"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.