Kakegurui Ep 2-4 Review – crazies running around

The adventures of Jabami Yumeko in the academy of gamblers continues.

In episode two we are introduced to a member of the student council, Sumeragi Itsuki, who apparently paid her way into the top of the school with her family’s wealth. However, she is also a great gambler with good memories. I wouldn’t even hope to remember positions of 54 cards just by looking at a tiny mark on the back. Her obsession with human nails add an interesting bit to her character.

The atmosphere in their gamble–the thunder, the blackout, the nails collection–adds up to make it an intense and enjoyable scene. We also see how much Yumeko is an exceptional bluffer who is addicted to the risks of gambling and wouldn’t have mercy on the loser.

What’s crazy about this is that Yumeko took about five minutes to memorize the symbols on every single card on two decks and matched all of them first try. That’s quite the superhuman memory. Can anyone actually do that?

After winning against Itsuki (despite the other party cheating) Yumeko goes on to bet another student council member without a second thought even though Yuriko, the Yamato Nadeshiko of Hyakkaou Academy, slayed Mary in front of her. Hey, Yumeko just wants to have fun and get the high of gambling!

The game itself is not something I would play, since money is too fluid. One wrong bet and you can lose. But that’s the enjoyment for some people.

Yumeko made Yuriko almost lose her mind, betting everything on a single slot, although it was just another bluff. See, there are so many slots, and what are the chances of ‘live’ landing on the 24th slot, which Yumeko chose? Yuriko definitely has the upper hand by spreading her bets across different slots. We then know that Yuriko cannot afford to lose because she needed to protect members of her club. But her way of protecting them was to let them cheat by piercing their hands with magnetic pins which could control how swords will land on the slots. It’s a sick cheating method, but I guess the club members are just willing to do anything not to become housepets.

But of course the blue lips student council president had to step in and stop her fellow member from losing such a huge sum. So Yumeko ended up losing and becoming a housepet just like Mary.

get yourself a girl who can do both

Although Yumeko has a different take on being a housepet than Mary. Instead of lowering her head and endure the bullying that came with her status, she seemed to thoroughly enjoy being verbally abused by her classmates. I liked how the anime made the classmates spit all over the screen. Eew.

Ep 4 follows up on Yumeko’s life as a housepet and expands on how pets are treated in this academy. Suzui (the forgotten main character) remarks that girl housepets might actually have it worse than boys, seeing Yumeko almost get harrassed by a bully.

Although she seemed unfazed by the whole situation.

And the one who saved the day was not Suzui but Midari, yet another crazy woman on the student council who carries a gun around asking people to shoot her and does stuff in the toilet.

At this point we don’t really see anything about her aside from the fact that she’s the craziest one we’ve ran into so far, but the anime should expand on her character later on.

The highlight of episode four is the chance for housepets to lift their status into human beings by playing Indian poker. Yet more new characters. And the Indian Poker arc is just getting started. By far I like this arc best.

There are anime that you watch to reflect on humanity and get your mind moving, and there are anime that you watch just for enjoyment. For me, Kakegurui is the latter. It’s fun to watch people get all high and bet everything on a crazy gamble. However, Kakegurui might speak about the evils of capitalism and how people can lose everything to gambling, but not like that’s the main focus. It’s just something you can pick up by watching. If you don’t wanna lose everything playing against someone like Yumeko, don’t bet everything gambling!