Kakegurui Twin

I suppose gambling addicts can’t wait to make their next bet and think they can win it big the next time. But for the rest of us waiting for the next season of Kakegurui (and honestly, not putting much hope into it for now), here, why not have this spinoff prequel surprise instead, Kakegurui Twin. Before the gambling prodigy named Yumeko became the main character of this series, let’s go back a year in time when Mary was the main character instead. Yes, a time before she got owned by Yumeko and shown her place as a supporting character ever since. Yup, Mary fans can rejoice since this spinoff prequel that mainly focuses on her as she gets through her first year of Hyakkaou Private Academy in a battle of high stakes, luck and wits. I’m pretty sure she didn’t come here to make friends. Or does she?

Episode 1
We hear Tsuzura Hanatemari whizz through a summary of what happened to her in this school. Basically, she is a house pet after losing to her class’ top gambler, Kokoro Aiura. She gets a new lease of life when Mary the new transfer student gambled against Aiura. Although she lost at first, Tsuzura had a hidden stack of cash to give to Mary to continue playing. This enables Mary to make a comeback and become the class’ top gambler. After a week, Mary is frustrated she has not made any friends as intended. Tsuzura would love to be her friend and will show her around. Mary thinks of conquering a place that is least popular and building it from there. That place is the literary club run by Yukimi Togakushi. There are hardly visitors here. Suddenly Sachiko Juraku (of the public moral committee) and her house pat, Mikura Sado enter. She uses her authority to stop Yukimi from using this room anymore since she couldn’t pay her fee to use this place. This is when Mary suggests she can improve this room’s revenue and even pay a higher usage fee. This interests Sachiko as she will have them gamble and the winner will control this room. However the minimum bet is a million yen, something Mary lacks a lot. Although Sachiko can loan her some money, Tsuzura offers to lend a bulk of hers. Mikura begins hosting the game they’ll be playing, Three Hit Dice. From what I understand, they will have to guess the dice’s number from a sequence of roll termed as Up (4, 5 and 6) or Down (1, 2 and 3). Whoever calls that combination sequence wins. So as the game starts rolling, we hear Mary narrate the most probably sequence odds and why she is sure this would win. After a few rolls, Mary lost. Yukimi doesn’t seem happy when Sachiko announces the right of this place to her. That is when Mary wants a rematch and will pay back her loaned amount if she loses. Finding it interesting, Sachiko agrees but with even higher stakes. Because if Mary loses, she will become her personal house pet.

The rematch begins and now we hear Mikura narrate such possible odds of making Mary lose. So basically it’s a rigged game trying to make Mary lose so Mikura could impress Sachiko. After Mary accidentally spills her drink on her cards, she claims victory. Mikura is in shock because now what Mary wrote is different from what she wrote earlier on. Mary knows Mikura swapped Yukimi’s card from the first game (hence her shock reaction). Mary’s drink is actually some nail polisher and becomes darker than its surrounding colours. With Sachiko talking about the odds of winning and losing, she is enlightened with Mary’s vision on the odds of winning. Because despite having a high percentage of winning, she’ll never have the chance to win if she isn’t willing to take on some amount of risk. If losing is the only result if she walks away, then the only way to win is by playing. Sachiko officially announces this place under Mary’s control. Yukimi cannot complain because she didn’t argue back when Mikura falsely declared her the winner, hence she has no right after playing along. Later Mikura feels she has disgraced Sachiko and wants to be punished. Sachiko is in fact happy with this experiment result and ever wants to make Mary her house pet. She can’t wait to see the face of hers when she makes her cry like a kitten. With Mary officially accepting Tsuzura as her friend, she wants her to get rid of that house pet tag because she doesn’t like her friends being treated so. Besides, if they’re going to win and be at the top, she doesn’t want others to look down on them again. Tsuzura breaks down in tears, happy that someone is thinking about her and that she has a chance to think of herself as a winner. All hail Mary her saviour prince!

Episode 2
Sayaka reports of newcomer Ikishima has been gambling and winning at many dens, some even under the jurisdiction of the student council. However she has not paid for its usage fee and shows no intention of doing so. Kirari leaves it to her to handle so Sayaka lets Sakura Miharutaki deal with this. Meanwhile Mary is surprised to see Yukimi still around. Well, she’s the president of this club and has the key. Besides, she’ll help clean this place up, etc. Tsuzura knows what it is like to lose a place so she begs Mary to just close an eye. What’s a friend got to do but to accept Yukimi to her fold? Discussing about the fees they have to pay as well as to reverse Tsuzura’s house pet status, they need to make 1.7 million fast. And looks like Mary has an idea by using these coloured dice. Sakura barges into Ikishima’s to demand her to pay up for the usage fee by today or else. Ikishima suggests they gamble to solve this issue quick. Take your pick, any game you want to play. Sakura suggests a dice game and just guessing odd or even. However Ikishima will toss and Sakura will guess. Sakura makes a confident and correct guess. Ikishima gives her dues but wants to know why Sakura was so confident. In fact, Sakura saw through her trickery. Everything has been set up for her to choose this game. Because she knew she wanted this gamble to be over quickly, hence many of the other games laid out will take time. It was either down to cards or dice. When Ikishima tossed the dice, Sakura saw she swapped out the rigged one. It was a game she couldn’t have lost. Ikishima tries to tempt Sakura to play more by throwing down 30 million now. She promises not to rig it this time. However Sakura will not be tempted and their business is done. She also thinks Ikishima already rigged it so that’s that. She’s not into mind games. While Ikishima laments she is no fun, we hear her narrate that the die she swapped was legit and it so happened it ended on the correct number.

Mary and co are attracting people to their gambling den dressed up as maids. I APPROVE! In this simple dice game, players pick a coloured die, each with different numbers. Whose side rolls the highest number wins. She also limits a gambling session to 3 tries. Although they win and lose some, in the end they still win big. This limitation is so that people don’t catch on to their trick of the game. Sachiko tells Aoi Mibuomi about a new interesting student AKA Mary. She hopes he could go visit her and play a game with her. He does so and he bets big and loses big for the first 2 rounds. However he knows the trick of the game. Just like rock-scissors-papers, a certain coloured die will lose to another coloured die. This is why players pick first and then the host will then pick theirs. Hence Aoi wins big and recoups all his loses in the final round. All their earnings gone like that. However Aoi allows them to keep what they owed as present. In exchange, he wants them to help him out with a little favour: He wants their help to destroy the student council.

Episode 3
Aoi is against this system of treating some students like house pets. So if Mary is willing to help him, he’ll give her back what she owes. Mary needs time to think but time isn’t on her side as there is a notice from the student council, a reminder date for everyone to pay up their donation dues. Of course Mary does not have that much money and in desperation, goes to see Aoi. She hasn’t agreed to join in his scheme yet as he complains about this current system that makes people afraid to go against the student council and hence the status quo. Then he shows Mary and her friends a room that all house pets gather to gamble and collect winnings so they can weed out the strongest contenders and have them play higher stakes games and buy everyone out. That’s why he has roped Mary and her friends in to destroy the system as he is confident they can do it. But they have to play this coupling game that is organized by Sachiko. A group of ladies will talk to a group of men and in the end try to confess to the guy they pick. If there is a lucky couple that matches, the girl pays the man the amount they betted. Men who don’t have a partner at the end loses and will have to pay the ladies. Mary’s side teams up with Kurumi Kurume and Chitose Inui. After the chatting and all, it’s time to discuss so they agree on which guy to pick to confess to. However Mary secretly talks to Tsuzura and wants them to switch their confessions. She believes there is a traitor among them and this is just for safe measure. In the end, all of them ended up as couples. This shocks Mary as she cannot accept such results as coincidental. She kicks up a fuss that this is rigged as Sachiko assures here there are none. When Mary continues to refuse to accept, she gets a stern warning not to be blinded by her own failure. Maybe there is a much simpler explanation? That is when Mary realizes that could it be Tsuzura is the traitor? She was the only one who knew about the swap. Did she work things out with Aoi before and had some deal to entrap her? As Sachiko announces a bonus game with double the money and everyone else is in on it, Mary starts to panic. She doesn’t know who to trust anymore.

Episode 4
Mary thinks of dropping out of the next round. She thinks she can ask her parents to give her some money while telling off her friends not to rely on her so much. As Tsuzura is in tears, Mary thinks she is putting up a show. However Tsuzura is sad because this is not the Mary she knows. The Mary she knows will not give up and do everything she can to turn things around. Mary thought this is so cringe but then she realizes something and decides to hop back in the game. Because it won’t be a good thing for Mary to let Tsuzura lose if she actually did betray her. Before the next round begins, Mary talks to everyone else about her plans and leaves Tsuzura out this time. Even if Tsuzura betrays them, they’ll still have the advantage and at most, just a couple among them. While Yukimi doesn’t like the idea of dating a guy she doesn’t know and wants to opt out, Mary assures her by giving her word on a piece of paper that she will transfer the ownership of the literary club’s place to her. As they strategize on who to confess, Kurumi believes that Mary is not trusting anyone despite saying Tsuzura is the traitor. It is obvious that Mary is picking herself the last to go as a safe bet. Meanwhile the guys also have a strategy but it seems a traitor from the girls’ side has informed them the line-up confession. Then we hear Chitose narrates stuff and basically she is the traitor! So as the confession starts, it seems to Chitose’s horror that none of them decides to follow Mary’s order. In the end, only Chitose gets paired. Mary now starts her deductions of Chitose’s betrayal. Once Mary realizes that Tsuzura would never betray her, the rest of the pieces fell into place. I didn’t get this part because it pertains to the assumed confession order of the girls and because Chitose was the one who handed in the line-up for the first round, Mary prevented that by writing it herself. Hence Chitose was trying to use other ways to signal to the boys. Mary never doubted the rest. For Kurumi whom she had never met before, she could highly be the traitor but banked on the fact she was an unstable element. Because there is no trust between them, there is highly likely a chance she would change her answer in the last minute. Mary signalled to Yukimi in that transfer piece of paper while Tsuzura just wanted to prove herself to Mary by taking the biggest risk. Mary walks away as the biggest winner with twice the money. Later she apologizes to Tsuzura and Yukimi for doubting them. They won only because they had each other’s backs. They make a vow never to get anyone else in between them again.

Episode 5
Mikura brings Mary to Aoi. Suddenly Mary is put up on a pedestal as Aoi introduces Mary to all the house pets that she will be their saviour and all. He is hoping that she could join them in this group called Full Bloom and save them from the student council’s tyranny. However Mary declines and needs more time to think. This doesn’t sit well with Aoi but he hopes everyone will respect her decision and will soon expect a favourable answer. Later Mary talks to her friends about this smart move. Not pledging her allegiance is wise for now because who knows what mess they’ll get into. They weigh the options if Full Bloom wins because they will then be in control of the school. But if they fail, there will be dire consequences. If they want to be a turncoat and destroy Full Bloom, they could tell the student council and perhaps the student council might offer them a place. As Mary wonders why Sakura is part of Full Bloom, Yukimi tells her that it is only because Aoi is there. Don’t you know? Both their parents have an arranged marriage for them. We see Sakura complaining to Aoi that she thinks he thinks she isn’t good enough for him. Sounds like jealousy? But he assures that she is the only one he trusts.

When Mary receives some entrance exam to Full Bloom, this is also a challenge by Sakura. Both sides then go see Sachiko who is the orchestrator of today’s game. Sachiko claims she is neutral in her allegiance to either the student council or Full Bloom because her goal is to see the kind of expression the loser will put on. Today’s game will be a treasure hunt. Both are given a treasure map that hints its location. If Mary wins, she will be allowed to join Full Bloom but if Sakura wins, Mary will forever rescind that right to join. We hear Mikura narrating that she has somewhat trying to root for Sakura to win this game so that Sachiko will see the pathetic side of Mary when she loses. Then she will lose interest in her and only see only Mikura. Sachiko decides to allow Yukimi and Tsuzura to help Mary. While this might give Mary a big advantage, Sakura has nothing tangible to lose and Mary is shouldering the bigger risk. As the game starts, Sachiko confronts Mikura and know what she is planning. She knows she had talked to Sakura beforehand about this game to crush Mary. Mikura falls into despair that she has been seen right through and wants to be punished. Sachiko dislikes obedient house pet because it’s not fun. That’s why she can’t wait to make Mary hers and crush her spirit. We see Mary’s side finding the treasure. From the brainstorming, they guess the coordinates are music notes and after figuring out which song, they notice a strange note that doesn’t belong and hence the location of the treasure. The trio happily bring the treasure back thinking they have won but looks like Sakura already has the same thoughts too. She knows the game hasn’t ended yet and that the key attached to their locked treasure cannot open the lock. As both treasure maps contain different locations of the treasure, this hunt is just a warm up as the real game begins now.

