew 8p, which he wants to keep. He has three potential discards: 2m, 2s, 5s.

EITHER he can toss the 2m to make full use of the 333m triplet, and then wait on either 2s or 5s for the pair— which is what the detective would do — OR he can break up the 2345s block, and split the 333m block into 33m for the required pair and make 23m a two-sided wait for either 1m or 4m.

Tossing the 5s is risky because a) Ryuuzaki has a 6s in his discard pile, and b) the Dora indicator tile is (4s), making the Dora tile for this round 5s. A Dora is +1 bonus points on whatever your winning hand is. Conventional wisdom is to hoard those money tiles unless you realllllly have to let one go. It'd be a no brainer to assume that any of these three gangsters is waiting on a 5s to complete their hand. For someone as deep in the hole as Nangou, you want every last yen you can get off these bastards, so, from his perspective, discarding a money tile is like lighting a hundred dollar bill on fire. (In internet mahjong, discarding unusable Dora tiles is actually not uncommon. Nangou's making a mountain out of a small boulder, even though this random seventh grader has cleaned up most of his gambling debts.)

There are also 148m in the discard pile, so tossing the 2m would be very risky.

Also, let it be said that Akagi's hand at this point is garbage.

If he were able to win with his hand, and still tossed the 5s, it'd only be worth 1 point, (1 han, 30 fu) total, as it currently stands. If he kept the 5s AND he riichi'ed on this hand, he could have bumped the payment up to 3 points before taking other contingencies into account. If he was able to call his winning tile within 1 turn of calling riichi, or he had any of the hidden Dora tiles in his hand, he could theoretically bump this hand up a couple points further.

1 point pays out 300 chips from non-dealer/500 from dealer, or 1k on self draw. Payouts double* with every point up to 5 points.

*Note: ok not quite but I'm not getting into that. __________________

5 mins in is the most important lesson of the entire story.

Q: What would you discard?

1379s 677p 2348m S W/6s

A: either S or W.

Q: What would you discard?

13789s 677p 2348m /2s

A: 8m.

Q: What would you discard?

123789s 677p 234m /6s

A: 7p.

Q: What's the difference between the 7p and the 8m?

A: The 8m was discarded because it was a lone tile with nothing else in the hand to work with. The 7p is waiting on a third tile. And then there are red herrings.

Now let's review Ryuuzaki's discard pile

S R 6s 8m 9p 1m
4m 1s 4p

Anything in row 1 goes into the first category. No friends. Anything in row 2 is the second category. It's neighbor already has friends. And that last tile is the red herring.

With 6s in the first row, the possibilities of Ryuuzaki utilizing any tile +/-2 of 6s are pretty low, as he'd soft lock himself if he tried to course correct. The 1s in the second row confirms that he at least doesn't have 123s in his hand, so the odds of him using 45s are also pretty low.
ON THE OTHER HAND, he threw out both a 1m and a 4m close to each other, so the likelihood of having some part of the 234m sequence in his hand is pretty high. Conventional wisdom around riichi anticipates a two-sided wait, so having tossed a 1m indicates it's unlikely to be 123m in his hand, since 1's and 9's can only stack on one side.

Now let's rewind to 2:56

Ryuuzaki's winning hand was:

"34m" 678m 234p 345p 88p /2m

Technically you don't have to line your tiles up in any order, but it usually looks like this, which is why Ryuuzaki's “tell” was so damning.

__________

8:30 Enter the yakuza's representative player, Yagi Keiji.

Ryuuzaki calls a White dragon triplet on the first turn.

Meanwhile on Akagi's side:

33577m 468p 1468s R /R

As noted in the ep 1 write up, RRR is a worth 1 point on its own, (as is WhWhWh or GGG,) but Akagi tosses R on his first and second turns to screw Ryuuzaki over. Wind and Dragon tiles are almost always the first tiles to go, as they can only stack with themselves. By tossing two Red Dragons this early, it devalues the remaining two Red Dragons whenever they show up later.

Ryuuzaki's hand on turn 3:

1355p 1377s G R/ WhWhWh /1p

And on turn 4

11355p 1377s G / WhWhWh /R

And on turn 5

11355p 1377s G / WhWhWh /G

IF RYUUZAKI KEPT THE RR HE COULD HAVE GOTTEN THREE SMALL DRAGONS, WHICH HAS A GUARANTEED BASE VALUE OF 4 POINTS, LIKELY TO PUSH 5 POINTS. AKAGI JUST SCREWED RYUUZAKI OUT OF A BIG MONEY HAND.

The detective is somewhat incorrectly assuming that Ryuuzaki was going for broke calling that White Dragon triplet on the first move, and that Akagi was trying to screw him out of THREE BIG DRAGONS, the hand Akagi cheated his way into when the police showed up in ep 1. There is no way Akagi would have known where the Green dragons were. But now, after having called both the White and Green Dragon triplets, the Reds would have been extremely dangerous to get rid of later in the game.

In a later frame, we can see that Ryuuzaki has also called a triplet of 111p. After three calls, it's safe to assume that Ryuuzaki's ready to win.

• All Triplets = 2 points
• Dragon Triplet = 1 point each

I had to do some more math here, but his hand is worth at least 4 han 40 fu, which bumps it up to 5 points = 12k chips payout.

Meanwhile, back on Akagi's side of the table

233m 34p 678p 234s 22s

He's going for a tricolor identical sequences which is worth 2 points with a closed hand + All Simples. If he opens his hand, the tricolor devalues to 1 point.

• Closed hand tricolor identical sequences = 2 points
• All simples = 1 point
• Pinfu = 1 point

For a grand total of 4 points = 2k chips (3.9k if dealer; 7.7k for self draw). If these gangsters are using the “rounded up mangan” at 4 han 30 fu, or if Akagi manages to pull that final tile himself, a closed hand self draw pushes this hand up to 5 points = 8k chips.

He just needs to get rid of a 3m to set himself up for victory. AND HE BREAKS IT. Akagi puts the pedal to the metal, and beats Ryuuzaki to the finish line, throwing both tricolor and pinfu to the wind by opening his hand for a measly 2 point hand (All Simples + 1 Dora) with a 1k payout off the dealer!!

33m "34p" 678p 222s /345s /5p

34m 44566p 567s 888s /4p

He riichi's with a 6p. Conventional wisdom would have been to throw away the 5p and keep the 66p because upgrading the 4p triplet to a 4p quad. Quads allow you to flip another Dora tile for additional bonus points for everyone—and additional hidden bonus points (where applicable)— as well as make a dead wall draw. Winning on a dead wall draw is worth 1 point on its own merit. However, with the current formation, he is forcibly splitting the 4p triplet into 44p pair and 456p sequence, hypothetically devaluing his hand and closing the door on the possibility of using the quad if the opportunity presents itself. In the end the value of either discard does not affect the overall base value of the hand. What Yagi is getting caught up on is entirely circumstantial. In either formation, the final value of his hand is 2 han 40 fu = 1.3k chip payout off the dealer.

