Welcome once more to Guest Review Wednesday on Okazu! Today I have the pleasure of welcoming back Guest Reviewer Mariko S with a most entertaining review. I won’t take up her time here, so handing the mic over to you, Mariko …

Jabami Yumeko loves gambling. No, you don’t get it. I mean, she REALLY loves gambling. … I’m still not saying this right, I think. Jabami Yumeko REALLY. *LOVES.* GAMBLING.

There, that about sums up Kakegurui.

Wait, come back! There must be a reason why I’m talking about this odd, wonderful, terrible, exciting, formulaic, gorgeously ugly series for Okazu, right?

Sometime last year, Netflix decided to start throwing some money at the anime subculture (a departure from their previous haphazard acquisition of “whatever crappy dubs some bulk rightsholding company batches together with other throwaway filler content”), and began licensing or directly funding a couple of series per season. Whether this is a good thing is a topic best left to others to debate, but so far it seems they are aiming for projects with at least a little edge to them (or, in the case of “Devilman Crybaby,” a Ginsu knife of rococo craziness) that explicitly target a more mature audience and benefit from the less-restrictive content rules at the streaming giant. The kind of thing that, back in the earlier days of anime fandom, would be exactly what people would imagine when they found out you liked “those crazy Japanese cartoons.” Something to note is that the series Netflix sponsors get released all at once when Netflix decides to put them out, not based on the typical “season” schedule, so it’s harder to keep track of what they’re releasing and when. Anyway, fire up those login creds and let’s get started.

I may have mentioned once or twice that I’m a bit burned out on “Story A.” Particularly “Story A” where a moe-faced sugar blob enters a fairyland private school populated by other archetypal moe-faced sugar blobs, meets one extra-special blobface, and nothing much happens until they kiss (or not). So I’m always on the hunt for a bluebird that looks like it has Yuri potential from an unexpected angle. Thanks to Netflix’ “unusual” production and release philosophy, I found out about “Kakegurui” (“Compulsive/Crazy Gambling”) in sudden fashion. But the right words were being bandied about for my interest: “bold, crazy, original, queer.” There were rumblings that, although the outline sounded like a setup for some standard harem-show, it went right angle to that in ways that sounded fun and empowering and definitely kinda Yuri in a good way.

So, enough setup. After a nutty cold open that establishes the situation of our Bland Male Self-Insert Protagonist, Ryota, the OP theme already starts to portend good things for us as Yuri fans. It was done by Sayo Yamamoto, who has directed artistically-beloved openings for many shows, including “Yuri! On Ice.” It’s dripping with style and sexiness, as our yet-to-be-met heroine literally feasts on or toys with the many girls in her orbit. Cut to her unveiling in the show proper – of course she is a New Transfer Student. She seems to be a vision of the typical Nadeshiko beauty, with long black hair and sharp bangs, and a polite, kind way of speaking. We’re introduced in whirlwind fashion to the workings of the school: pretty much everyone there comes from wealthy and powerful families, and, as such, high-stakes gambling is the pastime of choice and determines all of your social worth at the school. The (of course all-powerful) student council posts regular ranking updates of each student’s gambling worth, and if you are unlucky enough to fall in the bottom 100 you are known as a “class pet” and are treated as basically a slave. This classroom’s top dog, Saotome Mary, immediately sets up to lure in the fresh meat for a kill and gets Yumeko to agree to gamble. Over the course of their match, the true layers beneath Yumeko’s proper exterior are revealed. She expertly dissects Mary’s game and her attempt to cheat for the win, and as the tides of power shift more and more into Yumeko’s favor she becomes slightly unhinged, working herself into a frothing, screaming display of gambling lust. When she leaves Mary utterly bankrupt just before the rankings come out, and cheerfully notes that now that they have gambled together they are friends, we definitely understand that Yumeko Is Not Normal.

Just how special Yumeko is, and in what way is the fascinating subject of the rest of the series, which did thankfully get renewed for a second season. The show is set up in classic sports anime style, with Yumeko continuing on to face more challengers of an ever-increasing level of surreal skill from the Student Council in bizarre gambling contests for massive stakes beyond just money. Of course it all culminates in a showdown with the student council president for all the marbles – in this case, expulsion from the gambling paradise of the school.