Episode 6
For this final gambling game, Aoi will be the dealer. Dice Nim they will be playing. Each player will take turns removing a few stones from the pile. The player who removes the last stone will be the loser. To spice things up, they will throw a die to determine how many stones to remove from the pile. After examining the die and go stones, the game begins. It seems Mary has Tsuzura and Yukimi go out and make loud noises as distraction from time to time. Just when Mary thinks she has won the game, she actually pulled the last stone and lost! Sakura then reveals Mary’s cheating hand as she possessed several loaded dice! Because they were using go stones, they know how many stones are there in total. Hence Mary has been keeping a count on how many stones removed. Once a desired number is in place, she replaced the die with a loaded one (hence those sound distractions by her pals?). However it did not work because Sakura saw through this trick and removed 1 stone earlier on. After all, the rules did not state that cheating was illegal. As long as you don’t get caught. Sakura’s experience with Ikishima made her cautious about this. While Mary wallows in despair (much to Mikura’s gleeful face!), as Sakura opens her treasure box, it is the same set of treasure map that Mary has. This is when Tsuzura and Yukimi return with treasure boxes in their hands. Now the tables have turned as Mary begins her devilish explanation that the numbers were actually 3D coordinates of the building. Because there was no way to know which the vertical or horizontal axis is, hence she has her pals split up and search. Mary already had this thought all along but after seeing Sakura somewhat ‘winning’ the first round, her confidence was a bit shaken since she was too focused on trying to win. But after Sakura showed her map to her, that was her biggest mistake and Mary exploited it.

As Mary brags in Sakura’s face, surprisingly Sakura maintains her maturity by admitting her defeat. So the treasure is a collar? Well, Mikura doesn’t look very amused. She still wants to monopolize Sachiko’s punishment! Now that Mary is the official winner, she has the right to join Full Bloom at her discretion. With Aoi bugging her to join now but when Sakura also supports Mary to join them, that is when Aoi reveals that Sakura has been fired because of this loss. Can’t have a liability in their group now, can we? This makes Sakura sad because what will be of their marriage? Is it off too? Of course not. If their families merge, they’ll be one of the most powerful families in Japan and he needs that to further his own agenda so he couldn’t care less what kind of human she is. After hearing this, this makes Mary mad as she has finally decided. She will never ever join Full Bloom! Just like that, this side picking thing ended in a flash. Mary and her friends return to their normal ways of running their little gambling den. As long as they have each other, they’ll find their way of winning. In the aftermath, Sachiko wonders if Aoi won’t give up on Mary. Of course he won’t as he is obsessed with her and really needs her in Full Bloom. Because otherwise, he will have to crush her for good.

Go For Broke! Always Bet On Yourself!
Well, well, well. That’s it? Oh boy. Definitely feels a lot of potential going on and it is a shame for it to just end here with just a half a dozen of episodes. I am not sure if this is just to have an anime version of the live action one. Yes, a year ago (2021), a live action version of Kakegurui Twin was released albeit with 8 episodes. I did not see this live version but from the screenshots that I (lazily) Google around the internet, it looks like the anime is just indeed an animated version and that the live version one also ends around here. So for better or worse, I guess we will just have to wait and see if this will get another season in the future. Or even worse, a movie summary version! Damn, I hope this one doesn’t come out and if it does, I’ve got this feeling it’s just to milk you suckers dry! Might not be gambling but still one of the worst ways to lose your money! Yeah.

I am very sure that I along with many others who watched this spinoff prequel will have this biggest question floating on our minds: The new characters we see here, what happened to them in the main series? As far as my memory serves me, characters like Tsuzura, Yukimi, Mikura, Sachiko, Sakura and Aoi are not even mentioned in the main series or hinted anywhere. Maybe and just maybe they could’ve been hinted in some obscure scene. But otherwise, it leaves many scratching their heads about these characters. I mean, it is already given that this is a canon prequel and not some alternate universe or timeline thingy. Hence if Tsuzura and Yukimi are best and irreplaceable friends to Mary, what happened to them when the actual series came around? No mention of them at all. Furthermore, when the main series started, Mary started off as an antagonistic b*tch before being put into place. Like as though, all this we have seen here somehow never happened when the main series started rolling.

I know, I know. Perhaps this is too early to jump to conclusions. With only 6 episodes and the time span of this spinoff prequel perhaps the most spanning about a week or two, we have got to remember that we still have a full whole year before Yumeko comes into the picture. Hence a lot of things might have happened during that time. Hence my conspiracy theory that these characters have been eliminated! Gasp! You know how Full Bloom wasn’t even mentioned in the main series and considering this is the first time we see house pets secretly banding together as one but never when Kakegurui started? What if somewhere towards the end of the year, a full scale war was blown up between the student council and Full Bloom. It ended with the former being the victors and hence the ‘generals’ of the latter getting exiled or, well, silenced. Mary became traumatized by the events and lost her memories or at that moment of madness and loss, Kirari offered her some sort of salvation. Thus she is the only character from this spinoff prequel who survived. I don’t think this hogwash would be true but my guts keep giving me this sickly feeling that this could be it or somewhere along these lines. I hope I’m wrong.

On a personal level, if there was one thing which I personally find frustrating, it is that the explanations of the game or strategies that continue to stump me. I have to admit I’m not the brightest or the sharpest tool in the shed, so when the characters start their explanation about that, I felt loss and don’t actually understand in detail! I actually wanted to so much that I go back and rewatch that scene and explanation so many times and yet I still don’t understand! Oh dear. Is my brain really failing me?! Thing is, I find the simple games and strategies to be highly interesting and intriguing but the problem of not understanding its mechanics is what prohibited me from fully enjoying this series to the max. Sad to say, eventually I have to give up and just go along with whatever they said. “Yeah. Okay. Whatever you say”. Thank goodness I’m not a gambling addict or I’ll definitely be a loser the moment I place my first bet! Phew.

The characters here are pretty interesting too and of course seeing the school that they attend (yeah, the school feels so irrelevant I keep forgetting its name), they’re raising a bunch of sly cutthroats. Only right if the future is going to be a brutal dog eat dog world. Mary is definitely a survivor, the way I see her going through one challenge to another. You can say that she is on a winning streak as far as this anime goes. At least she doesn’t lose the ones that matter the most. I mean, being the sore loser she is, if she loses first, she’ll complain for a rematch in which according to the script, she must be given a second chance to turn things around. See how this always works in her favour? If you don’t win in the first round, you will in the second. I know, I know, trying to tell us to persevere and not give up, huh? Aren’t all gamblers typically sore losers? There are times she might be down and feeling despair but sometimes I have to wonder if that was all an act to troll us and her enemies. You know, there is nothing better than a feeling when you make a comeback and watch the sudden 180 degree u-turn of your enemy’s face drop like a rock. Hence Mary might be one of the greatest pretenders and strategists of the gambling world and it is evident as we see her using such skills to aid Yumeko in the main series.

Nobody is an island and so that’s why we have Tsuzura and Yukimi as her friends. Because of the nature of this series, I became paranoid to think that Tsuzura and Yukimi were putting up their cutesy façade just to fool Mary and betray her in the end. After all, can such innocence and naivety thrive in this school? Not in the long run. Even before the coupling game, I already had this suspicions. Oh well, looks like Tsuzura indeed views Mary as her saviour prince and nothing more. But beware, like I have pointed out, this series is still at its infant stage so perhaps later on Tsuzura could reveal her true colours and betray Mary. Hence one of the pivotal points in the student council and Full Bloom war. Her cutie pie innocent looks and good natured will are just there to let our guard down when we least expected it. I mean, there is a reason why people sent their kids to this school despite some of them end up being house pets, right? So I’m not drawing a conclusion on Tsuzura and Yukimi just yet and will continue to hold onto my cards just in case. Better be safe than sorry, no? Hey, I learnt this from this series, okay? Trust nobody but yourself and your guts!

I guess this spinoff prequel needed some sort of main antagonist and since Kirari can’t be taking up that part, hence Sachiko filling that role. Definitely her goal is to make Mary her house pet because she’s a very interesting girl. I bet she couldn’t care less about the student council or Full Bloom as long as she can get Mary under her control. It’s like her elusive dream. Of course when you have Sachiko as the high class b*tch antagonist, you have Mikura who is at the other end of the pole. Obviously she is a masochist and wants to be the only one to monopolize Sachiko. Hence her misguided hatred for Mary who has attracted too much attention for her mistress. She lacks the elegance Sachiko has but either way, both girls are bad news if they got their eyes on you. Then there is Aoi who is a dick himself. Don’t let that voice of confidence fool you because he is just another one of those guys who will use anything at his disposal for his own personal gains. Heck, even Sakura feels like a much better person than him. Despite she sounds strict and uptight, she has better moral values than most of these characters (yes, that includes you, Mary). She is very sharp, observant and full of confidence and my guess is that’s her way of surviving these gambling grounds. It is heart breaking to see her realize what Aoi thinks of her and it remains to be seen if she will continue to be loyal for her family’s sake or turn rogue and independent.

MAPPA who did the main series, continue their work for this prequel spinoff so it’s nice to see the consistent and familiar artwork and style of this series. I love it during those moments which I consider as funny moments. You know, the part where the character’s facial expression suddenly turns into that snickering devil b*tch face? Yeah. That one. I can’t help laugh whenever the art style changes to this. Even if it is not meant to be funny but to see the characters having such expression when they think their plan is going their way or suddenly that wide eyed shocking sorrowful look of oh-sh*t-I-think-I-am-going-to-lose face, it just never fails to amuse me. Some might call those faces as ‘ugly’ but then again, which gambler doesn’t have that ugly side to them? And those missing the Yumeko x Mary fanservice, sorry folks, not even Mary x Tsuzura fanservice is even hinted! Okay, maybe just slightly but nothing very suggestive for some yuri delusions.

Voice acting is pretty solid. The casts from the main series are retained but only making short cameos (save for Mary). The new ones that I recognized include Yuko Kaida as Sachiko as well as Aoi Koga as Mikura. The latter feels like what happens when Kaguya-sama turned to the dark side. Scary. I think there is Jun Fukuyama too as one of the guys in the coupling game. Yeah, the fatty one. What’s his name again? The other new casts are Rina Honnizumi as Tsuzura (Sizilien in Kenja No Mago), You Taichi as Yukimi (Dorothy in Princess Principal), Rie Takahashi as Sakura (titular character in Karakai Jouzu No Takagi-san), Seiichirou Yamashita as Aoi (Kosame in Appare-Ranman), Sayaka Senbongi as Kurumi (Shuna in Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken) and Yui Makino as Chitose (Sakura in Tsubasa Chronicle). The opening theme is a surprise. It’s just an upbeat jazzy instrumental piece that lasts only 45 seconds! I’m not saying I love it but it is quite okay to listen too since it fits the theme of the series. As for the ending theme, Queen’s Bluff by Iris feels a lot like a K-pop music with the sound effects and singing style and beat (although the band is J-pop). Although not my kind of music but I guess it’s not bad to listen to once in a while.

Overall, this series is quite interesting and I would love to love it more had not my brain getting in the way for refusing to understand the important explanation points. Also, it is not quite completed yet so there is this sore part of leaving viewers wanting for more but so far getting nothing after that long wait. Imawa No Kuni No Alice, anyone? The anime version, that is. Otherwise, it is a good side distraction for some of us to remember the series (Kakegurui XX aired back in early 2019, that feels like a loooooooong tiiiiiiime agoooooooo!!!!!!!!) so it’s good to know that these badass girls are still out there doing the high rolling dice lifestyle. At least there’s some variety to the CGDCT genre. You know, Cute Girls Doing Crazy beTting! Sighs. Sorry, I tried. Not a good one. So can we count on seeing them again soon? Well, I wouldn’t want to bet on that.

Kakegurui XX

It wasn’t me. I had no money to bet there would be another reason and was just silently praying to God for it and boom! Here it was! Kakegurui XX was unexpected and I supposed somebody made a bet and won over the producers for another season. Or maybe God really worked his miracle. Thank you. God or whoever you are anonymous gambler for giving another season for this great psychological gambling game that had too many interesting potentials and developments that would be a shame had it not get another sequel. Now I can enjoy the second season without betting or risking anything XD. Or do I?