Yagi incorrectly assumes that Akagi doesn't know how quads work—which is going to bite him in the ass next episode. When you riichi, you are making a bet that your hand is good enough AS IS, and no additional changes can be made. HOWEVER, calling a closed quad while in riichi does NOT count as a change to the hand, nor does it change the status of your hand to open.

____________

16 minutes in

Yagi's hand:

345m 234p 345s 68s 88p

waiting on 7s.

As I said already, this is a less than ideal bet to make. There's only one tile that Yagi can win with in this scenario. A two-sided wait gives you more options.

• All simples = 1 point
• Pinfu = 1 point
• Riichi = 1 point

He's only looking at a 1k (2k if dealer, 3.9k if self draw) payout, which is pretty pathetic.

YAGI THROWS OUT HIS OWN WINNING TILE. HE JUST SOFT LOCKED HIMSELF OUT OF WINNING BY ANYTHING OTHER THAN SELF DRAW. HE JUST FLUSHED 3900 CHIPS DOWN THE TOILET.

Meanwhile, Akagi's hand:

566m 345p 45p 789s 99s /6p

And based on Yagi having discarded a 7m earlier, breaking the 566m into 56m waiting on 4m or 7m is the more ideal final tile formation to wait on. On the next turn he closes the door on that possibility. Several turns later

33445p 778899s 66s

• Twice double identical sequences = 3 points
• pinfu = 1 point
• self draw on a closed hand = 1 point

THIS IS A 5 POINT, 12K PAYOUT HAND AND HE SOFT LOCKS HIMSELF TOO!

Akagi Ep 1 for people who can't be bothered to read the rule book

The reason I keep hearing for why Akagi is less good than Kaiji is no one outside a very specific subset of weirdos actually knows how this game works. The psychological thriller breaks down if you can’t make sense of the pay structure.

Ok we're 4 minutes into the episode and Nangou is pretty far in the hole. I think he’s down to 24k points in his little drawer. For the sake of brevity, point sticks = poker chips. The round is South 4, 8th turn. We’re about half way through this hand. It is the last hand before we turn chips back into cash.

Nangou's hand is: 235p 123m 99s 123s RRR

Nangou is going to discard the 5p. He could win on either 1p or 4p, with 1p being ideal.

His hand is currently worth 2 guaranteed points. If he wins on 4p, this is all he gets.

• Dragon triplet RRR – 1 point
• Dora (3s) – 1 point each

• Tricolor matching sequences – 2 points
• Mixed all terminals + honors – 3 points

HOWEVER the yakuza across the table has already called “uno” (riichi), and he's previously discarded 2p, which means the safest option for Nangou's wallet is to fold, and discard 2p, as it is guaranteed to not deal into that guy’s hand.

MEANWHILE the guy to Nangou's right was waiting on the 2p or a Green dragon, so folding would have totally screwed Nangou over. Guy on the right is going for:

22p GG 666m SSS ???

• Table wind (South) = 1 point
• All triplets = 2 points
• Three Concealed Triplets (closed hand) = 3 points

Now we fast forward to Akagi's next hand. WhWh GG RR W 89p 2357m

IF PLAYED PROPERLY THIS COULD BE A POINT MAXIMUM HAND.

Three Big Dragons WhWhWh GGG RRR = 13 points + liability

Only a few point maximum hands come with a specialty condition called a liability payment. Three Big Dragons is one such hand. Anyone who contributes to this hand is liable for payment, not just the person who discards the final tile. Did you see the tiles getting turned sideways in Nangou's imagination? The sideways tiles are how you mark liability.

If Akagi draws his own winning tile, anyone who contributed to his hand pays the full 32k (48k if he's dealer), each. If Akagi calls the winning tile off someone else, the person who deals in pays 32k and anyone else who contributes pays an additional 16k each.

If Akagi plays this open hand, and all three of the yakuza somehow contribute to it, he could be looking at a 64k payout. If Akagi is sitting in the dealer's seat, and somehow all three yakuza contribute to his hand, he could be looking at 106k.

One of each dragon tile gets discarded, and Akagi doesn't call any of them them. Nangou's losing his fucking mind because he sees Akagi NOT capitalizing on his crazy good starting hand.

Now the second Red dragon gets discarded—if he doesn't call it NOW, the point maximum hand goes down the toilet. There are no more red dragon tiles left, and it's not like there are joker tiles to fix it.

Nangou’s next assumption is that Akagi is determined to play this hand closed; with his ability to form a Dragon triplet having gone up in smoke, his best bet for this hand is Seven Pairs, which is flat-rated at 1.6k payout (2.4k dealer).

Now we are rudely interrupted by the police, during which time… HE CHEATED!

WhWhWh GGG RRR 888p W

• Four concealed triplets = 13 points
• Three dragon triplets = 13 points
• (there's more here, but it doesn't matter)

This is a Double point maximum hand with liability. Whoever discards that final West tile is looking at 64k damage (106k if he's dealer).

NOW do you understand why the yakuza threatened to cut off his fingers if he tried that again? Imagine how much 1k chips is worth in irl money. Nangou is 3 million 1950's yen in debt to these gangsters. Every time the anime says “in today's money” during the washizu arc, they add another 0 to the figure. Today in that anime was like 20 years ago. If i ignore the lassage of time, and assume his 3 mil is 30 mil in 2000’s money, Nangou is ~189k USD up the creek.

EDIT: according to this calculator, 100 yen in 1955 is worth 668.05 yen in 2026. 3 million yen in 1955 = 20,041,500 yen in 2026. 100 yen in 2026 = 0.6293 USD, so Nangou's debt at today's exchange rate is 126,121.84 USD, which is slightly better than my back of envelope calculation above.

The average learner's Japanese text book does NOT give you enough to work with to actually pivot to Classical with an adequate level of understanding of grammar.

Transcribing this PDF 日本語文法の基礎 page 10, from left to right...

All the words in the universe can be divided into about 10 groups:

付属語 dependent or bound or 自立語 independent words.

Among dependents, words are split based on whether they 1. 活用する conjugate 助動詞 bound auxiliaries 2. or not 助詞 post positional particles.

Independent words are also split based on whether they conjugate or not.

Non-conjugating words which cannot become modifiers are split based on function. 3. Non-modifiers which can stand on their own are 感動詞 exclamations 4. while words which connect things are called 接続詞 conjunctions.

Non-conjugating words which can become modifiers split based on whether they 5. modify inflected words 副詞 adverbs 6. or uninflected words 連体詞 adnominal adjective​s. 7. Words which can serve as the subject 主語 of a sentence are 名詞 nouns.

