Alternative Titles
Synonyms: Kakegurui: Compulsive Gambler, Gambling School
Japanese: ่ณญใฑใฐใซใค
English: Kakegurui
German: Kakegurui: Das Leben ist ein Spiel
French: Gambling School
Information
Episodes:
12
Status:
Finished Airing
Aired:
Jul 1, 2017 to Sep 23, 2017
Broadcast:
Saturdays at 22:00 (JST)
Duration:
24 min. per ep.
Rating:
R - 17+ (violence & profanity)
Statistics
Score:
7.211 (scored by 995157995,157 users)
Ranked:
#3688 2
2
based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.
Popularity:
#80
Members:
1,621,043
Favorites:
11,460
Available AtResources
Streaming Platforms
May be unavailable in your region. |
Ranked #3688Popularity #80Members 1,621,043 Unlike many schools, attending Hyakkaou Private Academy prepares students for their time in the real world. Since many of the students are the children of the richest people in the world, the academy has its quirks that separate it from all the others. By day, it is a normal school, educating its pupils in history, languages, and the like. But at night, it turns into a gambling den, educating them in the art of dealing with money and manipulating people. Money is power; those who come out on top in the games stand at the top of the school.
Yumeko Jabami, a seemingly naive and beautiful transfer student, is ready to try her hand at Hyakkaou's special curriculum. Unlike the rest, she doesn't play to win, but for the thrill of the gamble, and her borderline insane way of gambling might just bring too many new cards to the table.
[Written by MAL Rewrite] | |
|
MALxJapan -More than just anime-
| Characters & Voice Actors
Reviews
Sep 23, 2017
For over the past few years in the anime industry, they brought as so many ''Game'' genre animes like SAO, Accel World, Log Horizon, Btooom! and other ''Game'' animes out there. But the thing is, most of them or should I say ''Almost'' of the anime with a ''Game'' genre are about going into a video game itself and it's getting boring tbh. Summer 2017 season is going to end along with one of its unique ''Game'' anime which is very different to other animes this season because not only it excels to the ''Game'' genre with being different to other animes out there but
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also it excels on the psychological part of it. Welcome to Kakegurui. A 12-episodes anime that offers both the craziness of gambling and mechanism of it.
Story: 8/10
Kakegurui brought as a simple story where a student (Jabami Yumeko) just wants to gamble even further, exceeding the expectations of a normal human being like her subordinate Suzui Ryouta.
Gambling for her is like soft drinks which has a very good feeling to the body. Not only she's crazy but also she's competitive that from the beginning of the anime (Episode 1 - 3) she has taken an interest to gamble every member of the school's Student Council. The story focuses about competition and power through gambling. If one is a failure, he/she is automatically dropped on this anime's atmosphere. If one is successful, he/she will be consider as an elite on this school. Kakegurui is unique itself from its setup of the school. Normally, school animes are about high school life, romance and other stuffs, but here, competition is a must.
That's what makes Kakegurui a worth-to-watch anime this season because of its characters focusing on one goal. To be the best. But of course Yumeko is an exception. She just loves gambling.
Art: 9/10
What makes this anime famous this season is the art of the anime. Mostly, it's about the facial expression of each characters whenever they are thinking, devastated, or confident on winning. Some actually see it as a disturbing one but on my opinion, it reflects the character's attitude and thats the reason it's excellent.
Though it's not only the facial expression. The normal sketches of the anime is already good you know. Though sometimes you think that the normal face is lacking something but when the expression changes drastically, you are quite shocked.
Sound: 9/10
Do you ever get the feeling that something is going to happen when the sound changes? Or something feel ''uneasy'', well there are parts on Kakegurui that will offer you some a little bit of suspense. Just a little because if it goes high, well this will be a horror anime. Speaking of sound, the opening is excellent with the jazz and music on it. Then followed up by a change of music with the ending.
