C

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_(anime)

[C]: The Money and Soul of Possibility is one of the anime that I had watched recently. It basically talks about the story of an economics student name Kimimaro Yoga and his economic tournaments in the financial district, a parallel finance world that links to the real world, in order to win lots of money to pay for his tuition. In this weekly tournaments, each participant (entrepreneur) will be forced to compete (invest) with each other using their funds; the winner will gain more funds (Midas Money) which can be converted to money in the real world, while the loser will lost his "future" (the collateral). At the starting point, he allows his "future" to be taken as collateral in order to borrow lots of money. However, as the tournament goes on, Kimimaro Yoga realizes that "future" is something more precious than the money that he gained through the tournaments. The top entrepreneur of this tournament Shouichirou Mikuni thinks that the money that he won can be used to save the deteriorating economy of Japan even if it costs the disappearance of millions of "future" of his defeated entrepreneurs.

I think it is really an interesting story because it points up a few economics concepts very clearly:

1. greed and moral vs nothing is free
In this anime, each young entrepreneur is given the chance to choose whether they accept the offer to get lots of money while allowing the "future" to be taken as collateral or reject it. Taking for instance, the economic teacher of Kimimaro Yoga who accept the offer thinking that it's free in order to gain more money for his family. Soon after he lost the game and his future, his children just disappears literally and he feels utterly regret and realizes that nothing is free. He commits suicide in the end. But the thing is that what draws the line of greediness? The main character Yoga also joined the game out of greed but he wins eventually.

2. Laissez-faire
In the story, Shouichirou Mikuni is the top player and he wins everytime. With the money that he won he controls the market by constantly bringing in the money from the Financial District into the Japan's market. With his huge financial capability he keeps assisting the government to plan for the development of the economy. In the end it just becomes worse and worse. Future's disappearing. People become poorer and poorer. Of course as a person he couldn't plan for everything. I wonder what can the real world happen if we can seriously bring in alien currency freely and be changed into the real currency?

3. Trade is a zero sum
This is like the obvious rule in the game. If someone gains more money means that his opponent will lose money. The increasing of the property will cause someone to bankrupt, which leads to his future disappearance. If our real world is based on the system which every trade will definitely be a zero sum,what would our world become? A war zone like the anime has shown?

4. Interest and incentives
Everyone is incentivized by his/her own self-interest that makes the financial district works. It needs people to be constantly battle against each other in order to have more funds and investments. By giving such a huge incentives to the participants, the financial district manages to incentivized each and every single character in the district to fight.  Some are incentivized by their own future at sake, some are for heroic purpose like saving the real world economy, some are just purely want to have their own pocket money for their own reasons. Can anyone in the real world be incentivized by things that couldn't be seen such as future or truth?

Personally I think that the story depicts the economics concept well in a very entertaining way. The most important question that can be asked myself based on this anime would definitely be "would I allow my future to be taken as collateral to gain money?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PUfkAJVvMs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s4ZZpMQQrM&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia2HBTtn2eg&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag5AGu2XCCQ&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_AMciHQpEk&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Vx3RGzVUNw&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnA0NyNfv_E&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrMRnIZ0RXo&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6NBWoeTjus&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVFPPYBG0Gs&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgOcXJWSBt4&feature=relmfu