Kakegurui - Reviews

"A gambling show, in a school setting, where -except for learning- anything can happen... yeah that makes sense, i'm 100% sure nothing could possibly go wrong."

What would happen if you combine that gambling with schools, throw in some horny sexy chicks, make them as crazy and perverted as possible, and throw in the derpiest faces you can find in GTO, and make it as edgy as possible. the resulting show would be deviant piece of soft porn that is more cringy than exciting, and too fanservice-ish to be taken seriously. that show is called Kakegurui.

Gambling can be one of the most thrilling and exciting subjects in anime, from the battles of wits, watching people risk their money or even life, watching the stakes grow as the danger brings out their true colors. however, Kakegurui fails miserably at being enjoyable. from the bad characters to the terrible gambles, this was one of the most disappointing shows i've ever watched.

Starting with the characters, first we have the male lead, who is a beta male, and his only use is whining or explaining the -obvious- events as a narrator, because the viewers are a bunch of toddlers who can't think for themselves, so i'm sure they need someone to explain things to them. 

The female lead, and this show's mascot, is shown to like highstakes, and wants to  intentionally put herself in situations where neither her victory nor defeat is assured. but you can't have the thrill of that, because she is written to be the overpowered overlord of the show.

You can try to pretend you want to see how she wins, but then again all she does is dive head first into the game, with plans that follow no form of logic or consistency, which is then dubbed as smart, either that or she uses the power of plot convenience and plot armor to win every game. otherwise she is just another case of Gasai Yuno, just a sexy psycho with no redeeming qualities beyond that.

And the rest of the cast isn't any better, all of them are the same one-note varient of the crazy chick, and they get boring very fast since they come and go like a generic villain-of-the-week. and it doesn't help that every single one of them is cheating, it become predictable and gets boring fast.

The games is where every gambling driven show is supposed to shine, yet you can't enjoy them for many reasons. it fails miserably when it comes to it, it doesn't try to give an insight to the gambling world, nor the mentality of the gamblers. when you think of gambling, you'd expect it to be either psychological and smart, or an exciting thriller. but it turned out to be neither.

It's not smart since almost all the games are luck based, won through plot convenieces, or bullshit super hax skills such as photographic memory. and the way it deals with the "cheating" is very bad, there is no attempt at making the viewer an active part of the deducation of the cheating methods, since it's not showing anything until the last second, and we also never get an insight to how the orgasming girl managed to reach such deducations. oh, but we already know how! she read the script!

you can't call  it a thriller either since there are no real stakes, it's already established that the protagonist is an overlord will win no matter what, and even if she did "lose", she has nothing to "lose" nor she acts like she does lose, since the only thing that'll happen is her falling into a dept making her a "slave" for the rest of the rich students (oh the horror), which she also had shown that she doesn't care about it, and it was shown that money holds no real value, and it comes and goes as easily as making an orgasming face, and even when they lose they still have the fortunes of their families. and even when it does have some real stakes, such as gambling with their lifes on the line, it turns out to be a troll, just some fake tension, as it's revealed that there was no danger in the first place. 

The games are also very uninteresting, as they are either unnecessarily complex with barely anytime to explore or look at in an interesting way, since they are shown only once in a single episode then thrown in the backstage to never be elaborated on again. or they'd be too simple to be interesting. and all of them are dependant on luck so all the creativity and the variety in them is completely pointless, it's like having a closet with the same type of clothes with the only difference is their color.

I could go on about the ridiculousness of the show and the gambles, or where are the adults and teachers that allow such gamblings of fortunes to happen? why is carrying weapons, kidnapping permitted in this school?, why would you get abused and treated like an animal and happen to get a "life plan" if you lose?, what kind of political connetions the student council has?, why would they have such connections? aren't they just a bunch spoiled rich brats?

On a positive note (for once), Mappa created something pretty to look at, the character designs are nice when they don't make you cringe when they make orgasming faces, and the backgrounds are basic but good, it's true that the animation quality didn't last long, since Mappa might have had some financial problems, but they are still nice. sounds are simple but still good, but the BGM doesn't fit the show's edgy tone but is still some nice Jazz beats. all of which is just some superficial entertainment that means nothing if the real content is bad.