Anything which conjugates can serve as a 述語 predicate.
8. 形容詞 Adjectives are straight forward enough. You know them as “い adjectives” or pure adjectives. 9. 形容動詞 nominal adjectives you may know them as “な adjectives”, but this is not the full extent of them. 10. 動詞 verbs are used to express actions, movements, or existence. The base form of a verb ends in an ウ sound.

Pure Adjectives 形動詞 and Nominal Adjectives 形容動詞

Adjectives all end in ~い but you may have noticed that there are a lot of adjectives that end in ~しい specifically, like 新しい. Stick a pin in that. It's an important distinction to note. In Classical, those are split into two separate conjugation tables.

Nominal Adjectives are weird because they fall into a category where they act like adjectives but appear to look like nouns. But then why does it back translate to “adjectival verb” you may ask. According to this article the reason they are considered part 動詞 is how you would conjugate one in a sentence. The Modern language smooths out some of the distinctions that exist in Classical. (Also according to the article, there are linguists who want to reclassify them as 形容名詞 “adjectival nouns” but this hasn't picked up yet.)

You'll have been introduced to nominal adjectives by them ending in な to describe other things. 元気な男の子. But have you ever tripped up on a と where you expected に in stead?

• 堂々と走り回る　
• 暗澹（あんたん）たるところ

Jisho.org describes these as “たる” adjectives. They are a leftover from Classical as well. Modern Na and Taru adjectives are the modern forms of Classical Nari and Tari adjectives respectively. Classical likes to slur letters together when they come before the verb あり (the verb “to be” used to be irregular. It's regular now).

• Shizuka (base) + ni + ari => shizuka n+ari
• Antan (base) + to + ari => antan t+ari

Everything you weren't taught about verbs and need to know before you open a Classical grammar reference.

Linguistics talk you didn't need but I'm giving you anyways.

A synthetic language is a language that is statistically characterized by a higher morpheme-to-word ratio. (Wikipedia).

Among these are Agglutinating, Fusional, and Polysynthetic language types. Polysynthetic are languages (eg. Indigeonous languages of North America) that string together large volumes of morphemes into a single unit. You can have a whole sentence worth of thought in what amounts to a single word. A fusional language involves an array of inflected morphemes, but there is a limit to how many of those morphemes you can use at a time. Most members of the Indo-European family are fusional. English is an oddball for a lot of reasons. At this point you could call it partially fusional since the only inflected ending we care about is third person singular “-s” vs everything else. Spanish is a better example of a fusional language. Japanese is an agglutinative language. It can glue together more morphemes than a fusional language but not nearly as hard core as a polysynthetic. In contrast, the Chinese family are Isolating languages since their morpheme to word ratio is nearly 1:1, and nothing inflects.

Verbs

Modern Japanese has 5 types of verbs: 五段活用、上（かみ）一段活用、下（しも）一段活用、カ行変格活用、サ行変格活用

A Five Step 五段 verb is what you already know as an “U” Verb. “U” verbs have a form ending in one of every vowel in the Japanese language.

A One Step 一段 verbs are what you already know as “Ru” Verbs. “Ru” verbs do not change their vowel stem no matter what form they are in. The Upper 上 indicates a stem vowel is -i- while the Lower 下 indicates a stem vowel of -e-.

The irregular 変格 verbs are home of one variety each, くる and する.

Japanese verbs conjugate into 6 forms, in this order.

• 未然形 irrealis form
• 連用形 continuative form
• 終止形 terminal form
• 連体形 attributive form
• 仮定形 conditional form
• 命令形 imperative form

These words may sound scary but you know enough kanji to know what they mean by now.

The irrealis form is for 未だ not yet. Things that haven't been completed. The “imperfect”. To this form, you can attach 助動詞 bound auxiliaries representing the potential れる -reru, passive れる -reru, causative せる -seru, negative ない -nai or ぬ -nu, and volitional う –(o)u.

The continuative is used for connecting 連 things. This is the form used for stacking compound verbs, for desiderative -tai たい or -tagaru たがる, situational -sou da そうだ, gerund -te て and even the perfect aspect -ta た. The polite register -masu ます also goes here because it was a stand alone honorific verb long ago, but now it isn't.

The terminal is the end 終止 of a sentence. There are a few modifiers you can tack on top of that too, such as hearsay -sou da そうだ, presumption -rashii らしい and expectation -beki べき. The Terminal form also doubles as the 基本形 Basic form of a verb.

The attributive is for making relative clauses and assumptions you da ようだ. (The Terminal and Attributive forms look identical in Modern Japanese. I have seen some texts refer to a combination 終止・連体形 Terminal-Attributive Form but this doesn't seem to have caught on either. In Classical they are more distinct.)

The conditional is for hypotheticals 仮定. Classical replaces this with the 已然形 realis form, already happened 已(すでに). They look the same; they just take different particles.

The imperative 命令 is for direct commands.

A Verb 動詞 conjugates 活用 into a form 形, and that form is used to hook up to a bound auxiliary 助動詞. And each of those bound auxiliaries can additionally conjugate into longer and longer strings.

And you already have most of the conjugation patterns in your head! They just look scary when they're spelled out with big words.

れる conjugates the same way any verb with an -e stem does. ない conjugates like an い adjective. たがる conjugates like a 5 step verb. If you end a verb with “let's” ~よう, you can't tack anything else on it. And then some of them are just special cases. です is weird. It does its own thing.

Do not be afraid of fancy terminology. I swear this isn't scary at all.

Example short cut

Think of it like this...

買う【五段】 買わない・買おう 買いたい・買って 買う。 買うこと 買えば 買え！

起きる【上一段】 起きない・起きよう 置きたい・起きて 起きる。 起きること 起きれば 起きろ！起きよ！

集める【下一段】 集めない・集めよう 集めたい・集めて 集める。 集めること 集めれば 集めろ！集めよ！

来る【カ行変格】 こない・こよう きたい・きて くる くること くれば こい

する【サ行変格】 しない・せぬ・される したい・して する。 すること すれば しろ・せよ

Example sentence

使わせられなければ、入院されなかったろう。 Tsukawaserarenakereba, nyuuin sarenakattarou.

If [I] had not been made to use [it], perhaps [I] would not have been hospitalized.

The first verb has the 基本形 basic form 使う tsukau, “to use”. Because it ends in う u, we can assume it is a 五段 five step conjugation pattern. After the verb stem 語幹 is “wa” indicating the verb is in the 未然形 irrealis form. The bound auxiliary 助動詞 after that is -se–, indicating the causative. This too is in irrealis. Causative -seru conjugates like a Lower One Step verb. The bound auxiliary after that is -rare– and it is still in the irrealis form. Passive -reru also conjugates like a Lower One Step verb. After that is -nakere– which is the negative -nai in the hypothetical form 仮定形 followed by the 助詞 particle ば -ba indicating a conditional.