Character: 8/10
To be honest, from episode 1 - 12, we have seen all the character's traits and development because of the good plot that Kakegurui brought as, though some are lacking history while others are rich of it. As for the MC she's an exception though we can see her development pretty quickly along with some other characters as well.
Enjoyment: 8/10
My enjoyment for this anime is pretty simple. To see how the character's react, think and make decisions on every game and the anime did it on a splendid well. With gambling as the main core, they derived their strategies and make it simple for the audience to understand like us. I don't know any rules about any gambling games but I understand it a little because of this anime.
Overall.. I rate this anime as 8.5/10 or 8/10 for the fact that it focuses on its genre more, character development and the craziness it offers to us this Summer 2017 season.
Reviewerโs Rating: 8
What did you think of this review?
Sep 23, 2017
A word of caution before getting into this review: There will be minor spoilers.
I thought that overall, Kakegurui was pretty damn fun and enjoyable. 6 may seem like a bad score, but I think it's fair. I scored it based on what it says by it, and it means "Fine". Perfectly how I would describe this when I look at this as objectively as possible in my review, and not out of pure enjoyment (else it'd be a 7 or 8, to be honest). Now with that out of the way, into the review.
CHARACTERS
Let's start out with the characters. The majority of
...
the notable characters are female. I find this rather unique in a gambling anime since this very rarely happens. The majority of characters also show a crazy side, most of them being female since, as I've said before, most of the notable characters are female. While this isn't anything new, it's understandable since this is gambling themed and gambling can make people go nuts, and this sort of side can add to the excitement or fun of the series, it can also understandably get either dull or ridiculous at times, more likely than not being ridiculous since it often displays most of the characters' crazy side in an exaggerated fashion. There's also one who is just insane all-around, which is the one with the eye-patch, as you probably already would have expected when judging sorely on her appearance in the opening. With how she is, I sometimes wonder to myself why she is even allowed to attend the school. Even when this trait often comes in with the characters, there's quite a good number of characters who either have character development or depth. This even includes Ryouta Suzui, the male main character and one of the most "normal" notable characters of the series. Despite the fact that he mostly sits around and watch the games that the main character (Yumeko) participates in while asking and answering questions, even he will gain bits of a type of character development over the course of the series.
However, there is one thing I noticed about the characters, and that all you pretty much ever see are teenagers. Not really any adults. That's not to say that there aren't any in the series, because there are, but with the exception of the one and only teacher you'll ever see that appeared for a very short time and practically the only time in the very first episode, the few that appear in flashbacks, and a few of them talking a little bit to a character in one episode, there's practically no adults shown to be present. I find this very weird. Who is running the school? Is that person or are those group of people running it indirectly? If they are, do they even care much as to what is going on around the school, like what the student council president making such a system for every student in it to follow? We never know these answers.
Now let's move onto the main character, Yumeko. She is your typical character in gambling series that is very good or intelligent that rarely loses. In fact, Yumeko is the usual "mysterious transfer student that is surprising good at what is essential to this series" general trope. She's also the usual crazy girl trope when it comes to gambling, having traits like being aroused in a few of them. So you can see that she's quite the typical character in numerous ways. Despite being crazy in gambles, she has likable qualities, the main thing being that she's very kind and actually cares about her friends. There are quite a number of things that I find about her that is more unique or enjoyable to me as the main character. One thing is the fact that she doesn't mainly gamble for the sake of others, because if she did, she would have aimed to defeat the student council in order to stop the sort of corrupted system and to put an end to the corrupted student council. As it usually goes with mysterious main characters, you will learn more about Yumeko as the series progresses and understand even more about her character. The series will unwrap more and more about her personality, which is what the ending theme of this series symbolizes. You will learn things like how she enjoys both herself and her opponent feeling the same pain while both having the chances of winning or losing, and since she likes to risk as much as she could, she'll make sure that her opponent does the same, which would bring great worry to them. The way she feels and witnesses pain in the gambles is full of pleasure. Pretty much a type of hedonist, in short. With these types of numerous aspects of her character, you will understand why many other characters who has a crazy side and are in such a crazy environment will even deem her as being insane, which includes the one who is pretty much completely insane all-around.