Episode 1
Yumeko, Ikishima and Erimi Mushibami are in a high stakes gambling. In this game, each will take turns to cut a string. One of the strings is connected to the guillotine that will definitely chop off their finger. Of course the first to pull out loses in this extreme game of chicken. The game is supervised by Inaho Yamato of the election committee whose duty is to be the neutral judge. Erimi is not afraid of the outcome. She knows there is a safety plate that would stop the blade from going down all the way. She is relishing to see the chance of her opponents squirm and panic in fear. However as the game passes and they cut fake strings, Erimi is puzzled that they are getting more and more excited. They’re basically orgasming and hope that the next string they cut is the real deal! She tries to play psychology to see how long they will last as she explains her family is in the business of torture and that’s why she has this mini guillotine. But when Yumeko checks with Inaho if she had checked and removed it and Inaho confirms it, Erimi starts to panic. Wait a minute. You mean there is no safety plate?! Prior to the game, for fairness, all the participants waited out of the room as Inaho checked the guillotine and shuffled the strings. Oh dear. Now it’s Inaho to get scared. She’s sweating a lot. Must be the heavy gothic dress, huh? NOT! And Ikishima and Yumeko are only getting crazier as the strings reduced. Yeah, the chances of the guillotine dropping could be any time soon… And there are only 3 strings left… Oh sh*t! And then Erimi starts crying inconsolably… WTF… What the f*ck?! WHAT THE F*CK???!!! Yumeko not looking happy. B*tch, did you just kill my vibe?! Flashback to when Kirari announced after a string of defeats the student council suffered at the hands of Yumeko, she is dissolving the student council and hold an election. Some are opposed to this because it will mean Kirari relinquishing her power. Kirari explains Hyakkaou is a garden she created beautifully based on the law of the survival of the fittest. But someone came to disrupt that beauty. If left alone, the distortion will grow. Hence she wants to stir things up even more. Kirari ushers in and introduces a new bunch of weirdoes. Terano and Yumi Totobami, Sumika Warakubami, Miroslava Honebami, Nozomi Komabami, Rin and Ibara Obami, Miri Yobami, Miyo Inbami and Erimi. All these are the relatives and branches of the Momobami clan. They have recently transferred here to represent their families as candidates for the presidential election. There is also Rei Batsubami but she isn’t gambling and serves as their butler.

Episode 2
Thanks to Kirari’s sudden announcement, the adults panic and sent their kids here since the winner will also become the head of the Momobami clan. Terano accuses Kirari of loving to see all the families panic over this. She hates her for easily taken what she wants and then relinquishes it with ease. While some of the existing student council protest this, Kirari notes that if they want to maintain status quo, all they have to do is win. Everyone has a fair chance with this election. This means the other students too. Everyone will be given a chip that represents their vote. You gamble and win votes of others. The person with the most votes after 30 days wins. Yumeko was happy with this but rued since Manyuda transferred all his money to her, looks like she can’t use it as bets in this election. Mary is wary of this election and wants to stay out (no Yumeko-Mary lesbian combo, I guess). She suspects they could be distant relatives of Yumeko since they all have that Bami name. Meanwhile Terano is the unofficial leader of the branches. She has everyone remember their pact to topple Kirari and until then they will not face each other. As for Yumeko, she must be a fringe family of the clan and they are free to fight or ignore her. Hence Erimi gets this idea to take her out. Rei then goes to get Yumeko who is delighted that somebody has issued a challenge to her. She wasn’t thrilled that Ikishima also got the invitation but soon gets excited after Erimi introduces her game. And that is where we all now. Erimi is struck by her own fear and terror but with those crazy b*tches egging her to go all the way, I guess Erimi has also lost it and just picks up the scissors to cut. A miss! Damn, the tension is running high! Ikishima is so f*cking excited that she cuts both strings at once! Here comes the guillotine!!!!!! Eh? The safety plate is still intact? Because Erimi pulled out first, she loses. Because Ikishima cut 2 strings, she is disqualified. Hence Yumeko is the winner. But Yumeko is very mad at Ikishima for killing the tension. Never show your face before me again! As for why the safety plate is still there, actually when Yumeko hinted to Inaho, it was because she noticed the table the guillotine sits on was unstable. Hence she removed the pads from the table’s feet to add stability. Yumeko praises Erimi for her pride and conviction of staying true till the end. Wow. Erimi really got psyched on this one. Meanwhile Kirari and Terano talk about the latter bringing in Rei here. Her house was expelled from the clan and he won’t do good as insurance. Terano insists she is just a joker whose actions will be unpredictable.

Episode 3
Nishinotouin loses to Miyo and Miri. Yumeko is now delighted to play against them. While Miri is cold and distant, Miyo tries to put up a polite and friendly façade for Yumeko. Runa supervises this nim zero game that Suzui wants to enter too. He thinks he can help Yumeko? Okay. This game has cards labelled from 0 to 3. Each will be given 4 cards and the goal is not to exceed the total 9. The one who surpasses that loses. They will play this for 3 rounds. Because Suzui only has 1 chip, he is offered a service chip. Each chip means 24 hours of service to the student council. Is he willing to take that risk? You bet! In the first round, Yumeko ups the ante by raising 30 chips! The rest follow. Yeah, Suzui follows to and that means 700 over hours of service if he loses… The round completes with Miyo busting her hand. Suzui is puzzled because she had a bad hand so why did she risk this? Suddenly Yumeko collapses. Meanwhile Mary is confronted by Ririka and is forced to play a simple gamble with her. Guess which hand has a chip and all these chips will be hers. If Mary wins, she will follow her around. If Ririka wins, Mary will team up with her to fight. However Mary takes off her mask, reducing her self-confidence drastically. Mary will not be cowed into this and refuses to play. Then she gets a call from Suzui. Help! Yumeko is poisoned and he is told to bring someone with lots of chips. Mary understands where this is going so she picks the correct hand of Ririka. Rushing to Yumeko’s side, she hears Suzui accusing Miyo and Miri of poisoning Yumeko. Their families might be in the pharmaceutical business but he has no proof. Even more so, Runa is perfectly sure there was no foul play during the game. This means it could happened before the game starts, outside Runa’s jurisdiction. Yup, the time Miyo hugged Yumeko during their introduction. With Mary replacing Yumeko, Miyo adds the serum as the wager. She also adds one cannot fold or else you have to press your finger against this nail coated with the same poison. Deep down inside Miyo, she relishes seeing these friends crumble in their noble bid to save Yumeko. The next round begins and Mary wants Suzui to show his hand! Well, that’s not against the rules. Suzui remembers Yumeko’s words to do all that Mary says. Hence he is going to believe in her. That is his bet! After seeing the weak cards he has, she is sure she can win this and raises the ante to 100 chips.

Episode 4
Miyo and Miri have developed some sort of telepathic way to communicate with themselves. Actually they ‘speak’ with their eyes. Whatever. Miyo wants Suzui not to listen to Mary. She will give the antidote to Yumeko and they should join forces to take her down as Mary is only trying to sacrifice him. Suzui rejects her deal because this is not what Yumeko would’ve wanted. The round ends with Miri losing. For the last round, the same thing as Mary has Suzui shows his cards. When Miyo raises the ante to 300 chips, Mary raises it to 10,000 chips! Miyo thinks she is trying to make them fold and is bluffing. They call on her and the game begins. Miyo and Miri realizes despite having good hands, they are the ones under threat. Yeah, Mary is smiling and enjoying the game. Miyo then notices that this could be Runa’s fault. It seems Mary has also noticed Runa’s Gilbreath shuffling style. From what I understand, no matter how you shuffle and cut the deck, every 4 cards will contain 1 from each suit (in this case, numbers) despite being random. So with 16 cards among them and each containing precisely 4 suits, that is why Mary had Suzui show his cards. This means she can tell what the cards Miyo and Miri have. With the limited choices they could make, it makes them easier to predict. Miyo accuses Runa of not adhering to neutrality. However Runa fires back that she has always been shuffling this way. It’s her fault not to take notice. Even so, as a dealer she sets the rules. It is her principle to make sure everyone has a fair shot at winning even if you are dead! The poison takes effect on Miri. Miyo then tells Miri to lose for her. She claims herself as superior. Miri does that and collapses. Miyo takes her away and vows to kill Mary next time. Yumeko is recuperating with Rei’s help administering the serum. Suzui thanks Mary and even Rei. He is glad that Rei is a kind person despite coming from a scary clan. But this makes Rei feel sad. As the gambling rages on, Kirari feels bored with her easy wins. Like as though nobody is serious in taking her out. Rin and Sumika join in and Kirari finally thinks she could at least have some fun. Mary whispers a secret only to Yumeko. Not sure if she can hear but Mary says she is going to be the next student council president.

Episode 5
The total votes so far after a week. The top 10 from lowest to highest: Yumeko, Miroslava, Miyo, Sumika, Sumeragi, Rin, Mary, Yumemi, Terano and of course in a runaway lead, Kirari. After Ikishima criticizes Yumemi as a talentless idol, this makes her go into a rage. Yumemi’s goal isn’t to become the student council president but if she has to influence on the next president, she must convince others she was the one putting them in power. As she has taken all the votes from her fans, the only way to get more votes is to get more fans. Rin thinks back about his match with Kirari. Because she bet all in, Rin folded. He realized it was her way to get them to go into some sudden death match and that has nothing to do with poker skills. Hence Rin and Sumika decided not to continue. The disappointment on Kirari’s face was priceless. Yumemi begs Yumeko to team up as an idol and garner more votes. Then everyone is abuzz with the world’s famous Hollywood actress here, Natari Kawaru. Yumeko is a big fan of hers. What is she doing here? To take part in the election. Eh? Natari’s real name is Sumika! She ignores Yumemi and wants to gamble with Yumeko. However Yumeko won’t be ignored and also challenges her. Natari agrees the dream girls team up against her in a singing performance. Of course Yumemi doesn’t care about winning or losing. It is her dream to perform with an actress she admires very much. However it would be much better if she beats that b*tch. Meanwhile Mary chides Ririka for following her around like a stalker. She claims that promise thingy but Mary will not acknowledge her as her partner unless she gambles and proves her worth. We see Yumeko and Yumemi belting out a typical kawaii idol song. When it is Natari’s turn, she stuns the crowd with her amazing voice while singing Amazing Grace! Holy sh*t! So beautiful that it blew everyone away?! Yumemi starting to look scared. And at the same time so awed that she also cried. Yumemi is not worried because she bribed her fans to vote for her. So here is the result of the first round. Natari thumping the duo 92-8 votes!!! Yumemi starting to look REALLY scared now.

Episode 6
Yumemi realizes the only way Natari could have won was that she too bribed others. But this was how she did it. She gave it to Rei to tell people to vote however they want. In the next match, they must eat 3 macarons. One of them is super spicy. The winner is one who can guess which macaron their opponent ate is the spicy one. Yumemi might look like she hit it with the first one but good acting. Because Natari points out it was the second one. She knows because Yumemi broke her finger just to hide the grimace. Yumeko could correctly guess Natari’s by counting the times she chewed! She took longer for the first one because she was delaying it, fascinated by Yumemi’s acting. But it was just pure gambling and guessing with the remaining ones. When Yumemi realizes she can never beat Natari no matter what, Yumeko becomes mad. B*tch, you just killed my vibe. She only helped because she was going to win but now that she has moved the goalpost, she hates her. In this last game, players pick up a card and set it face down. They can declare its actual value or lie. However they cannot exceed the value of 63. One may pass but this makes you out of the game. When 1 player is left, if the actual total value is below 63, she wins. Over, she loses. With Yumeko being lifeless and not cooperating with Yumemi, the idol thinks hard about her predicament. Indeed she wanted to lose but then she hears her fan scream not to give up. She remembers all those times being an idol and wants Yumeko to pass with her. Yumeko is surprised that she was acting all the time. She gets her groove back again but Yumemi dismisses it and that she wanted to lose and be praised by Natari for trying despite being talentless. Yumemi never wanted to be an idol but an actress. But being an idol made her realize this role is fun and she has been to places she could never have imagined. She doesn’t know if there is any meaning in beating her but she will find that meaning if she continues to look for it. With the dream girls pulling out, Runa counts the cards and it goes over. The dream girls win and Natari hopes to battle with Yumemi the next time. In Hollywood.