Some of the interesting things going on here:

1. This show is so refreshingly not-moe. In fact, it can be downright ugly, as the participants sweat, spit, snot, contort, and grimace in joy and agony. All emotions are writ large upon their faces. And although the female character designs are attractive, there are very few instances where they are drawn in an explicitly sexualized way (the ending theme being a forgivable exception). Everyone keeps their clothes on and the camera stays at respectful angles. The fanservice here is all about the gambling.

2. Yumeko’s power derives not from her prodigiously supernatural gambling talents. Those are useful (her ability to discern elaborate cheats, to mathematically dominate games of chance, to strategize in circles around her opponents), but her real power comes from the purity of her desires. She doesn’t care about winning money – money is just a means for her to gamble more easily. She’s not out to deliberately fight the unjust systems of the school, to help the downtrodden or defeat the student council or anything so noble. She just wants the chance to gamble – not to beat her opponent, mind you, which she can easily do. What she wants is more existential – to set the tables so that in the end, the fate of the participants is up to true chance. This is the real reason she takes down cheaters – for sullying the sanctity of the gamble. Similarly, it’s not a masochistic exercise – she doesn’t do it as a daredevil activity, to teeter to the brink of devastation. But rather, in her mind, to enjoy the moment of connection with the opponent as each side has maneuvered as best it can in preparation for the pure chance of the decisive draw, roll, or spin.

3. It’s frankly hilarious how irrelevant Ryota is. I read another review that smartly pointed out that, in most similar shows, despite having no special abilities he would be “The One” for Reasons, and he would be collecting fawning girls along the way as he racked up victories to take down the big bad student council. Instead, this is Yumeko’s show. In fact, you barely hear from Ryota outside of his narration most of the time. A running joke is the ways that other characters will just step into frame in front of him as he’s trying to say something and completely change the subject. This is Yumeko’s world, and he’s just along for the ride. And again, Yumeko’s goal isn’t exactly “winning,” which makes for a more interesting ride in a formulaic show than if that were the only stakes.

Which brings me to the question that of course you are asking, “What about the Yuri?”

First off, this isn’t a show with a lot of interest in romantic relationships. I saw elsewhere Yumeko described as “risk-sexual,” which is pretty apt. That said, while she doesn’t show any physical interest in Ryota or any of the male gambling opponents that she faces, it’s a different story for the girls. In the throes of her gambling ecstasies, Yumeko gets *very* up close and personal with her female opponents. As the gambling intensifies, she often plays a kind of Mephistopheles with them, surrounding and seducing and tempting her opponent into the path she wants them to take; it’s alluring, and you could read it as purely in service of her gamble or as something with more layers than that.  Afterward, she is quick to want to keep her conquests in her orbit as friends (or maybe more, especially in the case of Mary). But the biggest Yuri magnet is the student council president, whom the vice president is obviously in love with, Beautification Committee head and all-around lunatic Midari stabbed an eye out for, and Yumeko herself is clearly infatuated with. For now we must hope that the teases, innuendo-laced lines of dialogue, extremely Yuri opening theme, and reams upon reams of Yumeko x Mary fanart add up to something more concrete next season!

Kakeguruimashou!

Ratings:

Art – 10 I love, love, loved the style
Story – 6 Serviceable enough to get you to the good stuff
Characters – 9 I loved how weird and non-cute the characters were allowed to be. The sadly typical “girl who is like half the size of everyone else and acts and dresses like a child but is somehow in highschool” character knocks a point off for me.
Yuri – 3 I wanted to put this higher, but so far it’s all just innuendo, suggestion, and gambling-related seduction.
Service – 10 It has multiple (tastefully shot) gambling-related spontaneous female orgasms. If you’re *really* into gambling, this one might go to 11.

Overall – 8

Note: From a technical perspective, on the plus side most things are high quality: the subtitles are attractive and easy to read, sub and dub are available in multiple languages, and you even get the songs translated. However, for sub purists the scripts make some regressive translation mistakes, such as omitting honorifics and changing the names people are called. This leads to situations like this one in the third episode, where they translate some dialogue as: “Hey, Yumeko. Good morning!” “Oh, how disappointing. You and I are friends now, aren’t we? You may call me Yumeko.” C’mon, Netflix. Let’s at least get into the 2000’s on this.

Erica here: Fantastic review! I’m motivated to create a Netflix account now, and if I thought for a second I’d make the time to watch this, I might actually do that. ^_^ Thank you Mariko, for this most excellent review.