However, you will only learn the mysteries of her personality. You will not learn much when it comes to her background. It'll unravel a little bit of it at one point in the series, but nothing more than that, and it doesn't look like we'll be able to get anymore than that in the anime series due to how the series ends with it's own, anime-original ending (so it looks like there won't be a second season, though I could be wrong on this). You'll have to go through the original source of it all, the manga of this series (which is still on-going by the time I've made this review) if you want to possibly know more about her background.
STORY AND SETTING
Next, I talk about the story and setting. The story is simple to follow and know what is going on. Nothing really complicated. The premise, the general setting's rules and what they need to do in order to survive around the school, and even the games themselves are easy to follow. As the anime progresses, you will learn more and more about the school and some things behind the main character. The pacing, for the most part, is also fine. The roller coaster keeps on going nonstop without anything feeling slow-paced, and, for most of what is going on, not rushed at all. Surprisingly, even though this series is filled with pretty looking high-school girls, there's not that much fanservice, or at least anything as strong as the ones in the opening and ending. That's pretty much the most you'll get when it comes to fanservice. There's quite a number of teases, and there are a few scenes like bouncing boobs and boob grabs, but they are very minor in numbers. In fact, as far as I remember, the manga of this has a lot more fanservice than this adaption of it.
Despite all of this however, when you think about it, the story is pretty basic and average. Not really much special, even though there are some nice twists here and there, this in a gambling high school, and the main character doesn't gamble for justice. The usual mysterious transfer student who turns out to be good at what is essential to the series is gambling and defeating anyone standing in the main character's way while aiming to challenge the big-bad is what you can pretty much say about what is going on the whole time. There's also the fact that the setting is literally only in high school. There is almost nowhere else they go. Nearly everything that happens in this series happens only at that exact same school. So if you're expecting them to go literally anywhere else outside of the school grounds even a decent amount of times, then you'll be disappointed. In fact, you would very rarely even see them even going outside of school. You will never see any of the characters' homes. It's pretty weird, as if it wasn't weird enough that you don't really see any adults.
The tone of the series is quite dark, but not that serious, to be honest. It is marked as a drama series and definitely does have some serious moments, along with very dangerous and risky elements, but still not that serious overall. I would say that despite how dark it clearly is, it mainly portrays itself as being lively and fun, so if you are expecting this to be something pretty serious, you might be disappointed.
As an adaption of the manga, it has done pretty well for the most part. It has been extremely faithful to the manga while doing a few things in it's own styles, although they did skip a notable amount of things, and the final episode went into it's own original direction to end things instead of continuing to being faithful to the manga, which is odd when this suddenly happened. To be honest, I find the way it decided to end things in the final episode to be disappointing, and that it just gave me even more of a feeling that this really should have had a couple more episodes in order to adapt the next event that would have been a worthy stopping point to the series in my opinion.
GAMES
I would now like to talk about the games. Pretty much all of them are simplistic, straightforward, and pretty much basic plays. This also includes most of the strategies being used. You'll probably quickly understand what's going on throughout. While these aren't necessarily bad things since there's actually not really anything wrong with the gambles themselves, apparently it makes certain others want more from the games, if not much more since it doesn't help that, much like other gambling anime/manga series, the pattern of how the games basically go as are pretty similar (and it's in a basic shounen way), the outcomes of the overall games are mostly very predictable, and that this series focuses a lot on cheaters. Despite all of this, I find that the games can still be enjoyable. Why? The characters themselves and how they exaggeratedly bring out their various emotions and personalities in the different situations of whatever games with the great or ridiculous looking art. This is probably the main aspects in what makes it fun for me to watch through. Seeing the ridiculous reactions from the characters never really gets old for me, but if you're expecting depth in the games from this series, then this will disappoint you.
