Anime 37086 Kakegurui%c3%97%c3%97 Reviews Filter Check 3

"What is life, if not a Gamble?" - F.E. Higgings

You should do all kinds of things in your life, go on an adventure, waste your time on a crazy idea that you know is not gonna succeed but do it anyway because your mind desires it. But, if there's one thing you must not do is to waste your time on this piece of trash.

Plot: 2/10

This has to be one of the most banal anime I've ever seen. The story, whatever it is, revolves around a crazy compulsive gambler named Jabami Yumeko who transfers to (insert generic Japanese High School Name here) and gambles ... with the students there. Also, the school has no faculty members so students are free to do whatever they please, which includes but is not limited to, sexual harassment, discrimination, physical and mental torture. Oh boy, do I want to go to this school.

There is some kind of stupid clan this season out there on a mission to choose the next in line to rule their clan. To whom do you give this incredibly important responsibility to you ask? Well, of course you give it to some school students because all the adults in this world are either extinct or are too retarded and asinine to carry out their jobs. This just adds to the realism with which the show progresses. Did I mention there are no teachers in the school? Because there isn’t even one goddamn hint that there exists such an entity as a teacher.

But who cares about the plot because we’re all here for the gambling. The tension that builds up in your body as you lay transfixed on your couch hoping that the character you want to win, actually wins. We’re all here for the thrill and the excitement we feel as adrenaline rushes through our veins, of which we get absolutely nothing. Not even a scintilla of zeal is to be found when watching the matches. The “gambling” feels like two monkeys fiddling around with torture equipment they just discovered. There is no sense of dread as Jabami is probably going to come up with a BS strategy and win anyway. The only good gambling match was the very first match all the way at the start of the series, all the matches that come afterwards are full of crap. There’s a gamble in this season in which one wrong move can end up slicing one of your fingers, but the fear of losing one of your fingers is shitted into oblivion as all the characters are psychopaths with no regards to their own or other’s safety. What a great way to set the atmosphere! Also, how the hell do these shitty teens get so much money to spend on the gambles? Do they collect garbage? Or maybe they prostitute themselves. This would be a much better plot than whatever pretentious shit we have been given.

People, apparently can do anything in this school and not face any repercussions. One of the challengers’ poisons Jabami and the students act like this is a regular occurrence in their school. People go jail for this shit, but the characters just laugh it off as if it was the same as stubbing your toe. The school students also employ what is basically slavery with extra steps. The students who have “lost it all”, which usually means losing a large sum of money against someone, become the prerogative of the winners. How the hell is this school still up and running is beyond me. And, the student council are like the Gods of the world or something with enough power to put the Chinese army to shame. Those annoying shits can apparently plan out your whole life, literally.

Yeah, the writing and plot are absolute balderdash with enough volume of crap to fill 20 Olympic sized swimming pools.

Characters: 1/10

The characters in this show: if it’s a girl, then she’s either psychotic and hot or psychotic and grotesque; if it’s a boy, he’s either the biggest cunt or a pathetic forlorn beta cuck. You would think in a gambling anime the characters’ personalities and their motivations would be deftly woven into their characteristic disposition, but instead you get a high school girl who has a hobby of collecting human nails. A hobby that is very fitting of a girl that age and is not out of character at all.
Also, for some equivocal reason, the girls start fiddling with their tiddies in between matches. For some reason, which is definitely not to hide the trite writing and woo in audience by employing fanservice, girls get orgasms if they win a match… or even if they lose them? The apocryphal “G-spot” was gambling all along? Wish I knew that earlier.

The character writing is cursory and all over the place with characters doing a 180-degree personality change in mere seconds. The ephemeral enjoyment you get thinking, “finally, a normal character”, is stuffed inside a box and thrown deep into the Mariana Trench never to be found again, as you find out they are basically Jabami with a different face.

You can replace the entire cast of characters with baboons and it wouldn’t change a thing. On second thought, the baboons would probably impart some sense of enjoyment to the show.

Art and Animation: 7/10

The animation is awesome but the characters’ faces make me puke. They make these grotesque faces sometimes which looks so out of place. One moment the character is happily discussing the rules of the gambling match and the next moment they turn into a monster from Courage the Cowardly Dog. They look more like caricatures than faces.