In the end this is only edgelord material, it's not deep or mature, nor even entertaining. it's basically edgy femdom yuri fapbait. you might say it could be a good time waster for beginners but i find it more of a waste of time. But even if you want to watch it as a time passer. there will be nothing to remember it for when it's finished, except for all the cringe. now excuse me as i count how many times i used the words edgy and cringy while making an orgasm face.

So, there’s this gambling den where people risk their future. Money is power in capitalism and the more you have the more powerful you become. Ok, it makes sense so far… And then it stops making sense because the gambling den is a freaking high school, where the only thing that is not going on in there is learning. Everybody is acting like a horny lunatic and the author wants us to believe the educational system is fine with letting its young people to become unstable gambling addicts.

And yes, I know it’s not supposed to be a serious anime. It’s trash entertainment for immature people, but I have seen many who tried to defend the show as a psychological thriller and a character study, by making it sound like it’s all about the effects of gambling on rich people, as well as how the whole thing is a social experiment aiming to create a new breed of super humans. All that are overshadowed by the constant ahegao faces everyone is making. It’s not a serious show, don’t believe the pretentious overthinkers. It’s a shitty ecchi series about people getting orgasms while gambling and the animation makes sure to point that out every 10 seconds. It’s sleazy fetishism with little to no substance, and those claiming it’s more than that, do it for the sole purpose of making it sound like the deviant crap they are watching are intellectual masterpieces.

Back to the… plot if one can call it that, the status quo is broken by a transfer student. Of course. That is the only reason you need for having high schools in modern anime. Instead of having to be creative, you just let the plot write itself, by following the exact same formula, every single time.

So, they gamble and the first game they play is a rehash from Kaiji. Only with no strategy since there is no way to know how many cards of each type there are. Which means it’s all random bullshit. They try to make it sound like there are tactics, but it comes down to dumb luck and how well someone is cheating at the games. Plus, the horny protagonist will always find a way to win, just because. As much as the theme tries to be an allegory for materialism, it fails to prove it by having it all coming down to a lucky draw. It’s not a smart show either.

Furthermore, for a gambling series, there is no actual tension, since the only thing that is at stake is money. Fortunes come and go in every episode, and although that seems to be ruining the lives of those who become broke, we never see the effects of it, besides becoming errand boys for horny bitches in a high school. Woah, what a dreadful life it is to not have money, yet still going to a prestige school and doing a few chores for horny bitches, who are most likely having sex with you for the heck of it.

If that wasn’t enough, the main girl in the show is so ridiculously rich to the point she doesn’t care how much money she wins or loses, therefore she is not really risking anything. Her objective has nothing to do with making money or making sure you are not going to lose them. The premise is betrayed almost immediately, since everybody gambles because they are addicted to gambling, and not because they risk everything for a better life, like in Kaiji.

Down to it, the series is fairly one-note. There is no variety in personalities, since everybody is the same closet psychopath. The games differ but play out in the exact same way and don’t connect with one another, thus there is not much of a plot. There is not even much of a worthwhile objective. Every character is self-destructive, and has no long-term plans other than cumming in his underwear while gambling. It gets tiresome and cringy very fast. Rewatch Kaiji and don’t even bother with this one.

God where do i even start,

First off if you can't handle some pretty weird shit then dont even bother.

this anime comes off as something that might as well be a masterpiece except for one thing

The Characters

So of course the characters just have to be horny psychopaths with a winning fetish.

Seriously creators, did you really have to make the characters like this, really? The main character Yumeko seems like a normal human being, and you can tell everyone else is too, but god the first three episodes of this anime made me realize how the whole thing is gonne turn out. I mean sure you shouldn't judge by first impressions or anything, but the amount of just plain weirdness everytime they gamble is unsettling and frankly quite disturbing. Not to mention they are high school students. 

Yeah I get it, this school is very Prestigious and is much different than your normal hgih school. But god forbid these people actually being humans and lets just make them distubing psychos. I mean come on I cannot be the only one who gets even a little bit weirded out by this:

However I do not have only bad things to say about this so don't pull the trigger yet.

While yes As i've explained it is weird I must admit that the storyline/art/animation/sound is all phenomenal. I think I will continue watching this for the sole reason of liking this kind of genre. Also while i did make a big deal out of the sexualness in this and how horny everyone gets I must admit it isn't that bad ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

All in all it gets a 7/10 for being what it is and not a ten out of ten for being what it is

Warning: spoilers ahead.