ART AND ANIMATIONS
Now for the art and animations. I think MAPPA did pretty good in the art department. They make the cards and poker pieces look very well done at times, and there is a lot of impressive visual moments and effects in this series. While the character designs themselves mostly look pretty standard, the amount of details they put on certain aspects of the close-up faces impressive to me. This especially goes for their eyes. Not often do I see such beautiful looking eyes nearly everywhere in an anime series, with some of them having nice-looking visual effects. They also added little extra details on different parts on the faces at times, most noticeably on the insane faces, such as bits of wrinkles on the lips and making the nose drawn to look a bit more realistic. This is helpful for the type of faces since it helps give you that ridiculous, shocked, or cringing feeling to the viewers like most were purposely made and presented to be as, and it can even help add into the excitement and feeling of whatever is going on, but the insane faces are understandably not for everyone. Due to the amount of details they often put on them, they can look over-the-top, even when ti comes to anime usually making things over-the-top. There have been a few to some faces that look absolutely hilarious to me, and I unfortunately mean that in a bad way since I'm not talking about the ridiculous ones that were clearly made purposely to look funny, which are also hilarious looking. As for the animations, they're mostly standard and decent, but there have been a fair number of very good ones. The opening itself is just filled with great animations.
SOUND AND VOICE ACTING
Last I will talk about is the music and voice acting. Starting with the opening and ending, it's honestly a couple of my most favorite songs of the whole season. They're very good and I find them perfectly emphasizing how energetic and upbeat the anime portrays itself as despite how dangerous and dark it is. The opening will take a bit of getting used to, but still great and very stylish. As for the overall soundtrack of the series, I would say it's decent to above average. There's a few weird and questionable tunes, but overall everything else has either been fine or enjoyable, and they fit well in the situations present. The crazier tunes help add to the fun and insanity of the situations the type of songs it's used in. There's not really much to comment on the voice acting to me, but I think they did fine. I think Saori did very well as the main character, Yumeko.
And on that note, I think that wraps up the review. If I would have to score and summarize each aspect I've talked about,
Characters - 7/10. A lot of the characters are your typical anime characters, but a good number of notable characters have depth or character development.
Story and Setting - 5/10. Not really anything special when you think about it, and nearly everything only happens in the school. Not to mention with the way they've ended it at the final episode is pretty disappointing.
Games - 5/10. Not really bad since it didn't do anything wrong, but will probably leave you wanting more from them.
Art and animations - 6.5/10. Great details and sometimes visual effects on numerous things such as the items and certain parts of the faces, especially the eyes, but the insane looking ones are a major hit-or-miss.
Sound and voice acting - 7/10. Fantastic opening and endings with a lot of decent to enjoyable tunes in the overall background music, but there are a few questionable or weird tunes. The voice acting is fine to me.
Overall - 6/10. A very stylish and lively series overall, but it could leave much to be desired, since it's pretty basic when you think about it. As long as you don't expect too much or have very high standards, then I think you'll be fine. I highly suggest watching through the PVs first in order to know what you'll pretty much be getting into throughout if you're still interested.
Reviewerโs Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Sep 23, 2017
โPart of it went on gambling, and part of it went on women. The rest I spent foolishly.โ โ George Raft.
To those of you who have watched Kakegurui I ask: Why did you watch this anime? Were you intrigued by the aesthetic look of the show? Or maybe what drew you to Kakegurui was the concept; gambling! The latter was what caught my eye, as past experiences with gambling anime have proven that they hold some of the most entertaining and exhilarating moments I have ever seen. These shows have given me goose bumps from sheer awe and admiration while watching psychological battles of wits
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and strategy between people willing to risk their very lives on even the simplest of games. Unfortunately, these kinds of anime are extremely rare to come by, as nearly all of them are practically unknown to most of the anime community and nearly impossible to watch any of them legally. So when I saw that Kakegurui was airing this season and also happened to be the most popular show of Summer 2017, I was pretty excited. I had heard good things about the manga and it was being produced by Studio MAPPA, a studio that I have high hopes for despite not being impressed with any of their previous works. All that was left for me to do was watch it, and this is where the hype for this show died for me. I was disappointed with Kakegurui from episode 1, because even after just one episode, it is obvious to see that Kakegurui is a terrible gambling anime.