Enjoyment: 3/10

I’m still gonna finish this show because according to my girlfriend “it gets better” and I’m too deep into it to drop it.

There are 3 major issues with Kakeuguri Season 2:
A:Most uninteresting gang of antagonists I have ever seen.
B:Irrelevant story
C:absurd of amount of plot armor on everyone

Starting with A:
Everything up until ending , Season 1 of Kakegurui was great, Show was new so You didn't know how far it would push gambling, characters were absolutely freaky, girl obsessed with human nails, Revolver lady, the idol, The president. Even if the they were not most developed characters, it was fun to watch them fall.
Now welcome to season 2, please choose between these amazing cast of villains: A edgy looking lady, edgy looking lady ... with buns, edgy looking lady but this one is in wheel chair and last but not least our most creative villains of them all edgy looking GUY with shark teeth.
I think you get the point, all the new characters are so pathetic and uninspired that you could prob take any semi edgy character from any show and there wouldn't be much of difference, highkey entire tokyo ghoul cast would be perfect for this show.

B:
This isn't helped by trash story.So instead of gambling for money they are gambling to see who will become new school president and leader of bami clan. But issue is since none of characters ever developed, showed any ambition or desire and fact that show does very little to explain what being leader of "bami" clan means, who becomes president is so irrelevant that it could just be decided by a single dice roll and where wouldn't be much of difference from viewers point of view.

C:
Plot armor was getting rather annoying in Season 1 especially in final gamble which ended in a tie.
But it becomes comically ridiculous in second season.
In Season 1 we had girl ripping her nails of, a guy going into a coma after losing. What does Season 2 have? nothing.... Stakes are made eather so ridiculous(I.E Yumeko will die) or everyone is conveniently bailed from getting harmed that every gambling game loses any sense of risk.
So now any risk is superficial, the crazy face expressions which suppose to making everything more intense turn into a glorified up-close face porn, which become so cliche and predictable that You can start playing a game with yourself trying to predict when next upclose face scene will be.


TL;DR Kakegurui is so afraid of taking risks that it padded the floor, walls , roof and locked it self in a room , so that nothing can ever harm it or go wrong.

final score: Plot armor/10

If you liked season 1, do not watch season 2, it is a waste of your time

Kakegurui xx : Electric Boogaloo

Remember the first season of Kakegurui ? Sure it was no masterpiece by any means but it was a fun, stupid, crazy anime full of over the top characters, Jabami Yumeko was fun and they turned Mary into an interesting secondary character. In short, and despite being a bit repetitive at times at having some disappointing moments, it was good. Basically, the complete opposite of season 2.

Why season 2 sucks so bad ?

- First, 90 % of the first eight episodes (yes I’m dropping this crap before the end, sorry) is just a rehash of the first season. Without the originality. Or the fun. Or ... anything good. Even the crazy faces are boring here. Episode 5 and 6 are the carbon copies of episode 10 and 11 of the first season. So of course, this season gets quickly boring because you know how things are end from the start. No more suspense or surprise in this season 2. It’s also hurt the characters, especially Yumeko, because they are now devoted of personality : they only repeat the same old schtick over and over again. So they become annoying, fast.

- The gambling. Remember how exciting and risky it was in season 1 ? You could lose your dignity, become a slave for the rest of your life or even die. In this ? Well you can lose voices for an election… Yeah the stakes have never been lower. And special mention for the game of episode 7 and 8 who is not only boring (there is no stake or excitement) but is also the most incomprehensible game in all of Kakegurui. It’s almost like Jojo, except here they removed everything fun.

- Second season decide to spend an incredible amount of time on secondary characters (like Sumeragi or Idol-Lady), so much so that the main characters are sometimes barely there (especially poor Suzui who is now almost a background character). And those secondary characters ? They suck. BIG TIME. Idol-Lady was the most boring character in the first season already and still is in season 2. So of course she clearly deserve TWO FULL EPISODES solely dedicated on her. The same goes for Sumeragi : hateful and boring, get’s two episodes to have a romance with her slave. Why, oh why on Earth are they doing this ? Those characters have nothing interesting, are neither funny or likeable so why spending so much time with them ? Even Table-Kun from Code Geass is a more compelling character than those clowns ! But Kirari, the main antagonist of this season ? You see her for a total of not even 5 minutes in 8 episodes ! SHE IS BARELY THERE. And of course, they decided to throw at least 10 new characters in this season, each more boring than the other and are just here to be red-shirt (except for one who is maybe gonna get an arc. Maybe).