The second verb is a compound Noun “hospitalization” + する suru, “to do”. Suru is an irregular verb, so its verb stem is just s-. It is in the irrealis form to attach the passive -re- again. Passive -reru also conjugates like a Lower One Step verb to take the negative -nai in a compound form. -Nai conjugates like an adjective. It is in the connective form 連用形 because the next part is an allision of なく naku + the verb “to be” aru ある. -aru is also in the connective form to facilitate the perfect aspect particle ta た. -Ta uses the same allided conjugation pattern that gerund te て does, which is why the connective stem -i- disappears. -ta is in the terminal form 終止形 because the final auxiliary is also an allision of だろう darou. Darou is comprised of the conclusive particle だ da in the irrealis form ending in the conjectural -u う.

In summary:

Tsukaw-ase-rare-nakere-ba, nyuuin s-are-nak-a-tta-rou.

Not so scary anymore?

Additional References

Everything you ever needed to know about conjugation

Bound auxilliaries

Particles

Source: 高等学校国語（国語総合古典）漢文入門（訓読の基礎）

The examples listed are all printed vertically. I cannot flip them and maintain both margins of okurigana 送り仮名 so you're just going to have to open the pdf in another tab to see the full thing.

書き下し文 kakioroshi bun How to write a proper Classical Japanese Translation based on these annotations.

1. Orient your text so it's vertical.
2. Make your okurigana notations, with particles and verb conjugations in the right margin, and kaeriten in the left margin. By convention, write everything in katakana unless a character represents a joshi or jodoushi; those can be hiragana.
3. Rewrite your sentence in the correct order.
4. Remove all the "unpronounceable".
5. Double check the "double pronounced" particles have their corresponding adverb + jodoushi circumflex. the adverb should remain in kanji.
6. Rewrite whatever is outstanding in katakana as hiragana.

Introductory example

寧為鶏口無為牛後

Quick correction: 鶏 a JP variant character. Let’s swap in the right “chicken”.

寧為雞口無為牛後 ning4 wei2 ji1 kou3 wu2 wei2 niu2 hou4

It is preferable to become the chicken’s mouth; do not become the cow’s behind. 《戰國策·韓策一》Strategies of the Warring states

Then the example starts adding in okurigana in the margins

寧ロ為ルトモ雞口ト無カレ為ル牛後ト

And the reordering okurigana marks in the other margin.

寧為二雞口一、無ㇾ為二牛後一

The result of this produce the following kakioroshi 書き下ろし

= 寧ろ雞口と為るとも牛後と為る無かれ むしろけいこうとなるともぎゅうごとなるなかれ

Better to be the beak of a rooster than the rump of a bull.

ALSO IN JUKUGO FORM AS 鶏口牛後

better to be the leader of a small group than the subordinate in a large one.

So far, so good, right? Alright, next example.

返り点 kaeriten Return marks

The article lists 5 varieties. 1. ㇾ点 2. 一・二点 3. 上・中・下点 (other variations include 甲・乙・丙 and 天・地・人) 4. Combination 一レor 上レ点 5. ー点　(as in 長音符 not 漢数字)

ㇾ点 means swap with the character directly after.

読書 不好学

Again I need to swap in the proper Traditional Chinese versions of JP variant characters.

讀書 du4 shu1 不好學 bu4 hao3 xue2

讀ㇾ書 becomes 書読 ＝ 書ヲ読ム しょをよむ　

[I] read a document. (This is too common a phrase to track down)

不ㇾ好ㇾ學　becomes 學好不 ＝ 学ヲ好マず がくをこのまず

Without the love of learning. (《論語・陽貨篇》Analects of Confucius Book 17 Yang Huo)

一・二点 when you find a 二, skip it, and keep going until you find a 一, then double back to the character marked 二.

借虎威 jie4 hu3 wei1

懸羊頭売狗肉 xuan2 yang2 tou2 mai4 gou3 rou4

Swapping Japanese variant characters for Traditional Chinese ones... I can't render the okurigana at their proper size. Bear with me while try to use color instead.

借二虎威一 懸二羊頭一賣二狗肉一

借二虎威一 becomes 虎威借 =虎ノ威ヲ借ル　 とらのいをかる

[To] borrow the tiger's majesty. Possibly also from《戰國策·韓策一》Strategies of the Warring states

懸二羊頭一賣二狗肉一 becomes 羊頭懸狗肉賣

=羊頭ヲ懸ケテ、狗肉ヲ賣ル　 ようとうをかけて、くにくをうる

[To] put up a sheep's head and sells dog meat. Possibly from 五燈會元 or 續傳燈錄 volume 31

Note: Other sources say this idiom may use 掲げる instead of 懸ける.

ALSO IN JUKUGO FORM AS 羊頭狗肉

deceptive advertisement, bait and switch, cry wine and sell vinegar.

上・中・下点 are the next size up from 一・二点 so you double back in larger segments. Skip 下 and keep going until you find 上, then double back to 中 if there is one, and then finally to 下.

It appears 下 is usually attached to a main verb where a Chinese sentence is SVO so the main verb is significantly higher than where you would expect for a Japanese sentence.

有能為狗盗者 you3 neng2 wei2 gou3 dao4 zhe3 欲上青天覧日月 yu4 shang4 qing1tian1 lan3 ri4 yue4

need to make another desimplification...

有下能為二狗盗一者上 欲下上二青天一覽中日月上

有下能為二狗盗一者上 becomes 能狗盗為者有 = 能ク狗盗ヲ為ス者有リ よくくどうをなすものあり

There is a person who is a skilled cat burglar. From 雞鳴狗盜 by 孟嘗君 Lord Mengchang of Qi

欲下上二青天一覽中日月上 becomes 青天上日月覧欲 = 青天ニ上ガリテ日月ヲ覧ムト欲ス せいてんにあがりてじつげつをみむとほっす

I want to ascend in the blue sky and take a good look at the sun and moon. From《宣州謝脁楼餞別校書叔云》by Li Bai 李白. There is an alternate version of this line as well.

Combination 一レor 上レ点 swap with next first, then double back.

従心所欲 cong2 xin1 suo3 yu4

to do as one pleases

勿以悪小為之 wu4 yi3 e3 xiao3 wei2 zhi1

Yet more substitutions...

從二心所一ㇾ欲

Becomes 從二心欲所一 Becomes 心欲所從 = 心ノ欲スル所ニ從フ こころのよくするところにしたがふ

[To] follow the place thing which the heart desires

勿下以二惡小一為上ㇾ之

Becomes 勿下以二惡小一之為上

Becomes 惡小以之為勿 = 悪ノ小ナルヲ以テ之ヲ為スコト勿カレ あくをしょうなるをもってこれをなすことなかれ

Do not do evil, no matter how small Allegedly a partial quote from 三國志 Record of Three Kingdoms

ー点 Long vowel mark links two characters together as a jukugo. Keep with next.Do not separate.

平定海内 ping2ding4 hai3nei4

And another substitution...