Episode 7
Yumeko sees Terano and wants to gamble. Finally Manyuda wakes up but he doesn’t care about his own life anymore. Even when Sumeragi tears up his Life Programme, he still doesn’t mind becoming her slave. Reverse psychology backfired. Here comes Yumeko to talk to them for a favour. Ibara and Miroslava are summoned by Terano. It seems she is in agreement with Yumeko’s plan. As Kirari is running away with the votes, soon none will have enough to challenge her and hence this plan is to pool their votes together to the winner. However Terano will not be joining in due to her promise not to fight her brethren. Rumia Uru oversees this game. Each will be given 5 coins to put in either a personal deposit box or a tax box. Coins in the personal box will be counted to their overall total. But coins deposited in the tax box will be doubled and distributed equally to all players including those who didn’t contribute. This will last for 5 rounds and the winner will get the votes which are from Terano’s. However if they fail to get 40 coins, they will give their votes to her. Before each round, they have time to discuss strategy and can eliminate a player if 3 of them agree. As Sumeragi heads to deposit first, Manyuda asks Yumeko about her passion for gambling. But does she feel remorse for those lives she ruined? None. However this makes Rei very mad and only backed down when Terano instructed her. When the first round ends, it seems they are a few coins short and this means there is a traitor among them who didn’t deposit in the tax box. With accusations flying, Yumeko comes up with an idea by having everyone pick randomly a paper with a number to indicate how much they must deposit in the tax box. While the traitor may get away with 1 or 2 coins, at least this avoids a big betrayal. But by the end of the second round, even lesser coins were deposit so much so that there is at least 2 traitors in the midst for this to happen. Ibara gets mad believing Yumeko is the traitor since she expected this outcome too. With Sumeragi accusing Ibara and Miroslava as in cohorts, Manyuda surprisingly gives his evaluation on who the traitor is. Judging from the circumstances, he points to Yumeko.

Episode 8
Manyuda explains about Yumeko and Terano conspiring together to assure they could profit from this. This makes Sumeragi sad that he has gone senile. In the next round, it’s the same as the last. Yumeko then orgasms that they they’re going to lose. WTF she seducing Manyuda and that activates his desire to bring everybody down now?! So both of them declare they won’t pay any taxes and hence making everyone to do the same. However everyone paid them in full. Manyuda now reveals the true traitors are Miroslava and Sumeragi. You see, it isn’t against the rules to leave your coins for others. Hence Sumeragi left hers for Miroslava whose turn is after her. Even if Miroslava had no reason to trust her, what if the note says to bank in her coins into her own deposit box? Not bad seeing there are no risks and all she need to do is get rid of the evidence. Manyuda calculates the coins received from this and Miroslava is in a massive lead. Hence the majority agrees to remove her from the final round. Miroslava realizes she has been played by Sumeragi but doesn’t hold a grudge against her since they were both allies in betrayal. But she does note she likes Manyuda because she set this up in a way for him to win. After the final round, Sumeragi wins the game. Although the votes are redistributed and Sumeragi is to receive 100 votes, however Rei announces a third party betting. Prior to this, Sumeragi and Terano made a bet if Manyuda would win or lost and achieve 40 coins. Sumeragi betted he couldn’t and must now pay her 150 votes. Manyuda is mad she did this but for Sumeragi, either way it is a win for her. Had Manyuda lost, Sumeragi would win a huge amount of votes. Had Manyuda won, she loses her votes but knew he didn’t go senile and still had it in him. She is happy with either way. Hence this game wasn’t about him interested in finding out what other people think but what is in his own heart. Sumeragi doesn’t see this as saving him. He is her accomplice and now her gamble is now left in her hands. With that, Sumeragi is no longer in the running for the student council president. Sayaka is getting worried that Terano is obtaining more votes and will do anything like threats and expulsion just to protect Kirari. However Kirari will not have any of that. She wants Yumeko to stir things up further. Oh Sayaka. You looking so sad. Is she going to get a heart attack?

Episode 9
Update on the rankings of the election. The top 10 from lowest to highest: Suzui (surprise!), Nozomi, Miyo, Ibara, Yumeko, Rin, Mary, Yumemi, Terano and Kirari. When Yumeko declares to challenge Kirari right now, this is when b*tch Sayaka steps in to berate her and even wants Kirari to throw her out right now. Of course no can do. This has Sayaka wondering if Kirari will look at her more favourably if she beats Yumeko at gambling. Well, if she can. This has Sayaka challenging Yumeko to a gamble. But it will be separate from the election and not votes. They will bet their lives. As shocking this may sound, Yumeko declines. Because that would be too boring. In order for Sayaka to really bet everything, she must risk her relationship and memories with Kirari. That is her ultimate bet. If Yumeko loses, she will never gamble again. With Kirari looking forward to this and wants to be their dealer, it’s do or die for Sayaka. In this tower game, the aim is to move from the fifth floor down to the first floor to pick a flower and then back up to the fifth floor again. The fastest to do so wins. However there are doors and hatches that brings you up or down different levels. Only the central staircase brings you directly to the bottom and top floor. Each will have 5 minutes as they take turns to choose a door to open but each door has a puzzle they must solve. However a word of caution, even if they get the answer correct, it may not be the solution. With Sayaka still thinking about her important ties with Kirari, Kirari ups the ante for her. Let the loser jump off the highest floor and die. So if Sayaka losers, she will die an utter stranger to her. The game begins, Yumeko goes first. I don’t really get the puzzles to the doors that keep changing but it has something to do with hexadecimal and decimal values. Although Yumeko got it right, behind the door is a wall. Sayaka’s turn, she chooses her hatch and her answer allows her to go down to another floor. But reaching the 4th floor, she realizes the other hatch goes down a few more floors. She thought of praying to God for Yumeko not to choose that hatch but screw that. She is going to believe in her decisions and Kirari! Yumeko’s turn, she chooses a door. Not sure if she is making out with the door because she considers this tower as her opponent and wants to get to know more about it. Every inch, nook and corner. Because rather than living in ignorance, better to know everything and die!

Episode 10
Flashback shows Sayaka as a meek girl who met Kirari and wanted to be a secretary. She was enthralled with her gambling style and wanted to be close to her to learn more. Sayaka feared she said too much but surprisingly, Kirari took a liking for her rationality and accepted. As she makes her way to the first floor, she is shocked that Yumeko hasn’t arrived. She cannot have left since her flower is still here. She starts to think what might have happened and on her next turn, tries the central staircase. Brick wall. It is then Yumeko shows up. Sayaka starts laughing and is now confident to beat her. She climbs her way back up, certain that she will win but wait… Yumeko has arrived! Sayaka in shock! Face it. She lost. Yumeko explains about her choice. The puzzles displayed are actually angles. When she opened the door, she just wanted to look at the moon. However there was nothing. It then dawned to her that this entire tower itself is rotating. That is why they sometimes hit the brick wall. So using this calculation, Yumeko was able to use the central staircase and head right back up. Sayaka is still in disbelief. Why would Kirari design a tower that doesn’t not fully utilize gambling? That’s the thing. That’s part of the gamble. Dead fish Sayaka realizes she lost because of logic. Saddened by her fate she couldn’t understand the person she loves, she prepares to jump to her death. After doing so, she is shocked to see Sayaka jumping after her! It isn’t the flower fields that broke their fall. Yeah, safety mats. Kirari explains this is her tower so she wanted to also be the first person to jump off. However Sayaka chose the correct door because other doors would have led to her death. Hence despite not thinking, her mind is still seeking logic. After all this time, she still finds her fascinating. Now that they are strangers, she offers her to become her secretary. She might not understand her but that’s okay. Can we say today is the day Sayaka died and reborn again?

Episode 11
A few received an invitation for the 100 vote auction. But not all those who were invited came. Those who turn up are Yumeko, Suzui, Mary, Ririka, Nishinotouin and Ikishima (totally ignored by Yumeko). The auctioneer is Rei and Inaho invigilates this gamble. Rei cannot disclose the sponsor for the 100 votes up for grabs and explains the rules. They will be using their votes to bid and whoever places the highest bid will win the 100 vote lot. The catch is that they will not know who bids. Also, if you don’t win the lot, you lose everything you bid. I’m not very clear about the rest because if they are limited by the number of votes they have, will that limit their play? Anyway, Mary is confident she can win this as she warns the others this is just a ploy to compete among themselves as the one who actually wins is the sponsor. But with others bidding, Mary is forced to bid higher and wins the first round. In the next round, Mary says the same thing but this time Nishinotouin wins the bid. Before the next round, Mary announces she will bid 99 to prevent anyone from bidding hire (because if they bid 100, they will trade it with the 100 votes they win). But she lied and bid 10. Then somebody raises it to 20. This only confirms her suspicions that Rei is also playing this game to deliberately raise the price. This will go on until the sponsor made a profit. Rei admits she is playing but vows not to participate further. Mary thought the next round would be smooth sailing but somebody is still trying to outbid her. This is when Yumeko realizes that there is another participant somewhere and that they can see them. True enough the other Bami members are watching from a different room and the one who just bid was Ibara. With Yumeko turned on, she points out that Rei is the sponsor and organizer of this gamble. She then brings in 3 billion yen (from her win from Manyuda) and wants to use this to win this round’s 100 votes (apparently she talked to Inaho about some rule amending thingy and it was approved with all those present consented). She wants to gamble with the real Rei, bid this 3 billion and win everything that belongs to her. With Rei admitting that, she throws away her ‘mask’ and reveals her true ‘face’.

Episode 12
We delve into Rei’s past as one of those Bami members who was raised as a livestock ever since. Her role was to only serve others until one day Yumeko’s sister told her the mark on her hands doesn’t mean it is engraved in her heart forever. Her heart is hers alone. This made Rei happy. She continued her role but every time Yumeko’s sister visited, she would be happy. But each time she looks even more and more weak. Until one day she too got devoured and lost in a gamble among the clan’s conflict. Ever since, Rei vowed revenge and take back what is hers. Hence Rei announces she will win this election and become the next clan head as revenge. With the auction continuing, the other Bami members realized this wasn’t an act by Terano that they assumed. They’ve been had. As for how Rei amassed her votes, there was a large gamble recently where one would vote whether Rei could win this. All the girls who were swept off their feet gave their votes to her and hence she has enough votes to compete. The Bami members want to quit but they realize they will lose more if they quit as there is the risk of Rei getting all the votes so they are forced to stay in. The auction continues in the same fashion. Like as though Rei is going to win anyhow. Suddenly Yumeko quickly posts a few 101 starting bids. And then a few subsequent delayed ones. The Bami realizes this delay is that she is looking for an answer so when the next bid starts, the Bami side quickly cast their 101 bid.

But after that, Yumeko then bids 1. As Mary notes she can’t just profit them all, Yumeko suggests they should join in. Hence everyone takes turns in bidding 1 and win the 100 lot to finally ruin Rei. Rei accuses them of collusion which is forbidden by the rules. However Yumeko explains it isn’t so. It is that they clearly understand each other! Hence they manage to understand the need to profit by not competing with each other (the 101 useless bids were just trolls for this understanding). With Rei having no votes left, she thinks she is done for but Yumeko points out that she still has something to wager: Her 3 billion yen. This is her everything. Don’t gamble for the sake of revenge or others. Gamble for yourself! It is your own heart! Rei accepts this final big gamble in which Yumeko wagers her own name. If she loses, she will take on Rei’s forsaken surname. It all boils down to a single coin toss… In the aftermath, it seems Rei has been freed by her imaginary chains and is encouraged by Kirari to write her new Bami surname. So this means Yumeko won the coin toss and is now gambling it all away! Oh dear. Easy come, easy go? Sumeragi stops her before she bankrupts herself out of this election. Then a smoking hot never seen before babe passes by. Oh gosh! Rei is so feminine and beautiful! Yumeko is happy because today is the first day of her very own life. Terano thinks that the joker wasn’t Rei all along but Yumeko.

Luck Not Needed, Only Madness…
Oh God… I think I’m addicted to it… I think this needs another season… Another season real bad… I mean, it can’t just end here like this, can it?! I need more! I need more right now! How to go on without any more money???!!! I guess I’m broke. This means all that is left is to complain and b*tch about this unsatisfying ending. So I guess the real character in focus this season is Rei. With her being finally liberated from her imaginary chains, is this considered a happy ending? Perhaps for Rei. Because certainly Yumeko would also be happy because there would be another one of her kind who would gamble for their own sake and reach that kind of level of insanity. The kind of orgasmic thrills that such extreme gambler could feel when they are on the edge. But that’s another story.