- So naturally, the plot never move or progress in any shape or form. Like 99 % of this second season is filler. In this 2h40m I spent watching this, only what, 10 minutes were actually relevant ? Fantastic work.

- And the icing on this ugly cake, the morals. The show tries to have some kind of moral is some episodes which is laughable : when you’re as stupid and badly written as this season, you don’t get to try that.

So in short, skip this season. This season is a complete waste of time. You want gambling ? Watch episode 34 or 35 of Jojo: Stardust Crusaders (or Kaji because apparently it’s pretty good). Want stupid crazy stuff with fanservice ? Watch Prison School. There is so much other shows that deserve your attention. Kakegurui XX just isn’t one of them.

Before you guys start reading my review. My deepest thanks for your time.

Okay so... Wanna know a fun fact? Gambling is illegal in Japan. And we all know what happens when you stop someone from consuming something by banning it. It becomes even more interesting and intriguing than it would be otherwise. Now that explains why this hot garbage anime was popular in Japan. Because people like seeing stuff that they aren't supposed to see. Just like a teenager finding porn or a student finding the answer key to a test which hasn't been conducted..... It really makes them curious and easily catches their ... attention. And you can't even blame them.

Coming to the show.....I watched the first season on my friend's recommendation and I was really really unimpressed. Any person who felt the same about the first season would unsurprisingly stay away from sequel seasons..... But i have this weird habit of completing everything I start. I seriously hate myself. Sure I have 0 dropped shows but I lost a lot of time watching something I was hardly interested in. So I did watch this season after a gap of 4 months. So let's jump into it.....

Welcome to Hyoukkou Academy. A school of Japan for the most privileged and the most elite students of the country. They have a lush green campus and almost all facilities one could think of. Also they have a very experienced faculty....... Wait.. There are no teachers here. No staff. No classes. No exams. No cultural festivals. The setting is in high school just for the sake of it. In fact anyone can forget that this is a school if the characters stopped wearing their uniforms. It once again shows that the author wanted to appeal to the high school going demographic so he/she chose such a setting. I don't even know how will these students be the most elite of the country cause if they don't give up their habits... (not restricted to gambling).. They might end up in jail even before climbing the corporate ladder of this capitalist nation.

Gambling is the only thing that happens in the school. From 8 in the morning to midnight I suppose. The students who have no intention of participating in the gambling can definitely leave. It's not a prison. But still they do.......because there needs to be a large chunk of so called losers to exist so that the others including good players and the student council can be perceived as the masters of the school. Let me quickly tell in brief the problems of the first season cause the sequel fixes none of them.
1. We never get to know how rich each character is. So we are just unable to comprehend the scale of stakes for each player in the gambles.
2. Even if the players go broke. It's not that big a problem. They are underage high schoolers who have a roof over their heads and their parents who are obviously even more rich, will support them nonetheless
3. Each student council member uses cheating to win games instead of coming up with good strategies to win the games fairly. This gives us the impression that the "villians" of the show aren't all that competent. They are just resourceful enough to be at the top of the school.
4. Every time Yumeko exposes someone who is cheating.... She does so without any proof or in other words... We are never shown how she came to the conclusion. This obviously means that the author invents a cheating method.... Stretches the game to the end of the episode and then magically reveals it via Yumeko's deductions.
5. In the school. The girls vastly outnumber the boys even though it's a co ed. And the handful of boys present are either house pets or just sidekicks of the female villians. It's like the author is a pseudo feminist who is trying his/her best to portray that all men are trash and they deserve nothing more than to be sidelined by the girls and lick their boots/feet whatever.

