Conclusion: Gamble Fish is a fun romp that delights in taking every gamble our protagonist gets in not just to the extreme, but well beyond it, while slowly ramping up the flanderization of its characters and the sexualization of its female cast until it reaches its tipping point 10-12 volumes in. The flames hath burned strong and bright, until it unfortunately runeth out of fuel and sputtered out, crossing the finish line a mere shade of its former self.
Below follows the more in-depth analysis if you want it.
Rarely does a work incense me in quite the way Gamble Fish did. Reading this was
...
ultimately an enjoyable experience, but your mileage will vary based on a staggering number of caveats. On the flip side, it's pretty easy to forgive Gamble Fish for most of its various misses when the core of its appeal comes from taking nearly every concept it works with well beyond its logical extremes and directly into downright parody territory, while never winking a single time to acknowledge this to the reader. It's a truly emotional experience in that it makes you feel emotions. For me, it started with a bit of dumbfoundedness as to not being entirely sure of what i was feeling, which slowly transitioned into unadulterated joy. Despite this, frustration would slowly but surely creep in the further down the line i got.
Foremost, the series is built on constantly scaling up its encounters to new, even higher extremes. More risk, more ridiculousness, more moving elements, more stakes. It teaches you to expect it to top itself with every single new challenge our protagonist Tom has to face. The problem is it ends up playing all of its best hands by the middle of the story. The last arc that is supposed to be the climax features some of the least interesting gambles and set pieces.
At the same time, the further the story progresses the more the characters in it become mere shadows of their admittedly still pretty 2D prior representation. Tom's advantage in this is that he never really was characterized beyond "just a chill cinnamon bishie who like gamble, like win, and whom women love" and fortunately (this is arguable) all these traits remain in play throughout the entire series. The only other major character to benefit from the same treatment is Tom's polar opposite, Gokijima. Everybody else devolves into representations of simple character tropes, which is most disappointing in the case of Avidan. Avidan is the main villain throughout the manga, but despite this, his initial portrayal has him carry an aloof demeanor, seemingly acting based off of a more complex set of motivations. This can be seen during the numerous times where he tacitly sides with our protagonist in various minor ways throughout Tom's early encounters with other gamblers. He does this while being a cartoonishly evil gremlin vampire creature. By the end of the story he remains just a cartoonishly evil gremlin vampire creature. Mizuhara similarly gets reduced to an ambling character gag by the finale.
But it's probably time to talk about the elephant I've been keeping in this room, here. The lasses, the ladies, the eye candy. Not a single one of them has any agency upon the story whatsoever, despite being both the majority of the contestants Tom faces, and the majority of his entourage. What's worse, barely any have a motivation that does not revolve around a male. Here, let me list out the various driving forces behind the female cast: really likes Tom, (former) loving brother, abusive father, really likes Tom nr. 2. And when one of them manages to sidestep that and have some intrinsic motivation like Asahina does, who really just likes playing with cues and balls, the portrayal of her friendship with Mika ends up being very fetishized. Very fetishized is eventually what will become of every single female character in the manga, and the writing simply does not have any interest in pretending there's even a gag behind this. Women will be getting stripped strictly for the titillation that provides. Yes, this series features multiple instances of strip poker with dubious consent, how did you know?
While there is more to dig your fangs in and tear apart in this manga, the above points are the main complaints, and going any further just feels like nitpicking at this point. It might sound like I am being excessively negative, but I'd like to reiterate that the core experience when reading this is joy. The series delights in small bite sized gags that are sure to get a giggle to somebody even (or sometimes especially) if you send it to them out of context. This happens more often in the beginning but it's a constant throughout the series. I would give this a much stronger recommendation were it not for the female representation that just icks me out. As it stands, I'm pretty mixed on it, but if you can stomach that, definitely go for it.
Jan 29, 2025
Gamble Fish
(Manga)
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Conclusion: Gamble Fish is a fun romp that delights in taking every gamble our protagonist gets in not just to the extreme, but well beyond it, while slowly ramping up the flanderization of its characters and the sexualization of its female cast until it reaches its tipping point 10-12 volumes in. The flames hath burned strong and bright, until it unfortunately runeth out of fuel and sputtered out, crossing the finish line a mere shade of its former self.
Below follows the more in-depth analysis if you want it. Rarely does a work incense me in quite the way Gamble Fish did. Reading this was ... |
