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The Peony ― the seductive crimson bloom featured prominently in the ending theme ― either of the "Unique" or the "Heritage" variety, is probably the best metaphor for Kakegurui as an effort in visual storytelling.

For a lot of people, it's usually a matter of debate whether anime can be considered "art." I fall squarely in the camp that adheres to a very broad definition of the term, so I say it can. This review should be read with the awareness of that personal bias of mine. Otherwise it's just going to come off as extremely pretentious.

Kakegurui can be seen as many things. It can be ... considered simply a story about privileged rich brats in a school that's more of a gambling den than an educational space. It can be seen as another commercial venture designed to keep viewers on the edge of their seats with the callousness, perverseness, violence, and sheer insanity many of the characters display. It can be seen as a meaningless chaotic cash-grab with a bunch of Ecchi thrown in for good measure. It can be seen as a cynical take on how capitalistic social hierarchies reward callousness and insanity. It can be seen as a drama of emotions with each individual player trying to cheat or bluff their way to the top of the school's hierarchy. It can be seen as one crazy girl's attempts to take on a corrupt elite student council that is effectively maintaining a vile caste system within the institution. It can be seen as the story of a compulsive gambler with the money and smarts to indulge her addiction, decimating overinflated egos along the way.

But one can also pluck each of these petals off and see that at its core, Kakegurui is a story about abandoning fear. It is about being crazy enough to simply take a chance.

And it is very easy for a piece of media to become preachy, paternalistic, or childish in attempting to get this simple message across. Simple ideas are often deceptively hard to convey. A lot of Shounen shows, especially, which try to get this message across are guilty of exploiting plot-armor to indulge the common male fantasy of being an invincible hero, exuding machismo and dripping sex from every pore.The MC takes every chance they get and they win every single time because they're just the best because they believe it and that's that. Kakegurui has none of that.

In terms of the writing, the pace is fast and many episodes end on cliffhangers that leave you desperate to know how things will turn out. But the plot is just one gambling match after another with minor intermissions for exposition, backstory, introducing new characters, or scheming. Classic Action Anime structure with one villain being replaced by another. The important difference is that the main character does not defeat every enemy or befriend all of them. She sometimes actively refuses to engage and even throws a game at one point. But she still emerges on top on some other metric in spite of losing the gambles themselves. That is the only protection her Plot Armour provides her.

We are not provided much background for the characters except bare bones descriptions that we hear from conversations. Same as with the plot, the show is pretty realistic and goes light on fleshing out the characters. The excellent voice acting, dialogues, and interactions between the characters make the backstories unnecessary to get invested. The back and forth chatter during games, and the internal monologues of "should I, should I not; will she, won't she," are the main things that viewers will have to rely on to understand what goes on. There are very few flashbacks and monologues. For the most part, the writing adopts the same approach as the Student Council in the show adopts towards cheating during gambles: you snooze, you loose. But the show works damn hard to make sure you don't snooze.

Another point to note is that there are not many elaborate strategies that the players use except when they're cheating. And even then, not much time is wasted on explanations of how things are done. For some tricks, the key explanatory scenes disappear within seconds. Anyone looking for monologues explaining tricks they can use at their next poker game will be sorely disappointed. A lot of the tension during the games comes from the inherently unpredictable nature of reality and human behavior itself. From a psychological perspective, there is actually a LOT that can be seen to be at play in this series, as long as the viewer is paying attention (and I say that as a person with a post-graduate degree in the subject). I also particularly like how almost every game is new and unique (according to my knowledge at least). There are many similarities to real life games but even the most normal ones have some novel twist added to them.

The art, animation, and sound are by far the main strengths of this show, hands down. The Opening Theme is a chaotic kaleidoscope and it fits the nature of the show very well. I already commented about the visuals of the Ending Theme, but the music in it is much more appealing and noteworthy in my opinion. The art and animation team manages to convey a broad range of emotions and moods at various points throughout the show. Of particular note is how they depict Yumeko's gambling craze taking over. She looks crazy of course, and there is plenty of ahegao, but Yumeko's particular brand of craziness makes her look more like a self-indulgent Eldritch horror rather than Gasai Yuuno. I have no idea how exactly they managed that. Those moments in the show when she's on a gambling high of some sort or whispering into people's ears like a snake coz she wants to start stuff are particularly high on sakuga value. The sexualization does feel unnecessary and also grotesque at times, but I'm not really fazed by those things anymore.

Kakegurui's strength, in my opinion, lies in counter-balancing their priorities. They managed to keep the pace quick and the writing crisp by cutting out unnecessary exposition and backstory. They could only do that because they had excellent dialogues, voice acting, and also efficient visual direction. Individually, all of the basic components that make this show are not really the best. But they somehow combine into something truly special.