Kakegurui takes place at Hyakkou Private Academy. Despite the school setting, no actual learning takes place, and only gambling is shown all throughout each episode. The school has an immoral hierarchy system too, but as everyone gambles, no one really cares for it, and instead supports the notion except for a select few. In a world where gambling is everything, if you suck at it, you become the lowest of the low -- a house pet. You will be degraded to nothing but a dog or a kitty cat, and at this position, you would have already lost your social standing. You don’t matter anymore. To stay alive, students must keep on gambling and make sure they don’t fall in the gambling ranks. It makes zero sense to me how the students would even want to continue going to school there if they were already in debt and gambling's clearly unhealthy. Why would anyone want to enroll into this school in the first place?

Jabami Yumeko is a new transfer student who is introduced as a gambling maniac. She does not gamble to get money, but rather due to the fact she is addicted to the concept of gambling instead. She loves it when her opponent makes her have a hard time, but of course, she ends up beating every single one of them no matter what. As we near the crucial end of the game in every episode, the secrets/cheats to the gambling game are revealed, showing the viewers that the game isn’t really that hard/has a simple trick to it. While some may argue that this is done nearing the end to build up suspense and for Yumeko to share with us her definition of gambling with utmost joy, for me personally the tricks were all very easy to see through. I myself enjoy playing card games, and maybe it was the familiarity of the theme that made it easy for me to guess. She is a genius at reading everyone's tactics and cheap tricks. The Student Council members are extremely weak and worth nothing in comparison to Yumeko, yet they are considered the best gamblers in the whole school, which enables the viewers’ and the other students’ curiosities towards who Yumeko really is, and what her real purpose of enrolling into this hell-like school was.

With every gambling game Yumeko participates in, it is rather evident that it has a “lessons learned” factor. For example, when Manyuda lost all his riches because he felt like he was already going to win, but lost everything in the end. He was too snobby. However, the ‘lesson’ doesn’t feel like it is well-learnt, because despite everything that he went through, Manyuda ends up gambling again in the second season. So… what was the lesson he learned? That he shouldn’t think of himself as too perfect, or to keep on gambling as if his life depended on it? On the other hand, I do agree that the impact towards Mary was good. She showed a lot of character development from when before she lost to Yumeko and after, even becoming what you can consider as Yumeko’s righthand woman. The dynamics Yumeko and Mary had were pretty nice too, and although they (along with Ryouta) were friends, Yumeko always trialed their trusts and integrities, treating every game as ‘equal’ as she could, possibly wanting to share her definition of ‘real gambling’ to her friends, and for herself to be able to enjoy the games to the fullest and feel rushes of adrenaline pumping within her, with everyone gambling their lives away. The higher the risk of the game, the happier Yumeko was.

What I liked about Kakegurui was the animation. I think the character designs were great and the art style is very pretty. The OP, “Deal with the devil” by Tia, is a massive banger too. I have it saved in my playlist and I sometimes even have it on repeat. Although I felt a bit surprised when I first watched Kakegurui, I actually grew fonder of it in the second season (personally, I enjoyed the second season better than the first season, probably due to the games being slightly more complex and the characters’ rivalries and relationships with each other were explored better). There was, however, one particular scene in Kakegurui that really disturbed me, and that was when Ikishima Midari of the beautification club got extremely turned on by the idea of being beaten at a card game by Yumeko. Midari drooled and ejaculated on the table to thoughts of Yumeko, calling Yumeko her goddess and how she is special, nothing like her ‘other masturbations’. Some have told me that soft porn is a part of the point of this anime, but I can’t help being disturbed by it, please understand. This scene was a heavy turn off for me personally, and it reduced my satisfaction towards the series.

For me at least, it would've been better if they delved more into the psychological (and possibly political, with all the money and influential parents they continuously mention throughout the anime) theme, and if the lessons Yumeko’s opponents learned had more significant impacts (besides Mary, and possibly Itsuki Sumeragi). I think the most disappointing character of the series was actually Ryouta Suzui, who actually had a lot of potential, but instead stayed static and more to the background than Yumeko or Mary. He was just… kind of there?

To sum my overall opinion on this anime up, Kakegurui is, in simple terms, rather overhyped, but the themes were intriguing enough. Many people like Kakegurui, including a lot of my close friends, but I guess Kakegurui is just not for me.

This show is amazing. Definitely one of the best shows I've seen in a while.