平二ー定海內一 Becomes 海內平定 =海内ヲ平定ス かいだいをへいていす

[To] conquer the whole country from 《秦楚之際月表》 by Sima Qian 司馬遷

置き字 okiji Unpronounced characters

Okiji are characters fill the responsibilities of grammatical case and particles, conjunctions, adverbs, verb tense and mood, emphasis, etc. Because their use case will be reflected in the inflected okurigana in the right margin, they do not need to be “pronounced” when read aloud.

Three groups of grammatical particles are listed. 1. 於・于・乎 2. 而 3. 焉・矣

於・于・乎 general purpose locative preposition.

These are all effectively に. Edwin Pulleyblank's Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar says that 于 yu2 is closer to the coverb “to go” but eventually 於 yu2 and 于 yu2 overlapped to the point where they became identical. 乎 hu1 is also a locative but it has a different set of uses as a sentence final particle, closer to や (?) or かな (!).

墜於水 zhui4 yu2 shui3 生乎吾前 sheng1 hu1 wu2 qian2

墜二於水一 becomes 於水墜 = 水ニ 墜ツ みずにおつ

[His sword] fell in the water. From 呂氏春秋 Master Lü's Spring and Autumn Annals

生二乎吾前一 becomes 乎吾前生 =吾ガ前ニ 生マル わがまえにうまる

[He] was born before me. From “Master spoke”《師說》 by 韓愈 Han Yu

而 general purpose conjunction

而 Er2 connects two clauses at the verb. You can just scribble in て after the first verb in most cases.

伏而喜 fu2 er2 xi3

心不在焉視而不見 xin1 bu4 zai4 yan1 shi4 er2 bu4 jian4

伏而喜 =伏シテ喜ブ

[They all] bowed down and rejoiced. From 《朝三暮四》

心不ㇾ在ㇾ焉視而不ㇾ見

Becomes 心焉在不視而見不 ＝心焉在ラざレバ、視レドモ見エず

When the mind is not present, we look without seeing. From the Book of Rights 禮記 Great Learning《大學》

ALSO AS A JUKUGO 心不在焉 “Absent-minded”, “preoccupied”

焉・矣・兮

Now this is where I start calling bullshit. Slide 9 wants me to assume that 焉 and 矣 are emphatic particles. This is naïve at best.

焉 yan1 = 於 yu2 +之 zhi1 where 之 is an object pronoun. This guide makes it seem as though 之 is equivalent to a possessive particle but from what I read in class, 8 times out of 10, it's an object pronoun.

矣 yi3 is perfect aspect. You can pencil in ～けり even though the example sentences on slide 7 don't use it that way.

兮 xi1 I cannot find in Pulleyblank, but mdbg.net says it's an old particle similar to modern 啊. I'd assume it's functionally the same as sentence terminal よ or わ

Everything after this on the pdf is basically a hot mess.

三人行必有我師焉 san1 ren2 xing2 bi4 you3 wo3 shi1 yan1

you have something to learn from everyone From the Analects of Confucius Book 7《論語·述而》

三人行必有二我師一焉 Becomes 三人行必我師有 = 三人行ヘバ、必ズ我ガ師有リ

When the three [of us] walk, they shall surely be my teachers

I don't love this translation because it ignores the entire use case for 焉 yan1. In modern Chinese, 焉 means “where” or “how. In classical, it is a contraction of the locative yu2 於 and the object pronoun 之 zhi1. To fix it, I would add “among them” to the tail end of the sentence.

朝聞道夕死可矣 chao2 wen2 dao4, xi1 si3 ke3 yi3

If a man in the morning hear the right way, he may die in the evening without regret. From the Analects of Confucius Book 4 verse 8 《論語・里仁》

I don't love this translation either. Pulleyblank says that 矣 yi3 indicate a verb has perfect aspect, and weblio.jp says it's merely an emphatic particle. English usually represents a perfect aspect with either a past tense verb, but the conditional structure does not allow for 死 to be past tense as it has not happened yet.

朝聞ㇾ道夕死可矣 Becomes 朝道聞夕死可矣 =朝ニ道ヲ聞カバ、夕ニ死ストモ可ナリ

When [someone] listens to the [correct] path in the morning, in the evening death has been permitted.

I don't love this either, but at least the 矣 yi3 is compensated for.

再読文字 saidoku moji Characters read twice.

Being pronounced twice is really just a Japanese problem. If you plug in an English adverb you don't need to deal with this nonsense.

• 未 wei4 never, not yet
• 将 jiang1 future aspect
• 且 qie3 moreover
• 當 dang1 exactly as
• 應 ying4 ought
• 須 xu1 must
• 宜 yi2 should, proper
• 猶 you2 still, yet, as if
• 蓋 gai4 probably, for [reason]

These are all characters which would require both an adverb and an auxiliary verb to be represented properly in Japanese. First you read them as the adverb, then you tack the proper auxiliary onto the verb at the end of the clause. The okurigana for the adverb will be on the right side margin, while the jodoushi will be on the bottom left of the same character.

This is such a pain of an exercise I'm not even going to bother with the kaeriten in the write up.

未知生 = 未だ生ヲ知ラず

老將至 = 老イテ将に至ラントす

且飲之 = 且に之ヲ飲マントす

及時當勉励 = 時ニ及ンデ当に勉励スべし

應知故郷事 = 応に故郷ノ事ヲ知ルべし

須盡酔 = 須らく酔ヒヲ尽クスべし

宜為王 = 宜しく王為ルべし

過猶不及 = 過ギラルハ猶ほ及バザルガごとし

蓋反其本 = 蓋ぞ其ノ本ニ反ラざる

Particles to render in Hiragana during Kakioroshi

助詞 Joshi

• 之 zhi1 sometimes it's possessive, but like 80% of the time it's object pronoun
• 自 zi4・従 cong2 "to follow", from
• 與 yu3 is either 也乎 or "to accompany"
• 者 zhe3 = は is super oversimplifying it. This marks subject of a verb. He who verbs.
• 也 ye3 = predicate. in most cases it's not なり.
• 耶 ye2 = (?)
• 邪 ye2 = (?) but it's also not to be confused with xie2 evil
• 爾 er3 = thus, except when it's the pronoun "you"
• 已 yi3 = already, or functionally "this is new knowledge for the speaker"
• 耳 er3 = 而 + 已
• 矣 yi3 = perfect aspect
• 乎 hu1, 哉 zai1, 夫 fu2 = (?) or (!) in terminal position only!
• (夫 fu2 = demonstrative pronoun, in initial position it also introduces a topic with a wider scope than 者 zhe3) (edited)

助動詞 Jodoushi

• 不 bu4 is ず but you can just cut to the chase and use ない
• 見 jian4 speaker is the patient of a passive verb.
• 被 bei4 "receive, undergo, suffer" is used more in modern Chinese to indicate a passive
• 可 ke3 it's sometimes べし but it's actually a stand alone verb for "permit" leading to its modern usage of "can/may"
• 如 ru2 ごとし is fine as a stand alone. gets more flavor with a friend. (不如 bu4 ru2 not as good as, 何如 he2 ru2 like what?, 莫如 mo4 ru2 nothing else is like it.)
• 若 ruo4 i don't think it's so much ごとし as it is 合わせる
• 也 ye3 see above. It has some more uses I'm not listing.
• 為 wei2 and wei4 are different. wei2 is a verb to do. wei4 introduces a cause.
• 使 shi3 "send, employ" , 教 jiao1 "teach" idk why this is here, 令 ling4 "order", 遣 quan2 "dispatch". Other than jiao1, all of these are causative or “suppose if”.

