THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
As someone who has never read the manga, I came to this anime adaption with an open mind. Firstly, the idea of an anime based on gambling intrigued me, and from the various trailers online it was being sold as an anime based around "battles of the wit", where attempting to 'read' your opponent, and skills such as risk taking, negotiating, and to a degree "deception" were crucial and thusly encouraged and honed in the students of Hyakkaou Private Academy.
The main premise is that the richest and most powerful families of Japan, send their children to this academy which is designed
...
to create the NEXT "future leaders" of Japan. And what is the best way to create future leaders? Gambling. The whole school's curriculum centres on gambling, because the idea is that individuals who can thrive and rise to the top in such an environment will be fit to lead the country somehow (anyway).
1) Character Development.
So the first person we see is a guy called Ryouta Suzui, initially we expect him to be the protagonist of the anime but he's literally only important for the first minute or two. His character is summarised as "cowardly and poor". Throughout the 5 episodes that have been released so far of this anime, he has had no role, no development, no important dialogue, nothing. He literally just follows the main character around, warning her when she's about to gamble against a difficult opponent, then praising her when she wins. At the most, the anime sometimes let's us hear his voiced out thoughts while the main character gambles as a way of building suspense - His character is a textbook example of the "pathetic male character" trope. Don't expect him to do anything else, except ask questions about how the M.C. does a certain thing so that the viewer at home understands. This for me was a red flag when it came to analysing the quality of the writing itself. It's just lazy, and unacceptable for an anime today.
Then you have the Main Character, Yumeko Jabami, a random girl who transfers into the school and on the first day challenges the mean girl, Meari Saotome who was bullying the pathetic, generic Ryouta Suzui. After experiencing gambling for the first time Jabami finds herself addicted, hence the title Kakegurui which translates to compulsive gambler. She's shown to be this extremely intelligent character who manages to figure out how her opponents are "cheating" and through a bit of mental logic manages to work out what bets have the best probability. Her personality is jarring, going from nice and pleasant then to sudden "orgasm" faces where she stares her scared opponent in the eyes and declares her victory over them. In fact a lot of these characters have these really stupid facial expressions, I guess as a way to intimidate one another? It would make sense if the situation warranted it, like the characters were getting riled up or backed into a corner, but they're literally just making these retarded expressions every time they gamble against each other...And this is nothing like how people actual gamble. The anime doesn't even try to suspend your disbelief.
Speaking generally, the same applies to all other characters. Every one of them has some random quirk, and plays into that "box". Some characters are completely unbelievable. One of them being this eye-patch wearing psycho girl who runs around the school with a revolver, playing Russian Roulette, because gambling with her life turns her on, so much so that she rubs one off in the school toilets...Right. Much dramatic.
2) Story.
As mentioned earlier, the anime does nothing to try and stay grounded in any form of reality. Don't interpret this as me saying that every aspect of an anime has to be realistic, no, that is far from the truth. I'm all for fictional liberty and pushing outside of the realm of reality, as long as the anime actually tries to make it believable. But it just fails at that.
The story itself is lacklustre, every episode is about challenging a difficult enemy opponent who has their own gambling game that they like to play, and surprise, most of them are cheating. This anime doesn't teach you any real world wisdom about gambling, and there is no intellectual battle of wits, no mind games, no nothing. The M.C. will deduce her best chances of winning, and will expose the opponent for cheating, and then stare at them with another orgasm face. The story appears to be headed towards fighting against the members of the student council, who are presumably some of the best.
What else? If you end up in debt, you become a "human pet", where you basically get treated as subhuman and told to clean up coffee spills, or to be a leg stool. Which really makes no sense...there are no adults in this school, no staff, no actual classes...Just a bunch of students who sit around gambling and then when someone ends up losing, they just treat them like shit, and vandalise their desk? And that's it. These are the future of leaders of Japan? Rich parents are sending off their children to throw their money around and gamble at this prestigious academy...which has no structure, just a group of stuck up misfits as the "student council" all with their unique, deep plot, quirks, one even wears a mask...OooohoOOoOOoo - How will she make an orgasm face? Who knows - Suspense. Imagine, Bill Gates or Warren Buffet...Or any rich person. Who in the right mind would send their kids here, and give them all this money. That's something ain't it?
And if you can't repay your debt? This student council of "special" individuals will arrange a "life plan" for you. When the protagonist finds herself in a large amount of debt, she gets this pamphlet instructing her on her future, it's basically human trafficking - she's supposed to marry some random preselected guy and bear his children and live out the life specified by this student council of "special" kids...How do they enforce this? Through "powerful political connections" of course. Oh yeah, remember, there are no adults in this school, it's just this student council made up of "cool" students, some with masks, some like to play video games. And they somehow have the ability to arrange for a student to be trafficked.
There's nothing rewarding about this anime, you don't get any new insight into the gambling world. It's just a lazy, trope-filled, piece of shit with no redeeming qualities, except hot girls with orgasm faces. I'm going to end it here. The art and music is average, that's the only thing they really succeeded in. Is this anime memorable in any way? No. Are you going to want to watch it? Depends on who you are I guess, because there's clearly a demand for this anime.
Aug 4, 2017
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
As someone who has never read the manga, I came to this anime adaption with an open mind. Firstly, the idea of an anime based on gambling intrigued me, and from the various trailers online it was being sold as an anime based around "battles of the wit", where attempting to 'read' your opponent, and skills such as risk taking, negotiating, and to a degree "deception" were crucial and thusly encouraged and honed in the students of Hyakkaou Private Academy. The main premise is that the richest and most powerful families of Japan, send their children to this academy which is designed ... |