Ok so here we are at the doorstep of season 2 Right at the beginning. We come to know that Kirari is retiring from the council and will conduct a new election for that post. A new clan of a dozen characters is introduced whose all members are female.... AGAIN. The election is a bit different because the votes are accumulated by gambling. At first I thought that thankfully they solved the "money problem" of season 1 which i mentioned earlier. But just several episodes in..... We come to know that votes are bought and sold like candy and it becomes especially evident when the idol girl bribes the audience in episode 5 to win the game. After getting some hope..... All of it is shattered. It all comes down to who has the most money. The richest person can easily buy his way into winning and is also the most powerful and influential.

There was no story in either season to begin with. But the first season had a decent ending to be honest. The story in the second season..... Although non existant... Is all about the election. Gambles are taking place every episode and in every corner of the school. Each episode features votes being lost and gained..... People getting excited about the results of the election. But you know what......... The season concludes before the results are declared..... I mean they had one and only one plot line and even that remained incomplete. Any normal viewer who sat through the election arc would feel cheated. They introduced a reverse trap plot about a character no one cares about in the last 2 episodes. It was really infuriating watching the credits roll in the final episodes. There were no subplots either which could have filled the void made by this shitty plot. The show is all about gambling and the plot was fabricated just so that the show doesn't look like a documentary about rigged games. And this heavy emphasis on gambling makes the show a tiresome watch for those who aren't crazy about gambling like me.

Coming to the characters. There are none of them worth talking about except Yumeko and Kirari. Yumeko was kinda decent in the first season. She was shown to be smart.... Even though there was no proof but I still played along. In the first season. We actually had an interest in her goal of overthrowing the council in the hopes that she brings an end to the crazy fiasco in the school disguised as a custom. But in this season she is actually more clueless about her motivations than we are. She has no interest in winning the election... She doesn't care if she wins or loses (we all followed suit) and she just loiters around participating in any game she comes across. Earlier, she actually outsmarted her opponents albeit unconvincingly. Now she just leaves everything to fate and turns her brain off while playing. All she does is guess and they aren't even intelligent guesses. They are just random. She even went as far as asking rhetorically "isn't guessing better than logic?" No darling it isn't and will never be. It is plausible that the writers were running out of coming up with cheating methods and rigged games for her to figure out. So they just made her a mindless player with no strategies under the pretext that "Yumeko likes taking risks" But the ones who really like the show won't mind cause the show finally stooped down to their level of intelligence.

Ryota.... As usual continues his duties of being Yumeko's unofficial slave and there is nothing more to him. It's not even an understatement. Their relationship is nothing more than that. I low key hoped for a romance to Bloom but to no avail. Kirari was a fine enough villian in Season 1 but she is frequently sidelined by the members of her own clan in this one. Now all she is useful for is giving some yuri vibes to the viewers with her....... Acts. All other females are edgy stereotypical characters who are either a rich girl with lots of resources and intentions to abuse her powers.... Or someone who doesn't have those privileges but still wants to gain them and use them in the same way. One exception was the girl who was lusting after Kirari. Talking about her.... The game which she played with Yumeko was extremely predictable. Either she would die or no one would. There are multiple instances within the show when Yumeko's life was in danger. But I was never worried cause her plot armour was stronger than Titanium. The writers would never kill her off. They don't have any other character in the show who was even remotely developed enough to take her place.

One thing that really bothered me was the fact that how tolerant the people in the school are with regards to human rights violations. Only in this school can people write life plans for the losers and the losers actually comply.. The author should never raise the stakes so much that it becomes ridiculous rather than believable. In one episode.. Yumeko was poisoned and Ryota had to play to win an antidote for her. I was really shocked to see that no one went to the authorities and The girl who poisoned her wasn't arrested under the clause of attempt to murder under the Japanese law. Of course I would have let it slide if the show was set in an underground back alley club whose existence is unknown to the masses..... But its a school.... A big prestigious school. They are elitists.... But are they above the law?

The music in the show is really non existant. I didn't find a single piece of ost that made me frantically search for a full version on youtube. In fact... All they have for an ost are a bunch of sound effects when the camera zooms in on the characters' faces. The opening is good but not because of the music but the visuals. The ending is so forgettable that I have no recollection of it even though i am writing the review just one day after finishing the show. The voice acting is pretty average except those orgasmic moments when the seiyuus screamed so erotically that I had to thank whoever invented things called earphones.