This season is still as interesting and tense as its first. Although there are some points like the mechanisms and the workings of the gamble in play that I don’t really understand no matter how many times I go back and listen to the rules. That still didn’t diminish my overall enjoyment of the series although it could have been a lot more enjoyable had I really understood how the gamble works. For instance the final gamble of this season, the 100 votes auction felt like anybody could just bid any number. Because I thought they are limited to the number of votes they have and this puts those with low number of votes at a disadvantage. Maybe I am missing something here but trying to follow through the scheming but not understanding the system of how it works feels somewhat frustrating.

The psychological tensions are still interesting to watch as we get to see how such precarious situations bring out the best and the worst in all of us. Of course those who are already as crazy as Yumeko, there is nothing more to say. But those who stand to lose a lot and fear in losing all that power, money, fame, status, etc, have a higher chance of showing their true colours and make a blunder. Good example as in Erimi’s case. She wanted to show off but underestimated her opponents and in the end found herself in a position that should have been experienced by her enemies.

Many of the games are simple but with just a slight twist to the rules. Some are elaborate like Kirari’s tower that aren’t anything much ado but are for aesthetics. While they are interesting in their own right, I feel that because of the drama, sly manoeuvrings, deceptions, delusions and psychological tensions being played during the games, this somewhat lengthens and stretches out the games by 2 or 3 episodes. The game would have seriously end very quickly had they not do all this stuffs. But then again, where would all the fun be had it been cut out? Viewers won’t get a satisfied explanation on what is going on and like myself as I have said don’t really understand some of the rules to begin with, will get even more confused if the game ended too fast. Like Yumeko always said, one must truly enjoy a good gamble.

With Kirari being unpredictable and forcing this student election gamble, hence the introduction of a few characters from the other Bami families in a bid to overthrow her. It feels unfortunate that with only a single cour in this season, it doesn’t do any much justice to the existing and new characters. While Yumeko is still the central main character and involved in almost every gamble we see here, in some instances she doesn’t feel like the main character. How should I put it? For instance the Yumemi and Natari’s battle, the focus is mainly on them and while Yumeko maintains her presence, she feels more like a sideshow. After all, Yumeko’s ultimate goal is to enjoy high stakes gamble and not be some typical cliché main character.

Characters from Yumeko’s camp also don’t fare any better. Feels like they have their turn and moments but those were short. Like Suzui seems really forgettable here and he is mostly an observer in many of the gambles. Except for that card game with the Chinese duo in which he participated but it feels like he is more of a puppet than anything else. Mary also feels very much like a side character. The card game to substitute Yumeko felt like some sort of ploy to give her some screen time and remind us that she is still sly in her own right. Then after Ririka weirdly becomes some sort of her ally and accomplice, she doesn’t stand out too much. Even that final auction game even though shows like as though she is trying to take control but I just don’t really feel the impact. What it feels like a last chance for Sumeragi to be relevant and go out with style and respect, is that the reason why they also brought back Manyuda? I don’t think it will be the last I see of them but after making amends and realizing the important stuffs, does the student council election matter anymore to them? Some weird romance they played out here…

I thought this season Sayaka was going to be side-lined since many of the other student council members too were somewhat thrown off the limelight. Nishinotouin and Ikishima going out early (poor Ikishima being treated as non-existent by Yumeko and anybody who talks to her before Yumeko’s presence gets chastised of who the f*cks are you talking to?!), Manyuda in coma (until that revival for that tax game) and Ririka turning into Mary’s subordinate, where would that make Kirari’s right hand woman? It’s a good thing we don’t have to see her getting jealous and b*tch about her precious Kirari but I suppose that gamble with Yumeko once and for all settles this. So let’s hope that with their renewed bond, Sayaka would be a more respectable character than before. Not like it matters anymore considering the direction of the plot. Kirari as the big boss seems like she is just biding her time until somebody crazy and worthy enough pops up to challenge her. I bet it would be worth the wait for her. So aside her, the only other successful original student council member is Yumemi. Even if she can’t become the student council president (she might be one of the top running candidates but I’m not betting on her to win it… Unless…), she still has something bigger to aim and strive for.

The Bami family members are equally as quirky and even as cruel due to each of their families specializing in some sort of specialty (like the Chinese duo in poison and Erimi in torturing). It would have been very cliché and linear if the story would be Yumeko going on to defeat all the Bami family one by one until the final boss but that would have been absolutely boring. After all, if Yumeko’s real goal was that, she would have challenged them all to one huge gamble. Small bets aren’t her style. It is unfortunate that the single cour has limited the fleshing out of these extremely interesting characters and while some have their limelight, others do not (like Nozomi – because I want to know how relevant her dog is). It looks like Terano is the unofficial leader leading the other Bami families to overthrow Kirari but considering this backstabbing family where power is absolute, there might be plot twists to more than meets the eye. After all when in a game of high stakes, you don’t really trust anybody. And it might seem this unofficial alliance is only intact because of Terano but who knows, anything can happen when so much is on the line. Heck, all this might just be a show and for all you know, Terano is actually conspiring with Kirari all along. At the end of the day, I suppose the last one standing definitely has the right to be called the biggest snake. Isn’t that what uwabami is?

I suppose the hidden and ‘star’ of this season is the character Rei. Serving as the butler to the entire academy as well as the Bami family, many things that she does gives off this suspicious aura. That kind of submissive and servitude feels like she is putting on some kind of mask to hide her true feelings. Not to mention that she has some sort of charisma and all the girls start swooning whenever she passes by. All that somewhat paid off with all of them willingly giving their votes to let Rei run for presidency, huh? Rei’s gender is never explicitly mentioned although she acts and dresses like a man but I know better… With Rei finally showing her true colours, it certainly looks to rattle the entire Bami clan but it went out with a sputter after that simple but gigantic loss to Yumeko. But then again, Rei didn’t particularly ‘lose’. She just ‘lost’ her past and gained her new freedom. You could say she won the lottery of this sense.

The other reason why I said she is the ‘star’ of this show is because that is why the second season is somewhat named after her, no? You see, ‘X’ in Japan is pronounced as ‘batsu’, which is Rei’s surname. Hence double X, double whammy? Uh huh. Thanks to that, I have a slightly hard time trying to find more legitimate info about this series. Because it leads me to those damn porn sites!!! I think there’s a reason why they didn’t call this season Kakegurui XXX… Yeah… A whole new gamble here…

Art and animation remain constant with last season. The trademark of this show is those devilish eyes. When the characters get serious or fall into their delirium, you will see a zoom in and close up of their eye. Yumeko is the main offender as her eyes will glow red like as though she is the devil reincarnate. Even Terminator would run towards his mummy. Heh. And oddly, I know Yumeko gets her thrills from gambling, but sometimes thinking about where the gamble is going also makes her orgasmic. Hence your weird fanservice of Yumeko doing sexy orgasmic poses that looks more like WTF than anything stimulating. Sorry folks, no Yumeko-Mary yuri fanservice this season. On a trivial note, why do I have this feeling that Natari’s character is modelled after Audrey Hepburn? She is considered by many to be one of the best actresses in Hollywood history.

This season’s opening theme doesn’t have that playful and naughty bubbly madness as it did in last season. Kono Yubi Tomare by Junna feels just pretty generic although a bit dramatic. Even its visuals in the opening credits aren’t as crazy. The same can be said for the ending theme, Alegria by D-selections. Last season we were treated to some crazy psychedelic delusions of Yumeko. This season we have Yumeko hinting some yuri action with Kirari in the forest. WTF?! You mean the natural forest?! Ah, the rules of the jungle and natural selection. The survival of the strongest and fittest. And yeah, it ends with some weird psychedelic lights thingy too, indicating that Yumeko might be high on some sort drugs. Whatever.

For the voice acting segment, recognizable joining the line-up include Romi Paku as Rei, Ayana Taketatsu as Erimi and Akira Ishida as Rin. Of course Mamiko Noto making her cameo as Yumeko’s sister! Hmm… Once I considered them as clones due to the similarity of their voice and now they are sisters here… How strange. The other new casts are Megumi Han as Terano (Akko in Little Witch Academia), Mitsuki Saiga as Miroslava (Phantom in MAR), Yoshimasa Hosoya as Ibara (Reiner in Shingeki No Kyojin), Ayahi Takagaki as Natari/Sumika (Chris in Senki Zesshou Symphogear), Yumi Uchiyama as Miyo (Hameline in Radiant), Rumi Okubo as Miri (Hibachi in Mushibugyou), Sayaka Kitahara as Nozomi (Mary in Busou Shoujo Machiavellism), Haruno Inoue as Yumi (Kaoru in Nobunagun) and Nanami Yamashita as Inaho (Nanami in Wake Up Girls).

Overall, absolutely interesting and intriguing second season only to be cut short because it is just a single cour. Not enough time to flesh out properly all the other characters, old and new. Some of the games are a bit hard to comprehend for a simpleton like me but that doesn’t greatly impact and diminish the overall enjoyment I had. So back to praying to God that this gets another season. And soon. Don’t want to wait 5 years or 10 years for it to get another season (like a few third season anime series lately like To Aru No Majutsu Index, Date A Live and Chihayafuru being aired after a long hiatus from their second season) so here is leaving to luck and chance! I’m betting that I have a better chance of getting a third season than winning the lottery :’(.

Kakegurui

If you think Kaiji was too dangerous in its gambling theme, you haven’t seen Kakegurui yet. Equally as dangerous because it is a high school setting where students are allowed to gamble and winners triumph over losers. Money rules. A gambler’s paradise or a gambler’s hell, depending on which end your fate throws you. So if you can’t stomach any form of risk, don’t even think of earning any quick cash if you can’t afford to bet a strand of hair on the table. Why bet something so small and insignificant when you can bet your entire life! Oh sh*t…

Episode 1
Ryouta Suzui is in a gambling game with Mary Saotome. He lost. He believes the rest of his life is doomed until Yumeko Jabami becomes the new transfer student in his class. As he shows her around Hyakkaou Private Academy, she notices his ‘dog tag’. He explains this school’s gambling tradition in which if you lose and is unable to repay your debts guys will be tagged as dogs and girls as cats. Basically, house pets AKA slaves. Yumeko seems excited to receive an invitation to gamble but wait no more because Mary throws her that invitation. In this version of rock-scissors-paper, classmates will draw one of the three before putting it in a box and each of them will draw 3 cards from that box. They will pick one those cards to play. If no clear winner after 3 cards, the game is a draw. As they place their bets, Yumeko starts small and wins. In the next round, she makes a daring jump to bet highly. She lost. Then she reverts to betting small and wins. Then high again. But this time 10 million in cash! You scared, Mary? Cocky Mary takes on her challenge because she knows the game is rigged. Many of the classmates are on her side. All she needs to know is what kind of cards most of them will draw and pick that one that will guarantee her win. To Mary’s shock, Yumeko suddenly accuses her that her classmates are collaborating with her. Mary thinks it is her way to nullify the match if she is found cheating. On the contrary, Yumeko relishes that the true gambling starts now. Confident that the match is hers, Mary puts forth her winning card… And loses! Not only Yumeko has reclaimed the amount she lost to Mary but now Mary owes her 8.8 million! Mary has no way out left as she pleads for some time to repay her.

Later Suzui asks how Yumeko saw through Mary’s trick. Yumeko knew Mary was manipulating the game but needed to know which card would be voted the most. However it would be hard if there was no one to orchestrate which card to draw. She was observing Mary and she did not give any visual or verbal hints. Then she notices everyone’s eyes not on her but on somebody else. The person who would decide which card to draw. And that person is Suzui who was standing behind her. How does Yumeko know that? A handy hand mirror. But as for how Yumeko drew that winning card, it was really down to her luck. Is it because she enjoys the thrill of the risk? Certainly having too much risk or too high advantage isn’t fun. Suzui plans to drop out of this school because of his debt. He tried to earn money to repay his debt via gambling but fell even further. To his shock, Yumeko pays him the amount needed to clear his debt. This is her way of thanking him for introducing him to this school’s gambling and was able to enjoy a great game. Even if he was Mary’s slave, Yumeko hates game she knows she will win or lose. Today’s experience was the kind of thrill she wanted in gambling and it’s all thanks to him. Suzui can tell from that smile of her she isn’t just a gambling addict but loses herself gambling.