In conclusion: the moment you actually look at Classical Chinese as Chinese instead of weirdly rendered Japanese code, all this shit falls apart.

I'm just thinking about this outline of rules and I'm like, this whole thing falls apart if I gave you my actual chinese homework. 道可道非常道 should be 道は道にあるべかれど常なる道あらず。 but the intermediate steps to get there are wholly unfacilitated by the above processes.

These two areas are being grouped together as they are both in “Space” which is a totally separate area from the first 9 areas on “The Surface”.

Rainbow Moon

Gimmick: Wide stages. Some of these might genuinely be easier in couch co-op.

Unlockables: Devilon, Devi-chack'n costume, ??? miniroon costume.

Normal

1. Aim high and shoot up the diagonals to remove the bubbles on the ceiling.
2. Remove the first row of blanks off the rocks. Then aim strategically so that the blanks link up with the matching color Chack'n.
3. Beeline those power ups.
4. There is no room for error. Clear off the yellow column directly below the Chack'ns. Then drop a bomb, and shoot it in the crevice directly under the Chack'ns. The ones you'll need to aim for are usually the ones where there was not a bomb hanging down. If you miss any one of these shots, restart the level.
5. Brute force works fine.
6. Time every single shot. There are only change bubbles here.
7. The pattern is along the diagonal. Try to cut off as much of the first triangle as you can to get to the single yellow bubble holding it up at the far left. Brute force your way through the other triangle. Be careful where you throw your yellows and purples. Only the left triangle has yellow, and only the right triangle has purple.
8. [COME BACK TO THIS]
9. TIP: do this one with the long pointer first. The stage drops too fast to really note any particular ricochet points.
10. Clear out enough of the center peak to make your character stop panicking. Then start chipping away at the blanks on the far edges until you can dislodge the cluster from the ceiling.
11. Very patiently dislodge all the chack'ns off the bottom row. Then brute force your way through the change bubbles until you can get close enough to do the same with the chack'ns on the ceiling.
12. Beeline the blasters. If you can get a clean shot at the ceiling with one that's dropped off at 3 and 9 o'clock, take it, but be aware that it won't clear the whole stage.
13. [COME BACK TO THIS]
14. Aim carefully and drop off the ghosts where you can.
15. 🌶 Aim diagonally to drop the three chack'ns on the right. If you can manage to drop the bomb, awesome. Brute force your way through the blank bubbles to get rid of the supports. Use the bomb to get through the supports if needed and continue shooting until you get through to the chack'ns on the top left. Bomb the two chack'ns on the top right. [MAY NEED REVISION]

EX

1. [COME BACK TO THESE
2. ggg
3. ggg
4. 444
5. ggg
6. ggg
7. ggg
8. 555
9. 555
10. LATER]

Rainbow Colony

Gimmick: Not only are all of these wide stages, they are also extremely difficult. Definitely bring a couch co-op friend.

1. Drop the first bomb directly above you. Use it to excavate the first bomb on the far right. Repeat with the second bomb. You should now be close enough to the star bubble to dig it out. Hit it. This might drop the last bomb in the top left. Clean up whatever remains.
2. Be mindful of the change bubbles to drop as many bombs as you can and throw them at the clusters of supports.
3. You've seen this level before. Drop the paint bubbles and use them to connect lower clusters to horizontal stripes in rows above.
4. [COME
5. BACK
6. TO THESE
7. LATER]
8. 🌶 Use the paint line change bubbles in the bottom row to clear out the first row and then brute force your way to the top.
9. [COME BACK TO THESE
10. GGG
11. Brute force works fine.
12. GGG
13. Focus on clearing as much as you can with matching the paint bubbles. This stage sinks fast. Be mindful of stragglers. You might be able to clear the anchors if a paint bubble drops.
14. GGG
15. GGG
16. GGG
17. GGG
18. GGG
19. GGG
20. LATER]

Back to top

Secret Lab

Gimmick: nothing new you haven't seen before.

Unlockables: Katze (VS mode), ??? Chack’n costume, Jellyfish Miniroon costume

Normal

1. Dig as fast as you can to any bomb on the top row. The cascading explosion will clear the stage.
2. TIP play this level with the long pointer first. This is all trick shots. For the Chack’n on the upper right, aim just above the stripe on the upper part of the frame. For the Chack’n on the upper left, aim for the top corner of the control panel on the bottom part of the right frame. For the middle chack’n, aim a little above the middle stripe on the right side of the frame, about where it intersects with the school of fish.
3. Careful timing and brute force.
4. Whatever works as long as the blasters are facing internally. Clean up the stragglers as need be.
5. Drop the lower paint bubble on the right to get the chain of pink time + bubbles. Repeat on the left to minimize the number of time – bubbles you pick up when clearing the rock. Drop either of the paint bubbles up top when it is yellow and absorb the bare minimum of time – bubbles clearing off the rock.
6. Brute force works fine.
7. Hit the paint line bubbles then brute force your way to the top until you can hit the other pair of paint line bubbles to drop everything below.
8. TIP play this with the long pointer first. This one is pretty straight forward except for one final ricochet off the left wall.
9. Throw any two colors straight up at the star bubbles. I recommend NOT pink. What remains is a lattice structure. Aim as high as you can to drop off what remains.
10. Time your shots with the change bubbles to drop the planks. Once you get to the 4th row of planks, it’s smooth sailing.
11. Hit the blasters in the bottom row to open a channel toward the blasters near the middle. Now hit a guide bubble. With the long pointer, line up the blaster to point toward the bombs on the ceiling. If any one of these blasters misfires, restart the stage.
12. Hit the Pink paint bubble on the far left with a Pink bubble to pop the pink chain. Hit the Yellow bubble on the left with a Yellow bubble to pop the yellow chain. Hit the Pink paint bubble directly above the center with NOT PINK then the blue paint bubbles in the center and far right with NOT BLUE. Be careful NOT to hit the far right pink paint bubble. Pop the blue chain.
13. Brute force works fine.
14. Brute force works pretty well. Hut the paint line bubbles as they appear.
15. Aim carefully and drop the ghosts.