The art and animation of the show are unsurprisingly great because MAPPA. there was a lot of hard work put in both character designs and backgrounds as well. No two places of the school show any signs of copy pasted aesthetics. The characters look unique enough to not be forgotten easily. Especially the council members. The "insane" faces of the girls in the show are incredibly detailed although they don't do a good job in making them look hot because seriously..... They made me puke. The normal expressions are good enough. Please.... Don't try to be a Prison School rip off. Remember when I said that I liked the visuals of the opening..... It's because who wouldn't. The storyboards for the op were designed by the same lady who directed Yuri On Ice. An anime by the same studio that will forever be close to me. The ending visuals were surely a downgrade cause there was no single person who didn't like Yumeko jiggling her "assets" for 90 seconds straight in the first opening.

Overall... This freshly steamed garbage pile will go down as one of the worst shows I ever watched cause it's neither intelligent nor entertaining. As I said.... If you aren't a hardcore fan of gambling or a toxic pseudo feminist... Then stay away from this show cause there is nothing in it for you. And personally speaking..... I am feeling paranoid cause the director of the show has been given the responsibility to direct the next season of one of my favourite shows......... A little known anime called Attack on titan . I don't know if you guys have heard of it or not . (Of course it's sarcasm.)

That's all I had to say.... Do check out my other reviews.

Watched this because I had seen the first season and thought “I don’t remember liking it that much but it was okay to kill some time”. Basically the same but I disliked it more this time.

TL;DR: Gambling, but underage kids, highly disturbing and uncomfortably sexual and basically everyone is a psycho or just a plain character trope. Also they are all kids with no sense of stakes whether it’s their life or literally billions. They are kids. Why are they gambling. Where are their parents? No adults in this world.

STORY:
1/10

I like how someone’s review commented on how there are no teachers or adults at this ... “school”. After that I was just wondering how this “school” even exists, like why even bother calling it “school” and go to “classes” or even have classrooms if all anyone ever does is gambling?? Just make the whole setting a casino at that point.

ART:
5/10

Was fine when it wasn’t getting the freaky nasty looking style when characters were all showing that they were psychos all along.
Also I really liked Rei's second design I guess you'd call it? She looked like a hot anime boy there and that was good stuff heck ya.

SOUND:
5/10
Neutral for me, OP and end I skipped mostly and the music seemed all the same to me.

CHARACTER:
1/10

Only reason I don’t give a big fat zero is I liked how the main exposition dude seemed resigned to the fact that the main girl would always accept a gamble no matter how crazy, so at least he learned a little from the first season lol. Also I liked the almost character “arc”?? That they gave Rei or whoever the servant girl was although of course that almost ended the same as every character who loses to Yumeko. (I hate her but I respect her and I guess I’ll die but oh wait I’m still around because I gotta be another background exposition character after having my nice gross looking mental breakdown)

ENJOYMENT:
3/10

Just watched to finish it at this point. I fell asleep while watching it and had a good nap the other day so points for nap LOL but this was a shallow anime with some okay animation when it wasn’t getting scarily high res eyes or bodily fluids coming from all the character’s pores…yikes. It was okay to pass some time.

OVERALL:
3/10

Could have been worse? (I think). I didn't actively hate this anime, but more just "oh they really didn't try for anything other then big tiddy anime girl who gets off on gambling,,,in a high school,,,,yeah we set bois make sure to make all the losers look real nasty when they have breakdowns".

Also you don't have to see a single adult character except the partial view of one lady in one flashback so you all good if you hate seeing adults in anime.

This anime is highly overrated
for a gambling anime it dosent do its job well
i have watched the first season and thought it was average
kakegurui XX is a mess
you could say that the anime is exactly about gambling but its the thrill and how far people are willing to go just to gamble
but with gambling there should be consequences to pay
kakegurui is essentially
what if we took hot anime girls and made em gamble but then like we never make them pay any consequences and instead they are conveniently full of money to dish out in order to get turned on from gambling ...
the plot is just yumeko wanting to gamble more and more so she can get the thrill no issue there
but even though she does lose she still dosent suffer from it and the next time she wins its repetitive because somehow either way she will lose the fight but win the war
Story 1
Art 10 Artstyle is appealing
Sound 10
Character 3 bland and unrealistic
Enjoyment 2
Overall 1