Kakegurui takes place in Hyakkaou Private Academy, a prestigious school where the student are the most wealthy and privileged students in all of Japan. I use the term school lightly because there seems to be no actual classes or learning happening, instead the school is more like a gambling den, where every student partakes in gambling. They bet their fortunes against one another regularly, and those who become in debt are practically slaves to the holders of their wealth. The show focuses of Yumeko Jabami, a new student who gambles for the fun of it and is really good at it; too good, in fact. Her actions end up disrupting the student hierarchy of Hyakkaou Academy, causing the Student Council to come up with ways to stop her. Throughout the show, Yumeko befriends beta cuck bitch-boy Ryouta Suzui and fellow gambling gal Meari Saotome who help her as she gambles to her heartโs content. Ironically, Yumekoโs first gamble at the academy is against Meari, and it is here where the first major problem of the show lies.
The game Yumeko and Meari play is a card-game variation of rock-paper-scissors where the crowd of people watching them write the symbol of โrockโ, โpaperโ or โscissorsโ on cards, where they are collected and put into a box for both players to draw three cards and play the game. Meari manipulates the majority of the classโ votes to her advantage, however Yumeko still wins decisively and reveals exactly how Meari cheated. Throughout the entire game, the audience is given no insight into what Yumeko is thinking or even a hint as to how she was able to figure out Meariโs scheme until it is given through exposition after she has already won. As such, viewers are forced to believe Yumeko was able to piece everything together without fault. Doing this is lazy of the writers as it solely relies on having to tell the audience what happened, rather than show it as it is happening. This problem is apparent in every gamble in the show and kills the opportunity for viewers to engage with the gambling games and the characters playing said games. The games themselves are also poorly constructed; some come off as unnecessarily complex, others are just too simple and easy to beat. Being marketed as a gambling anime makes the show look incredibly dumb and stupid, taking away the chance to get excited for how these games play out. And that leads to what I feel is the 2nd biggest issue with this anime: no thrills.
As you watch Kakagurui, you begin to notice a couple patterns with each gamble: High-stakes are never fully realised, every female character is bat-shit insane and โYumeko wins LOLโ. Seriously, even when Yumeko loses like in episode 3, she has no repercussions from losing. Because the audience is always watching from the perspective of either a mere onlooker or one of Yumekoโs opponents, she always comes across as too good for every situation she is placed in. Because of this she rids the show of any tension it could have had. And when you figure out that most of the time Yumeko gambles, she barely even uses a complete strategy, relying on pure luck to win at random times, which feels like a slap in the face to anyone expecting consistency and/or intelligence from this show. The fact that there are no actual punishments fulfilled from losing a high-stakes gamble also hinders the joy and excitement viewers get from watching. Now while there are consequences for being in an extreme amount of debt (e.g. house pet, Meariโs โLife Scheduleโ), you never actually see the show go through with these consequences and even then, the punishment for losing rarely ever matches the reward for winning. And in Yumekoโs case, the money she wins never really matters to her at all. She is the kind of sadomasochist that would throw countless amounts of money away to feel satisfied with how high the risk of losing a gamble is. Yet the show never goes through with these risks. So Iโm left here after watching each gamble asking myself โWhatโs the point?โ. A lot of fans of the show have been saying that Kakegurui is not a gambling anime, but a great thriller, and I just cannot agree with that statement at all. It is a mediocre thriller at best and that is only if you turn your brain off.