EX

1. Drop the star bubble. Dig out one bubble in the mass on the left so that when you shoot the star bubble it hits 4 colors. There should be two stragglers on the ceiling. Finish these off manually.
2. TIP: Try this level with the long pointer first. Use the paint bubbles to hit the Time + bubbles on the far left. Ricochet additional bubbles off the left wall slightly below the band on the frame to hit Green Chack'n. Clear out some more bubbles and then shoot 1 bubble height below the band on the left frame to hit the Yellow Chack'n. Upper Blue Chack'n should now be available to pop. Ricochet that off the ceiling and down. Lower Blue Chack'n should be available to hit from the left side. Finally, you should have enough time left in the timer to pop the Pink Chack'n without incurring a time penalty. Don't hit the paint bubble when it is pink, blue, or purple.
3. 🌶️Dig up the side toward the Star bubble. If you can drop it, awesome. In the more likely scenario where you cannot, just hit it as soon as you can and try to brute force your way through the rest as quickly as you can.
4. 🌶️Hit as many change bubbles as you can to stabilize them before hitting the paint bubbles. Once you can no longer reach paint bubbles, use careful timing to eliminate as many as you can as you dig for the other paint bubbles.
5. Pop the Blue, Green, Purple that make up the arrow's fletching. Drop the paint line bubble. Hit the guide bubble. Shoot the paint line bubble at the very end of the arrow so it paints the line above the bomb. Hit the star bubble with the matching color to drop the bomb. Shoot the bomb in the crevice of the third rock from the ceiling to free the last three Chack'ns.
6. Clean off the supports as quickly as possible.
7. 🌶️ Drop the blaster at 2 and 8 o'clock. Dig through at least 4 rows on a diagonal that will reach a bomb. Shoot the blaster to hit the bomb. This will cascade detonate all the bombs and drop the star bubble. Shoot the star bubble so it hits at least 3 colors. Manually clean up what remains.
8. TIP play this level with the long pointer first. To hit Green Chack'n, align the pointer with the right edge of oval containing the stage name. To hit Pink Chack'n, align the pointer with the blue pipe in the center of the background image. To hit the Blue Chack'n, align the pointer with the band holding up the control panel on right side of the frame. Hold this position to hit Orange Chack'n. Alternatively, look for the dent in the pipe on the right side of the frame about half way between the control panel and the band above it. To hit the Yellow Chack'n, aim for the center of the red bracket pipe on the left side.
9. 🌶️ Brute force, and be careful not to hit the ghosts. If you can drop the blasters, awesome. In the more likely scenario that you cannot, just make sure to hit them at 3 and 9 o'clock position.
10. 🌶️ [COME BACK TO THIS]

Back to top

Wizard's Cave

Gimmick: Trick shots, change bubbles. GENERAL TIP: play all of these levels with the long pointer until you can get acclimated to the angles required for all these ricochet shots.

Unlockables: Bonner (VS Mode), Wizard Chack’n costume, ??? Miniroon costume.

Normal

1. Bounce stuff off the walls and try not to make extra work for yourself.
2. Hit either of the blasters when they are pointed inward so you can fast track exploding the two bombs at the top.
3. Point toward the wall. Try to drop a bomb, then shoot it to release the bubble on the ceiling. Repeat. If you’re lucky you won’t need to clean up any bubbles manually after.
4. Drop the star bubble. Shoot it somewhere where it will hit 3 colors at once. The resulting cascade should leave you with 4 last clusters to pop on the ceiling.
5. Shoot carefully to get around the ghosts and pop the bubbles hanging from the ceiling.
6. Aim for the intersections and time your shots to dig to the ceiling.
7. Break the bomb. Brute force to the ceiling. If you can drop the blaster at 3 and 9 o’clock, do so, and shoot it at the ceiling. Finish off what remains.
8. Time your shots to match the change bubbles to the existing normal bubbles to clear the supports quickly.
9. Beeline the paint bubbles first, paint line bubbles second to clear the supports.
10. Drop the Blue, Yellow and Pink paint bubbles to clear out the lower supports. If you can drop the Orange and Purple paint bubbles too, use them. If not, just clean out the middle manually and pop the paint bubbles with their matching colors when you have a clear shot.
11. Carefully drop the first row of ghosts. Once they’re down, go for the second. You should not need to drop the third. There’s enough space to free the Chack’ns now if you continue to aim carefully.
12. [COME BACK TO THIS]
13. Aim for the intersections and don’t hit the Time – bubbles to drop or pop the chack’ns.
14. Prioritize dropping whichever plank is lowest. Once it is gone, focus on removing the support it was attached to.
15. Drop the star bubble. Shoot it at an intersection to remove at least 3 colors. Clean up the remains manually.

EX

[GET BACK TO THESE LATER]

1. Ggg
2. Ggg
3. Ggg
4. Ggg
5. Ggg
6. Ggg
7. Ggg
8. Ggg
9. Ggg
10. Ggg

Back to top

Rainbow Forest

Gimmick: Timers on everything. Time +, Time – bubbles. Hit the Time + bubbles when you see them. If the bubbles drop off a larger cluster, the additional 10 seconds are not added to the timer. The same is true for the Time – bubbles.

Unlockables: Hootwit (VS mode), Hunter Chack'n costume, ??? Miniroon costume.

Normal

1. Hit the Time + bubbles. Clean off the supports to hit the Chack'ns on the ceiling.
2. Hit the Time + bubbles.
3. Aim high to the intersections where a lone bubble is holding up a whole cluster. Brute force your way to the top.
4. Shoot the Time – bubbles off the supports enough to shoot at the Chack'ns.
5. Carefully shoot the normal bubbles off the supports without hitting the Time – bubbles. There is enough time in the timer for you to mess up once.
6. More careful shooting. Hit the Time + bubbles immediately within reach, then start picking off clusters near the intersections.
7. Clear off the supports and the change bubbles strung from the ceiling. This one is relatively straight forward, just obnoxious with the time limit.
8. Break through the blanks on the left to hit every time + bubble you can before picking off the right side.
9. Pick off one blue paint bubble. Aim it to ricochet off the wall and hit approximately where the one normal pink bubble is above the Chack'n. Pick off the other blue paint bubble and destroy the support. Ricochet off the other wall to the same spot. Now free Chack'n with a normal pink bubble. If you have done this incorrectly, you can use the pink paint bubbles to fix your error. This stage is surprisingly forgiving in that regard. Freeing chack'n will NOT count if you hit too many Time – bubbles in the process. You must have time left in the timer to clear the stage. TIP: try this stage with the long pointer first before 3 staring it.
10. Hit the guide bubble. Then clear the rest of the stage. You shouldn't need the Time + bubbles, as you ought to be able to clear the whole level before the guide runs out.
11. There is just barely enough time in the timer to mess up once. Shoot diagonally up the sides enough to ricochet behind the row of pink Time – bubbles and free the Chack'ns.
12. Clear out enough of the first row of chack'ns to shoot diagonally through the change bubbles and hit the two Time + bubbles. Then brute force your way to the top.
13. Carefully hit whatever Time + bubbles you can in the first two rows. Then clear out the Chack'ns up top without hitting the Time – bubbles hanging off the third horizontal support. When you can no longer get around it, time your hits so the change bubbles are pink and drop off the Time – bubbles until you can get that last Chack'n in the upper left.
14. Aim extremely carefully. Use green or yellow to go up the right side. Clean the right side out entirely if you can. On the left side, use as much orange as you can. You can use green for the first two rows then use orange ONLY for the next four rows, until it is safe to switch back to also using yellow. If you clear off the right side first, you can use it to store all your unnecessary yellow bubbles.
15. Take your time, and do NOT hit the Time – bubbles. You can drop the paint bubbles for use in the last third of the level.