Kakeguruixx is the worst gambling content that I've watched or read ever including "The Gambler" by Dostoevsky. It portraits gamblers absolutely wrong. It's too boring to watch. Animations aren't the worst but they are pretty bad actually especially in making gamblers look disgusting. I didn't like the rules and themes. It was filled with various logical errors and bullshits that don't even look smart for example in "greater good game" the number separation thing was a complete disaster I won't even explain it. It is just stupid. They do over-explain everything so often and when they do it occurs very unnaturally. Gambling scenes are terrible ... and I hate school politics and it has so much screen time. Overall Kakeguruixx is fucking horrible.

This season is basically just more cheating and insanely unrealistic moves done at the last second of the game. If you got tired of this in season 1, you might as well not watch this season.

Story - 3
Compared to season 1, this season just takes all the insane, unrealistic-ness to a whole new level. Our main character is again, pulling the most random and smart, but unbelievable moves out at the very last second to win it all. And the games are full of cheating, no surprise. However what really bugs me is that this time the gambling games themselves are made unrealistic. I could ... believe in season 1 that they had a deck of cards or dice to play with, but in this season one girl just whips out a whole BUILDING that has the sole purpose of being full of puzzles for a race between two gamblers. Obviously because all of the puzzles, this thing has an insane architecture, which isn't just doors opening when you solve a puzzle, but something else that I won't spoil. But it is just too unrealistic.
I did think that the auction "gamble" was a good one. It didn't have some random cheat - yes, some people did something not explicitly said in the rules, but it felt more realistic and not a cheat like having someone signal something to you. It was truly just something not said in the rules. And the response to it was well thought out too.
But the ending of the auction episodes, which leads to the overall ending... was just weird. This random guy has his backstory given and then grows wings or something, I don't know.

Art - 6
Same as season 1, the art is okay. Eyes are still done pretty well and certain things like flowers are very detailed at times.

Sound - 5
Again, I thought that the opening was creative. It isn't jazz this time, but it is kind of an interesting rhythm. However I again did not care for the ending, and thought the general soundtrack was just okay. Feels the same as season 1.

Characters - 3
So the difference between season 1 and season 2 is that a new set of characters are introduced, but I think this was really detrimental to the anime. Yumeko had not done a gamble with every student council member yet, so I feel like they should have just had her keep gambling them, or throw in an oddball character that she gambles that has something special/interesting about them. They added a bunch of new characters, so many that you can't remember them all or there personality/traits, if they even have any. It also made the games less interesting because I didn't care about these new people at all, but since they got some screentime which was then taken away from Yumeko, I started to care less about Yumeko, so now I am watching a gamble between two characters and I don't care who wins. It takes the excitement out of the show. Also, they could have just done more character development of the main cast because that was definitely needed.

And again, they take a while to show the backstory of this random guy at the end of the auction, and then he grows wings and is important for...some reason.

Enjoyment - 4
This season was not as enjoyable as season 1. Even though the gambles weren't incredibly worse, it just continued the boring cycle of cheating and then an insane wild card from Yumeko.

Overall - 4
Again, don't feel the need to watch this season if you are getting kind of bored with season 1. It doesn't have a conclusive ending to the arc either, so season 1 is a fine stopping point, though I would recommend Kakegurui Twin, which is a prequel so season 1 and is honestly the best out of all three shows.

What a waste of time. I dropped it because of how garbage it was but I decided to finish it because I was trying to finish animes that I paused/judged too harshly.

—It took me a good 4 and a half years to complete this awful series, and that ending on season 2 was just straight-up garbage. What a waste of time a 12-year-old could have thought of that conclusion. Most episodes are rehashes of the first and lack a lot of substance.
I would rather hear the sound of a bullet go through my head than hear some characters talk. Lastly, I know most ... characters need a psych test, but if there's anyone that really needs one it's Yumeko and Ikishima.

P.S SOME EPISODES PUT ME TO SLEEP SO I WOULD SWITCH IT TO DUB, BUT THAT ONLY SPED UP THE PROCESS 4.5/10 :P