Episode 2
Mary is now a cat. Yesterday she is one of the elites. Today she is a slave and everyone is mocking her. Truly a quick fall from grace. Suzui explains that is the norm in this school as many children of politicians and businessmen are sent here and gambling is a way to pick up negotiation skills so that they can perform under pressure and take advantage of others (?!). The student council monitors all gambling and a hierarchy system is updated frequently. Of the 3000 students, the bottom 100 become house pets. Previously the discrimination wasn’t strong until the current student council president, Kirari Momobami defeated the previous one and now the body consists of the school’s strongest gamblers. This didn’t scare Yumeko and this makes her want to gamble more. Speaking of which, she’ll have her chance with Itsuki Sumeragi, the daughter of Japan’s most famous toy maker. She is also part of the student council although she bought her way in. Never lost a card game? Even better for Yumeko… They’ll be playing this memory game. But using 2 packs of card, the numbers and suit must match, therefore only making only 1 possible pair. Both start off equally well. They have never missed a card that has already been opened. Sumeragi wins in the end and with Yumeko betting 20 million, can she repay it? Yumeko emotionally pleads for another game and this is when Sumeragi starts to get creepy. She shows her nail collections that she has collected from losers. It would have been easier to buy them but it’s much more fun to tear them out! Suzui doesn’t want Yumeko to accept this but if she doesn’t, how else will she repay her debts?

Of course we all know why Sumeragi is so confident is because the cards are rigged. There is a small portion that will reveal a mark at certain temperature. She only has a few seconds to remember all those marked cards before those marks fade. With no proof, she’ll never be caught. Or so she thinks. So when Yumeko mocks her for betting so small compared to the market value of her family’s corporation, Sumeragi starts panicking if she knows this secret. Because it will be bad for her company as this means they have been selling cards for cheating. Too bad Sumeragi will never have a chance because Yumeko pairs it all on her first go! She has noticed the markings and they are the same as the pack before. Had they been different, she would have lost. Thank goodness, right? Sumeragi realizes Yumeko may have memorized the cards during the first game and pretended to be desperate to let her guard down. Yumeko is addicted now to continue gambling. This time they can tear the loser’s fingernails and toenails. Come on, let’s play! Too bad Sumeragi is so afraid that she starts crying and can’t do it. She regrets it but this only further disappoints Yumeko. No fun. Apparently after school, gambling stations pop up everywhere so you can bet Yumeko is going to visit them to gamble more. This leads her to the traditional culture research society. They see Mary in a desperate gamble against the society’s president, Yuriko Nishinotouin who is also on the student council. Mary lost. Further spiralling into debt. Screaming will not erase your debts…

Episode 3
More explanation how house pets have the right to challenge official matches but only once. As long as the wager is reasonable, it cannot be refused. Therefore they usually go after the student council in hopes of erasing their debts quickly but often fail. You bet Yumeko wants to play Nishinotouin. She explains this special roulette game known as Life or Death. 10 swords are thrown in a cup so they will land on a board with 30 numbers and holes. They bet their chips in hopes of the sword would land on the number. However if the sword lands face up, you win 30 times the amount you bet but if the sword is face down, you lose 30 times that amount. They play until all their chips are gone and the loser must pay the difference. Yumeko starts betting small to test waters. Neither lost. Before their next game, Yumeko starts mocking Nishinotouin as a despicable woman. She is referring to Mary’s game in which she was given a glimmer of hope but people like her only drive them to despair. Then she continues to make fun of Nishinotouin’s name because it sounds like a combination of numbers and thought the swords would have landed on them. This angers Nishinotouin but she keeps her cool and proceeds with the game. Before the swords are revealed, Yumeko apologizes for offending her because she just was just saying what’s on her mind to bet all her chips on this number, 24 (a combination pun of Nishinotouin’s name). That’s because she is cheating. Yumeko notices that all the members in the society has some sort of metal piercings on their hand. She believes one of the swords is magnetic and it will take the dexterity of the dealer to control the sword and land it face down in a hole.

Nishinotouin argues that if she was cheating, she would have won all the time. But Yumeko knows the best part of this trick is that she doesn’t need to win all the time. The success rate is low considering the magnetic sword might not fall into a certain hole or there are other swords blocking the hole. All she needs is just a slight advantage. That is why Yumeko provoked her to ‘cheat’ on this game. So if the sword actually lands face up on that number, Nishinotouin could stand to lose almost 3 billion in this single game! Nishinotouin is really panicking. She is in deep trouble because if she loses she will be kicked out of the student council in addition to the debt she cannot repay. She will lose everything she has built up. Thinking of negotiating, suddenly Kirari barges in and wants to watch the rest of this interesting game. So please reveal the swords. It didn’t land on 24 but it did land face down on a number Nishinotouin bet. It is Yumeko’s loss and Nishinotouin’s small miracle win. In the aftermath, Yumeko explains to Suzui about the old trick where Japanese houses usually has spaces below and this is perfect for accomplices to cheat in gambling via a very small hole. Yumeko deduces the sword did land on 24 but Kirari somehow managed to magnetically pull it out from the space above. She is excited and wants to gamble with Kirari. Yumeko is now a house pet as her classmates ridicule her. However Yumeko finds cats cute and starts acting like one! Those mockers freak out and leave since Yumeko wants to gamble them and absolve her debts. No takers?

Episode 4
Suzui pays some money back to her to cover her debts but she declines since the student council has not asked her to repay them. Instead, like him, she has a booklet called Life Programme. Mary also has this so she confronts student council member, Runa Yomozuki about this. Seems her entirely life is planned out. From who she will marry to how many kids she will have. Have a problem with it? Then repay your debts… Yumeko is then called by Jun Kiwatari who wants her to strip. When she declines, he is going to rape her. But then Midari Ikishima of the student council wants in and settle this via gambling. She wants to play Russian roulette. Only 1 bullet in the chambers of 6. She will fire and if it is empty, he gets her way with her or else he dies. When he isn’t interested, she makes it more interesting that he should pull the trigger on her instead. However he refuses and leaves. Ikishima is disappointed since the odds were not stacked against him. So she tries it on herself. And lives! She enjoys this thrill and starts masturbating herself. She will make good on Yumeko’s gratitude. An event is held. Student council secretary, Sayaka Igarashi relays the rules for this Debt Exchange programme. They will be divided into groups in which the group winner will take on the lowest debt in the group. But what if the one with the lowest debt wins? Full exemption of the debts. Mary is wary of Yumeko and hopes not to be grouped with her. Too bad fate screws with her and ends up in her group. In that case, there is no choice but to collude with her.

The game is Indian poker. Players are allowed to see their first card but their second card is placed over the forehead. The strongest is a pair followed by same suits. Different coloured chips are provided for each player because the value of the chips are 1/10 of the player’s debt. Also, the student council who will referee the game will turn a blind eye even if there is cheating unless it is brought to their attention. In Yumeko and Mary’s group are Kiwatari and Nanami Tsubomi. Kiwatari is not a house pet but he does owe a small amount to a friend so he is eligible to participate. He is just playing for some pocket money. The game starts off with Kiwatari being confident. Mary folds but Yumeko goes ahead and loses. Next round, Kiwatari also wins after everyone folds. Next round, Yumeko calls a raise and Kiwatari follows suit. Yumeko wins. Mary realizes that if she wants to win, she needs to move in. Her Life Programme is indeed a cushy life. An ultimate life that every woman dreams of. But she doesn’t want it as she doesn’t want others to tell her what to do with her life. When she calls for a raise, Kiwatari is still confident. A single loss to Yumeko will not deter him. After all, he knows they are working together. Because why so confidently bet high when they cannot determine the other card? Unless. He folds but Mary unveils her cards and has a dud.

Episode 5
For the next few rounds, when Kiwatari calls, they fold and if he folds, they have duds. Yumeko and Mary know Tsubomi is obedient to Kiwatari and by the way she places her cards, it signals to him what suit she has. Yumeko even tells Tsubomi a fool proof trick to use hand signals beneath the table. With Kiwatari panicking and telling Tsubomi how to play her hand, it only lets the duo know what kind of cards he has. On the penultimate round, Kiwatari wins and jumps into first place. On the final round, Kiwatari just needs to fold to win it. However Yumeko and Mary get into an argument to bet more chips. At this rate, they will overtake him. When he tries to force Tsubomi to fold, Yumeko talks to Tsubomi if she is okay being used like this. This is her chance to break free from her house pet status. Unless of course she is scared of rebelling and wants to stay one her entire life. This has Tsubomi remember the traumatic time she became a house pet. Kiwatari cut her long beautiful silky hair and she has been ‘dead’ ever since. All her pent up anger and frustration released, Tsubomi rebels and bets a chip instead. Kiwatari is mad but he wonders why Yumeko would do this unless she is sure she would win. The round ends with Tsubomi winning. The total balance is summed up and winning this game is Mary followed by Tsubomi, Yumeko and lastly Kiwatari. Kiwatari is not happy since he has 5 Yumeko chips and this should be worth almost 60 million each. Yumeko and Mary start laughing at him and it seems the duo swapped their debts. It was stated in the rules that you play with whatever debts you reported. The difference Mary handed a cheque to Suzui. Kiwatari is now resorting to violence but Igarashi tasers him out. Now that Kiwatari has incurred the highest debt in the group, he will become a house pet if he cannot repay it. Although Tsubomi is still a house pet and still has her debts, she is no longer angry and thankful to Yumeko for giving her a chance. Mary retrieves her cheque back from Suzui. He isn’t going to cash it in, right? Yumeko is quite happy with their splendid act and gets all touchy with Mary. She wants to be her friend! Does she have a reason to say no?

Episode 6
Now that Mary has cleared her debts and no longer a house pet, those b*tches are being friendly with her again. Mary talks to Suzui about Yumeko. She actually has more than enough money to clear her debts but yet she chose not to and remained a house pet. She believes Yumeko wants to officially challenge the student council. Igarashi has done some research on Yumeko. It seems she has a very vast fortune. Her parents are deceased and her only living relative is an older sister who is in a hospital for treatment. The kind of treatment that needs enormous amounts of money. Yeah, we see her making paper cranes with money! Thinking that Yumeko’s intention is to gamble with Kirari, Ikishima panics and needs to find her first before Kirari ruins her. Hence she quickly ‘arrests’ Yumeko and Suzui for a gamble. In this ESP game, the players and the dealer will be placed in separate soundproof rooms. Only a surveillance monitor connects the rooms. The dealer will deal the cards face down. The players will do the same. Once done, all will reveal their cards. Whoever has more matching cards with the dealer wins. The difference the winner gain as points. But it seems Igarashi will not wager money. She wants to use guns. The winner gets to pull the trigger for every point they have! Both of them will fill up a gun’s chambers with any amount of bullets they want. Be it none or all 6. They put it inside a chute as they will later randomly pick it up. The first player to get shot loses. Don’t worry about getting killed. The president will usually do something to cover it up. Suzui doesn’t want to play this game and leave so this makes Ikishima mad that he is trying to ruin their fun. Kirari won’t play with her so her only chance left is Yumeko. If he insists, she will shoot him! Of course Yumeko intends to play this game as Suzui is horrified how both perverts are on the same psychotic level.

Meanwhile Mary is summoned by Kirari. It seems she wants her to join the student council since she was able to do a rare feat of clearing her debts. Mary tries to decline but Kirari intimidates her by wondering why she would refuse such an offer. Being on the student council has lots of perks. She allows Mary to defer her answer and likes people like her whom she can’t understand. Yumeko sets her conditions to play. They will play for only 3 rounds, Suzui is the dealer and the loser will lose a billion yen. Ikishima is okay with it since she doesn’t care about money. In that case Ikishima adds a condition that she cannot miss if she has the right to shoot. Suzui panics as all he could see is Yumeko’s death. Besides she did tell him that all they need to do is collaborate and win. Just do a sign. What sign???!!! He believes Yumeko wants Ikishima to think they can win with a signal and hence she won’t be so reckless if she knows if she is going to lose. He does some hand signal. Whatever that means. After Suzui places his cards, the girls load up their gun. Ikishima goes for the maximum 6! The big reveals sees Ikishima matches 3 cards while Yumeko only matches 2 cards. Ikishima quickly pulls out a gun and is going to fire at her but Yumeko warns her not to pull that trigger on that gun.