Speaking of which, this show stretches oneโs suspension of disbelief so much that you would think this has the quality of fanfiction-level writing. Not just with the gambling aspect of it, but the entire setting is fucking stupid. From the very start I was always curious why there were so many students at Hyakkaou Academy and why they would all gamble. But as I continued watching, the curiosity turned into frustration because it became apparent that there is no proper reason why so many students would stay there or continue to engage in gambling than to make Yumeko even more perfect than what she already is. Yumeko exposes a lot of the games played in gambles as cheat ways to get other in debt, yet that never changes the amount of gambling that takes place within the academy, and that is because most of the students in the background are ignorant buffoons. I would also like to know why only one adult to my memory has appeared in the entire 12 episodes. ONE! I cannot imagine such a prestigious academy to only have one adult working at the academy, but it makes sense with the amount of betting that takes place so regularly. And how in the world are guns and kidnapping allowed? And why does being in extreme debt eventually lead to a life sentence that dictates you to a wealthy future? So many questions that are never explained because this show is not about logic. It tries to look smart but just comes off as a dumb piece of shit. Calling this show psychological is pure lunacy; if anything, it is psycho-sexual because any real sense of logic got thrown out the fucking window!
Nearly every character in this show pissed me off. I have already stated how Yumeko is convoluted out her own ass and is like a vacuum sucking all the excitement away from the show, but she seems like Godโs gift to this show when compared to every other character. Meari, who seemed like she had potential, starting off as a cocky bitch that is humbled by Yumeko before being humiliated by the student council. Sadly, she turned out to be a weaker clone of Yumeko by episode 4 and is only used as a way to explain other games Yumeko plays as the story goes on. Literal waste of potential. Ryouta is their other friend, but honestly he does nothing in this show. He just reacts to shit happening around him and nods in response and is a waste of space. Fuck him. The only other characters that matter are the one-note members of the student council that only matter for the one episode they are in before getting pushed to the side. Dishonourable mention to eyepatch-girl with the revolver fetish and a chronic masturbation habit, edgy bitch. And I would love to talk about the one guy whose sole purpose here is to sexually assault the protagonist, but I won't bother trying to match the show when it comes to edge. All you need to know is that these characters are terrible, both in their construction and as people, making the show even more of a pain while watching.
Regarding the production, from a company like Studio MAPPA I was really disappointed. The art style is not impressive, most of the female character designs are generic, backgrounds are fairly basic and visual effect are for the most part impressive. The most controversial feature of the animation has to be the facial expressions and I have mixed feelings about them. On one hand, they showcase how broken and mentally unstable these characters get at times, but these faces just do not fit the visual look of the show and come off as cringe-inducing to me. The fan-service used is also off-putting to me, seemingly thrown in at random intervals in each episode. Yumeko pretending to be a cat was a definite low point for my enjoyment and did more to prove to me that it cares more about sex appeal than anything of substance. The music used was fine to me, with the OP being perhaps the best part of the entire show, which is not a hard feat. The ED however, was nice to listen to once but afterwards was always skipped, as I donโt see how Yumeko walking for 90 seconds as her breasts bounce constantly is worth seeing more than once. The voice acting was fine until characters went into their crazy stage and felt artificial and forced, but I suppose that fits the show unintentionally.
In conclusion, Kakegurui was pretty awful, filled with formulaic, villain-of-the-week gambling matches that felt like a waste of time once it was all over. In the end it was only trying to entertaining on a superficial level; it was never attempting to have a real identity, besides being yuri fapbait. Now I have no problem with anyone who liked the show; you are free to like and enjoy whatever anime you want to, but if someone were to ask me if I enjoyed it? HELL NAW. Lemme put it this way: If you liked Mirai Nikki and Akame ga Kill, youโll probably enjoy this. But if you are anything like myself and thought those two shows were terrible, Kakegurui ainโt gonna be worth your time. Now if youโll excuse me, Iโm off to watch something that is actually worth my time.
Reviewerโs Rating: 2
What did you think of this review?
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