EX

1. Beeline the paint bubbles. Some of them require digging out around them before you can line up the shot.
2. Hit the first guide bubble. Hit all the paint line bubbles with blue bubbles to clean out the plank blocks. Hit the second guide bubble. Make sure you hit the paint line bubble on the ceiling before you finish off the top left.
3. Get the paint bubbles to do as much work for you as you can make them to clear off supports quickly.
4. Clear the planks by shooting a blaster at 3 and 9 o’clock directly under the top left peak. Use whatever blasters you have left after that to clear as many of the change bubbles as you can to get to the chack’ns in the corners.
5. Build a bridge off the side to get to the Chack'n. Starting with the lower Chack'n, shoot a bubble in the single block niche below the background mushroom (three from the bottom), Blue-Pink-Blue-Pink-Pink-Pink Chack'n. Repeat off the ceiling starting from 2 blocks right from directly above Blue Chack'n (5 from the left). Pink-Blue-Pink-Blue-Blue-Blue Chack'n.
   
6. Hit the two paint change bubbles directly above your pointer. Move your pointer to about 70 degrees left and right to ricochet a bubble off the wall and hit the paint line bubbles. With the first two supports now mostly cleared, hit the paint change bubbles most directly in reach. Also hit the paint change line bubbles near the center top. Aim towards the top of the mushroom cap on the left and the toadstool growing out of the ceiling frame on the right to ricochet onto the remaining paint change bubbles on the back of the second row of supports. Aim for the pink toadstool on the left and the yellow toadstool on the right to ricochet off the wall toward the final paint line change bubbles on the ceiling. Clean off the remaining supports manually.
7. Aim directly up (hit up on the D-pad) to buy all the time you can with the Time + bubbles. Then work your way up the blue and green diagonals.
8. Your character will spend most of this level panicking. Aim up to the right between the ghosts until you can hit the bomb on the top right ceiling. Work carefully off the wall toward the center bomb. There is a very low chance the star bubble will not be caught in the explosion. Continue working your way left across the ceiling until you hit the top left bomb.
9. Do what you want with the first two blasters. Shoot directly up the far left opening until you can get to the blaster at the top left. Hit that at 3 and 9 o’clock. Following the lattice pattern, carve your way through the middle until you can hit the top right blaster at 3 and 9 o’clock. Keep digging until you can hit the center blaster.
10. Shoot diagonally toward the yellow chack’n with a Time + bubble, and toward the pink chacn’n with a time + bubble until you have the walls cleared. Don’t hit the green and blue chack’ns; let them drop. Hit the green and blue time + bubbles carefully (3 of each). Once you have hit every time + bubble on the board you should be able to get the pink and yellow without suffering a time penalty.

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Rainbow Castle

Gimmick: Barron von Blubba (ghosts)

Unlockables: Boris (VS mode), Miniroon Knight costume, King Chack'n costume

Normal

1. Aim for the bubbles holding the planks up to drop the Chack'ns.
2. Beeline the paint line bubbles.
3. Hit the bubbles connecting the supports, only.
4. Aim carefully to hit the bubbles connecting the supports and drop the ghosts until you can pop the purple and yellow ones on the ceiling.
5. Aim directly at the lowest bomb on the Left. It will cascade explode all the other bombs and clear the level.
6. Brute force is fine.
7. Carefully drop and aim each bomb at the ghosts. If you have any left over, aim them straight up to deal with the triangular cluster of bubbles you will need to take care of manually.
8. Drop the paint bubbles in the lower corners and shoot them straight up at the cluster in the center. Keep digging until you hit the paint bubbles in the center. Finish off the top of the cluster with the paint bubbles from the upper corners.
9. Drop each bomb and shoot it at the cluster of ghosts until you can dig out both pink Chack'ns.
10. Do what you can to avoid putting orange on the field until you can remove the entire row at the very top. Hit the paint bubbles to clear out as much as possible, and clean up the rest manually.
11. Brute force is fine.
12. Try to use all the paint bubbles on one side to clear out as much of the center cluster as possible, then switch to the other color. Clean up the remainder manually.
13. [COME BACK TO THIS LATER]
14. Use the guide bubbles and aim with extreme caution.
15. Use the change bubbles to drop off sections near the ghosts. Work carefully around the ghosts until you can drop them all off.

EX

1. Carefully drop the bombs to blow up the ghosts. If any remain, aim with extreme caution to remove the left over normal bubbles.
2. Beeline the paint and paint line bubbles.
3. This is set up a lot like previous levels but is too wide to be manageable. The lower pairs of yellow and purple Chack'ns on the far left and far right can be ignored. Concentrate on getting the mid level blue and green chack'ns out, by shooting the long green and blue lines, and then up the chute if you can manage. This drops off the chack'ns which are otherwise not accessible. If you have the ricochet skills you can blow out the top layer of chutes and get the remaining 4 pairs of chack'ns that way. However, it is easier it just dig them out manually.
4. Beelining for the blasters is a safe bet. Keep shooting diagonally until the ghosts start dropping off.
5. This stage has no room for error. Get rid of the purple-blue purple row at the very bottom. Carefully drop off the yellow paint bubble and color the blue Chack'n yellow, then pop it. An orange paint bubble will drop off. Shoot that upward to color the lower three purple bubbles. Break the horizontal orange row, then the purple row. On the left side stage frame, count 2 rows of brickwork up from the Danger Line to ricochet a bubble to the orange paint bubble near the very top. Finally free the chack'n trapped between the rocks.
6. 🌶 [COME BACK
7. BACK TO THESE LATER]
8. Prioritize hitting the purple paint line bubble on the right to clear the support, the orange one on the right to clear a line, the green one for the second support, and the pink and yellow ones at the very top. You can beeline the pink and yellow paint line bubbles but don’t forget about the support clusters.
9. Try to focus on the left side and shoot up along the diagonal until you get to the top. Be careful where you place the oranges until the third stripe is open.
10. Shoot carefully between the ghosts diagonally up to the left and right. The pinks in the thurd row from the top should drop most of the ghosts further below. Then clear out the top two rows.

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