Episode 7
It seems she loaded it with her lipsticks and it might misfire. Ikishima doesn’t care so Yumeko admits she lied. It isn’t loaded. Before they begin the next round, Yumeko asks why she invited her to play this game. The thrill of life and death. She doesn’t care if she wins or lose. Then she shows her missing left eye. Flashback shows gambling didn’t make her happy. So when she lost to Kirari, the latter notes Ikishima is the kind who would rather pay with their lives. She suggests paying back her debt with her left eye because she is curious to see how the back of it looks like. Oh, she’s too lazy to read up on it too. She will prepare for tomorrow’s surgery but Ikishima quickly stabs her own eye! Now that Kirari has seen it, she lost interest. The thrill of pain has Ikishima wanting to gamble with her again. She’ll bet her other eye. She is then invited to join the student council. At first she wasn’t interested but after Kirari says she will kill her someday, she agreed. Suzui is racking his brains on how to line up his cards and decides to go with Yumeko’s first order. Thanks to that, Yumeko got all correct and Ikishima only 3. Ikishima relishes being shot at. She even orgasms before Yumeko pulls the trigger. However Yumeko knows it is her own gun and all the chambers are empty. Well, because Ikishima loaded hers full, she can tell the difference of the gun’s weight. Before Suzui could start the final round, he notices Ikishima is cheating. He is forced to deal his cards now or she will shoot Yumeko right away. With no time, he just deals them. After that, Yumeko pulls her loaded gun on Ikishima and is disappointed in her. Ikishima likes it and believes she is the kind who gets her kicks exploiting others rather than bearing risks. She matches Yumeko by loading only 2 chambers.

When the cards are revealed, Ikishima gets all wrong. Yumeko then reveals she knows Suzui is right handed and previous footage shows him dealing with his left. Also, one of the card patterns is reversed and this means the video is horizontally mirrored. Only the final round he played with his right. This also means Suzui’s feed also shows the girls in mirrored positions (the cheating Suzui claimed). Hence Yumeko accounted for this and he played his cards like she expected. From the first round, Yumeko can tell Ikishima doesn’t care of her own wellbeing and her conditions for victory is being killed. Yumeko reveals her cards. She got them all wrong too. Yumeko couldn’t have loaded none and got it all correct but by doing so and loading only 2 bullets, if someone won by 5 points, it would certain fire. Ikishima thought it would be impossible to tie if she played all her cards wrong. But if she decided to play 1 or 2 correctly, there was a chance Yumeko might be shot. She views this as an insult to gambling. Gambling is interesting because both parties suffer. Ikishima is only interested in suffering herself. She is not gambling and just wants to die. She hates this kind of people the most. Ikishima is turned on by her craziness and wants to be her slave! Please shoot her! Politely declined. Kirari is still waiting for Mary’s answer so the latter asks about the house pet system. She talks about the strongest of the fittest in her aquarium but if you put all the strongest together, they can only be one who is the strongest. Sometimes the weak steal from the strong too. She is interested to see what happens if it is applied to humans. Mary refuses to join and is not obliged to give an answer. Mary is upset inside that Kirari tried to make a fool out of her. She doesn’t view house pets as humans and only objects below her. Her view of justice is warped. She is going to make her pay for that. Yumeko asks Suzui why he continued to play the same cards despite knowing the trick. He didn’t have time to think and hoped she didn’t realize he didn’t know what to do. He was just praying for the best. His answer makes her feel better.

Episode 8
Yumemi Yumemite is the school’s top idol. She is on course to be the world’s best idol. She has a crazy fan club and it is expensive to be a member. When Kirari decided to take leave from school, Igarashi didn’t hear anything about it and begged her to stay. She told her to f*ck off. It has been a week since and Igarashi is growing worried that without her presence, things may fall apart. Especially the treasurer, Kaede Manyuda who is craving for power. Why is Igarashi so scared of him? Yumemi plans to take care of Yumeko and Manyuda agrees to support her and do the necessary preparations. Sumeragi is trying to be friends with Yumeko. It seems her dad has warned her that it is her job to be part of the student council (too bad she got fired) and make political connections. If she cannot do that, she will get disowned! As Yumeko’s rounds of defeating student council members become more prominent, this has given hope to many house pets who believe she is aiming for the president’s seat. In that case, Sumeragi is planning to support her all the way. Yumeko isn’t interested in the seat but as long as she can gamble that is good enough. Besides, she already considers Sumeragi her friend. Only, if she didn’t have to rub her fingernails… Remember your place…

Yumeko soon receives an invitation to meet Yumemi. She is thoroughly checked by her manager, Saori before entering. Yumemi shows some variety show they will be appearing after her next concert. This show is to help select the next new member. The wager is 50 million and enough to clear Yumeko’s house pet status. But if she fails, she will form an idol unit with her. From the way Yumemi describes the glamorous idol life, Yumeko then shoots her mouth. She hates her fans, right? It seems Yumeko has collected and pasted back ripped fan letters for her. Yumemi admits she hates them but Yumeko wants to know her goal otherwise she cannot find a reason to gamble with her. Yumemi wants an Academy Award. She dreamt of getting one since young but the rate she is progressing, she will never ever get it. So what better way to rise up fast in this school and be an idol. Becoming a world class idol would be easy with this school’s power. This is why she is able to put up with the fans and continue her job. She continues to badmouth them like shaking hands with her with their sweaty palms. Yumeko is amazed of her dream and can carry on despite hating her fans. But it won’t be fun if they do not bet their livelihoods on the game. Yumeko has recorded their conversation and will make it part of their wager. Of course she will not make a copy of it. See you on the day of the concert. But it seems Yumeko didn’t intentionally have those ripped letters and recorder. Somebody sent it to her. Yumemi also believes that only someone with a master key could have got into her room where she shredded her letters. The concert is here and after it, Yumemi introduces Yumeko to start their idol championship.

Episode 9
They will play a series of games in which the winner gets a mark they will put on a tic-tac-toe board. You know how to win this, right? It starts off with singing. Yumemi sings an idol song and scores high. Yumeko sings a boring school anthem and she almost scores perfect?! As the game drags on, we hear Yumemi saying winning and losing is all part of the plan otherwise it will be too easy. But don’t bet that Yumeko doesn’t even know. In a game that has them guess a random fan’s birth month, Yumemi thought she would win this and everything since she knows every damn fans’ birthday. And that lucky random fan called is… Mary! Who the f*ck is she?! Yumemi panics. She watches Yumeko’s writing and can tell what month she is writing. But wait. Could this be a trap to lead her on? In the end, both got wrong but since Yumeko’s is closest, she wins. Too bad, Yumemi. You were just overthinking. Yumeko didn’t lose this on purpose. She really didn’t know Mary’s birthday! As Yumemi has lost, it is time for her to pay up. Suddenly Saori slams the money wager on the table. She is willing to give more so as to have Yumeko keep quiet about the recording. However Yumemi says to play it. If she needs to be an idol, she has to have luck. Losing here means she isn’t meant to be one.

The recording of badmouthing the fans is played. The fans are confused. Yumemi confirms it is her. Just as she resigns to her fate, her fans suddenly declare their love and support for her. They have loved her from the start and even more now that she has come clean with her feelings. Renewed hope for Yumemi. You think everything is nicely over now that the dream girls are singing a duet on stage. Not for Yumeko. The torn letter was also the wager as she reveals somebody anonymously sent it to her. With the fans angry and wanting the culprit to show up, Yumemi thinks that because everything was resolved nicely, this would be meaningless. But this is a matter of their pride so she too calls out for the culprit to own up as she calls out to Manyuda. After all, he is the only one with power who can change this event to fans-only and assured them of winning. Manyuda coolly takes to the stage and brushes off all allegations. He has done nothing of that sort and swears on his position and ambition to take over Kirari’s seat. There is lack of evidence so there is nothing Yumeko can do with her accusations. Well, they are not in court so she doesn’t care. In fact she wants to gamble him. He quickly shoots her down that there is no merit in doing so and reminds her of her position as house pet. Speaking of which, she invokes that special right to play an official match.

Episode 10
Manyuda agrees to gamble her. She is a compulsive gambler and doesn’t care about winning or losing. He’ll just have to factor that in. Igarashi is in a bind. If Yumeko wins, 2 of their student council members would have lost in the same day. If Manyuda wins, he will be a step closer in taking Kirari’s seat. The student council vice president becomes the dealer of this choice poker game as she explains the rules. In this version, one cannot fold or call but only raise a bet. After changing their required cards, they are to bet. The one with the higher bet wins the right to choose if the round is won via strongest order or weakest order. There is no bet limit but must play to their fund limit. This of course puts Yumeko at a disadvantage as she has limited funds. The first round goes as Manyuda calculates the reasons and chances of Yumeko doing so and the cards she most likely have. Yumeko wins the bet and calls for the weaker order. She wins. Manyuda is now confident after witnessing her actions as well as hers from previous student council battles, he knows her character well. In the next round, Yumeko not only throws away her pairs but bets all her chips! Of course Manyuda matches hers and raises by a chip. The results: Yumeko has nothing. Manyuda wins. Sumeragi is f*cked because this means all her dreams and hopes she put on her are dashed. Yumeko then calls out to Sumeragi. Could she borrow some money? I mean, they’re friends, right? Friends should help each other out at times like this.

Sumeragi is definitely in a bind since Manyuda notes that she has joined Yumeko’s side after being kicked out of the student council. He badmouths her as having no skill and no right to walk the path of rulers. Yumeko disagrees because who is he to decide Sumeragi has no value. Only she herself can determine that. In order to obtain something, something else must be sacrificed. So either she choose peace as an incompetent or risk her own destruction to reach the top. Sumeragi thinks hard. Manyuda’s path seems to be the safest and she can get what is needed of her. Yumeko is riskier but she gets everything she wants or lose it all. Flashback shows Sumeragi talking to Itsuki and wanting to join the student council. She thought of putting in more money if that is what is needed but he tells her to give up. Being part of the student council also means shouldering a great responsibility. Graduates of their school make up the backbone of Japan and they all have their eyes on it. If their trust is betrayed, it is the end of them. Does she have what it takes to be part of it? She declares she wants to be the student council president. This gets his attention as they both share the same ambition. He will personally recommend her to join and they will both take the throne together. Sumeragi was happy when she was accepted and that she had a secret partner in crime. She realized too late that he was only using her as a pawn. She was despised. Now she is going to pay him back as she personally places 100 chips for Yumeko. She’ll take the throne herself.

Episode 11
Yumeko changes her pair of queens! Manyuda thinks she is going for the same trick again. So when they start betting and raise each other, of course Manyuda is going to win. But Sumeragi decides to help sponsor Yumeko and uses her funds to help raise for Yumeko. Even so, Manyuda is the treasurer and he has billions in his account. When Sumeragi is at her limit, Yumeko suggests they bet everything. Yumeko can bet her Life Programme and Sumeragi who stands to inherit everything from her father’s empire, can bet her life too! The astronomical amount has Sumeragi shivering in fear. However with Yumeko reminding if this is as far her resolve will go, Sumeragi decides not to run anymore and bites off her nails to show her resolve! She’s betting her life! Manyuda rubbishes all that because they are supposed to bet money and betting one’s life isn’t an accurate collateral. But Yumeko reminds him that whatever school rules, the one holding the power is the dealer. And so she allows it! Manyuda objects but she reveals her mask: Kirari! Look at the shock at his face! Didn’t see this coming. Manyuda is in a pinch as he thinks the combined bet of Yumeko and Sumeragi is at 12 billion. If he loses this, his influence and goal will be over. Flashback sees Manyuda’s dad telling him about money is king and the path he must achieve to get all that. What if he fails? Then he is worth nothing. Manyuda then decides to bet his life. Sumeragi panics. His net worth is definitely way higher than theirs. She thinks of having Mary and Suzui chip in their lives too but Kirari tells her they aren’t even worth millions. Ouch. With Manyuda winning the bet, he chooses the strongest and shows set of 8’s. Sumeragi starts to break down. Manyuda thought he has won it but Yumeko lecturing him about how he lost his path, it turns out Sumeragi was just acting all along. Yumeko shows her cards. 3 pairs too. But jacks rank higher, right? In short, his loss is because he underestimated Sumeragi. Manyuda becomes devastated his life is over that he collapses and his hair turn white!!! Truly his world has come to a crashing halt. But looks like the big showdown is on the cards. Yumeko vs Kirari. Supernova explosion indeed.

Episode 12
Sumeragi puts down all the trick tools and equipment for Yumeko’s gamble. Of course she is not going to use all of that. Where’s the fun without the risk? They go meet Ririka and Runa will oversee their match. First they lay down what to wager. Because they consider this school as utmost important, the loser will forever leave Hyakkaou. Mary protests because there is nothing for the winner. Kirari disagrees because if you think about it, gambling bears no fruits and only leads to loss. Even so, people indulge in so because such risks are entertaining. The game they’ll play will use ta tarot cards. They will pick 3 cards from it. But if it is faced up, it is a positive score based on the card’s number and inverted a negative one. Yumeko will be positive while Kirari the negative. Whoever has the most score on their side win. All except for one card called The Fool. Its value is zero. If upright, Yumeko wins. Otherwise it is Kirari’s win when inverted. The duo will pick a card each and they select Suzui as the third picker. At first he sees this another big role too much to shoulder but thinking back, there is something he wants. Yumeko goes first and only gets a +1. Next is Kirari. First she talks about predetermined fate and then flips her card. A -21! Looks like the pressure is on Suzui. He laments his fate because what are the odds of pulling out The Fool? Yumeko assures him the loss is only hers to bear. However he disagrees. He reminds her he wants to watch her play and be with her more. Thus this is also a risk for him! Is that a confession? Suzui thinks hard which card to pick. He notices that there is a marked card. One that Kirari pulled out when she told them The Fool card was the joker. Could it be Kirari set it up so he would pick it? However he won’t flip that card because it is a huge risk. He will not leave that best part to someone else. Yumeko is so thrilled at his words and climaxes?! He leaves it to fate as he picks a card. +20! A draw! This means neither would have to leave! Wow. Everyone so relieved. Especially Igarashi. She can continue to be with her beloved. Sumeragi and Mary get into opposing arguments why Suzui didn’t pick that card. Had it been The Fool, why didn’t Kirari pick it? Perhaps it wasn’t because when Kirari showed that Fool card, she might have stacked another card behind it. But they’ll never know as Runa takes them away and runs. In the aftermath, Kirari does a shake up to the student council and Yumeko continues to gamble at her pleasure.

God Of Gamblers
Looks like fate has it that both Yumeko and Kirari will continue to stay on and meet again one day. This means another season, right? After all, Yumeko hasn’t fully taken down the entire student council and there might be new additions to the body, right? Yumeko hasn’t exactly gambled everyone and dominate the entire school, right? Oh man. I’m getting too excited that there should be more! Am I getting addicted to this series? Sure, it is good and amazing. Having a dozen episodes isn’t merely enough! Need more! But for now, looks like I have to be contented with this season. What to do? No more money, can’t play.

Even if the gambling games are not as creative as I expected, they are still interesting in its own right. In fact, the more interesting aspects are the psychological mind games the players are engaged in. Like the first rock-scissors-paper with a slight twist and variation isn’t much but an interesting concept and variation if you would like to think of it. Sumeragi’s memory game isn’t anything special or out of the ordinary that the focus isn’t on the game itself. Even the poker match between Yumeko and Manyuda is just a freaking normal poker match. Just with an added variation of either you want the strongest or weakest combination to win. Even if you have not heard of Nishinotouin’s roulette game before, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t lose much. You can learn on the fly and it isn’t not as complicated as it should be. After all, the idea is to gamble and not to make complicated rules for, uhm, pure fun and entertainment?

Hence like I’ve said, what makes this a good series is how they execute the psychological mind games among the players. We delve into their mind to see how they think. Usually, many who challenged Yumeko would mostly underestimate her. Even if they don’t, they still are. The problem is they don’t really know much about her. And it really bites them back when she counters it all like they’ve never seen it coming. It really hits them hard. It is those parts perhaps we love to see, the panic look on their faces when Yumeko turns the tables on them for being too overconfident and cocksure that they have it in the bag. Well, always be prepared and expect the unexpected. For now, the plot doesn’t look like it is going to pull off something suspenseful or a mind blowing twist unless more is revealed about Yumeko or Kirari’s home issues. Let’s hope it doesn’t turn out to be something like Yumeko is Kirari’s long lost sister!!! No way!

Yumeko as the main character is as enigmatic as she is interesting. We don’t know much about her except that she is filthy rich and has this love/habit/addiction for gambling. Gambling is like sex to her. What makes her a frightening character is how sharp and observant she is. And she plays it cool enough that you won’t even think she has noticed it. To rub further insult, she acts like a ditzy dumb fool at times. You know what they say about being clever to hide your cleverness. Sometimes I think Yumeko is like the devil reincarnated. She might seem going around to defeat the evil student council body and mostly does so. Even if she losses, she has other ulterior motives. Her sharp observation may awe you and sometimes dumbfound you. Because like I’ve said, it’s like as though she is the devil reincarnated and can read the minds of her opponent. Like as though she has the series’ script and has read it beforehand! Yumeko is even ‘superior’ than God in the sense that she doesn’t need to pray to Him like most other low level desperate gamblers do when they need luck. Heck, many of the characters here do not need to even do so. They all depend on their luck and skill and only have themselves to blame if they fail. I mean, it is you who is gambling, not God, right?

So think thrice if you think you can beat her in any form of gambling because I’m sure if you really want to cheat, you would have automatically have lost. So to have a chance of winning, you’ll have to leave that chance to gambling. That is, play fair and by the rules. But in this school where the high stakes are everything, you’d think everybody would be such a goody boy and goody girl and play fair? One must think if Yumeko is such a talent to see through her opponents or she must have gone through a lot of hell and practice to attain such skill. I think it is plausible to believe the latter. After all, Yumeko is no angel or God (that’s why I call her the devil) because it might seem she is going around and helping those who are in dire need like Suzui but in actual fact she hasn’t done anything for them and is just happy to just gamble. Nothing more. Nothing less. It is more fun to gamble and beat those with bad intentions rather than those who are struggling just to purely stay out of debt, right? Where’s the fun in taking down those who are cornered?

Not surprisingly when you have a school that allows such rapid gambling, there are certainly many other weird characters too. Especially the student council body. They’re all a bunch of freaks, right? You’ve got the cruel Kirari to the lollipop sucking carefree loli Runa to the extreme masochist Ikishima who should be locked up in a mental asylum to the manipulative Manyuda (still out in coma, poor guy), the all-that-glitters-is-not-what-you-see idol Yumemi and the Japanese ghost clone Nishinotouin. I’ll say that the ‘worst’ one is Igarashi because she looks like Kirari’s lapdog. Always concerned about her, the moment she is seemingly away, she starts to descend into some panicky state. Like as though her head will roll if the student council loses its reputation. Maybe. We don’t know what Kirari is capable of. But to see her in that jumpy shape in contrast to when she first appeared and coolly refereed the Debt Exchange programme, it really feels she just went downhill. With Yumeko going around defeating them one by one, I’m not sure if there is a pattern for those she has defeated because some become her ally after that. I guess those people who have lost to her know better which better ship to jump. I wouldn’t say that Mary and Sumeragi are her allies but they have the same common enemy. The enemy of my enemy is also my friend.

Having said all that, the most normal of all is Suzui. He considers Yumeko his saviour and follows her around as a friend. And hence my theory is that so he plays the role to ramp up the dramatization effect. In a game of high stakes where no normal people would have placed such high bets, they would often go into that shocked and flabbergasted expression. Despite believing in Yumeko, he can’t help fall back to being pessimistic at times. After all, the odds are usually stacked against Yumeko. It is not like Yumeko has a 100% record of winning. Therefore Suzui as a spectator must be having a roller coaster ride of emotions and his heart must be real strong to see Yumeko make bold decisions. But usually the outcome turns out in her favour. He gets more prominence in the final episode because the fate of both heavyweights now fall on his shoulder. For once he wasn’t a wuss or a follower but a man of his own. Did he finally get a taste of the thrill of gambling after following Yumeko long enough? But still a long way off if you think there is going to be Suzui x Yumeko romance. I wonder if being in that kind of relationship is riskier than gambling.

In true human spirit, we see how one can actually fall from grace the moment you are in an undesirable position. Mary’s case is a great case study as you could see she was one of the top elites and had control over almost everyone in her class. Then it took a humiliating loss for her to drop right at the other end of the table. Typically we can see how others turn on her and treated her the same way as she treated them. Tit for tat. Just desserts. Karma. I guess this served as a good lesson for her because now that Mary has experienced herself what it is like to be a slave, looks like her eyes are opened and she is going to do something about the school’s system. She can’t do it alone. Wild cards like Yumeko are always a good start.

The setting of this anime is particularly interesting and disturbing in the sense that when you think how the entire backbone of Japan’s government and large corporations are run by such manipulative people. I guess in this dog eat dog world where survival of the fittest counts, you have to start them young and ‘train’ them to be ruthless and manipulative-cum-calculative people. I mean, if you can’t succeed here, how are you going to succeed in an even more cutthroat environment? Therefore to think that Japan in this world is built on such foundation, it is quite troubling indeed. Like as though all the good people are dead or they only helm low level jobs. Why can I only see Suzui as a normal salaryman? Japan being a ruthless nation built upon such people may be a cruel thought because who would ever think of Japan as so? Wait till you see the other crueller atrocities in other countries…

One thing to note are the dramatization of certain visuals. The characters may look normal in every other normal scenes, but during gambling or other scenes that require some sort of ‘baring of the teeth’ to the opponents, this is where the dramatization goes several notches up. For instance, you’ll start seeing the characters having this very evil appearance and expression. Like as though this is the true colour of their soul. Could be my imagination because when you’re on the losing streak and the other person is dominating, it would seem the other party is like the devil, eh? Like when Yumeko teamed up with Mary or Sumeragi, when they expose that they have been in cohorts, you see them in their devilish lesbian mode. Seductive or eerie? Not too sure if this can be considered as horror because Yumeko looks like some sort of ghost when she goes into her gambling ecstasy and orgasm. Ghosts might even be afraid of seeing her!

The other visuals to note are the eyes. The zoom in on the pupils also ups the dramatization effect because look how real they are. So even if Yumeko has those dead fish eyes, when she is in crazy gambling mode, her eyes change to this surreal. Also, sometimes their eyes glow in red like as though they are Terminator or something. I thought they would just burst out of their seats and start gunning everything down with their machine guns like a robot but that is just me fantasizing too much.

Saori Hayami did a very excellent job in portraying the gambling crazy Yumeko. At times she is in delirium, lost in her gambling addiction. That sometimes make her sound as scary as she is interesting. Long ago I once considered Saori Hayami as Mamiko Noto’s clone. With her voicing Yumeko, it is like as though this is her horror character to Mamiko Noto’s Jigoku Shoujo’s Enma Ai. The other crazy one is Mariya Ise as Ikishima. I don’t really recognize her voice till this day but to think she was the voice of Fairy Tail’s Levi and The Reflection’s Eleanor, I didn’t think she would sound this crazy. Kudos. But this isn’t really her first time being casted as an unconventional character. There was that time she did Medaka Box Abormal’s Unzen and can you consider Stocking from Panty And Stocking With Garterbelt to be one too? Other recognizable casts are Miyuki Sawashiro as Kirari, Tomokazu Sugita in full serious mode as Manyuda and Yuka Iguchi surprisingly as Tsubomi. The others are Tatsuya Tokutake as Suzui, Minami Tanaka as Mary (Minami in Wake Up, Girls!), Yuuki Wakai as Sumeragi (Miton in Mahou Shoujo Nante Mou Ii Desu Kara), Ayaka Fukuhara as Igarashi (Lugh in Trinity Seven), Yuu Serizawa s Yumemi (Tenma in Mushibugyou), Karin Nanami as Nishinotouin (Kojirou in Duel Masters VS) and Mayu Udono as Runa (Elza in Nyanko Days).

Adding to all the craziness is the opening theme, the aptly named Deal With The Devil by Tia. The song catches you with its very playful tune and the way she sings it. It might sound a bit out of place because with all the jazzy music and fanfare like as though this was a song for Broadway in the 30’s or 40’s. Weird but unique. Even more so its animation is like one big weird dream. Fish, fruits, feasts, dancing… Lesbianism? The ending theme, LAYon-theLINE by D-Selections is just okay, heavy on the bass beats. But the animation feels like as though it is going through Yumeko’s mind. We see her walking through the rain and strange flashes of lights while petals flutter all around. Looks like she is enjoying the feel of it all. Is this what she feels when she orgasms from gambling?

Overall, this is quite an interesting anime. On par with Kaiji but better than other gambling themed anime series out there. Looking at you, Rio: Rainbow Gate. If I could even consider that anime to be of the gambling genre. Heck, those are the only gambling themed series I have watched and I have ever known. But those who aren’t into the psychological mind play and drama might find it a turn off because this is where all the ‘action’ is. I believe this show isn’t meant to encourage one to go into gambling. Too bad and my condolences if you are. Yumeko’s character should be a big warning never to go into gambling unless you are willing to risk your entire existence for the sake of this thrill. I would love to bet for this series to have another season but since I am not willing to go so far to stake my life, I guess I’ll just be silently hoping. Praying to God then…