Monday, March 5, 2018

Kakegurui Part 1 Episodes 1-3


Welcome to Hyakkou Academy, the school molds the minds of those destined for greatness.  Here it isn’t about how good you are in the classroom, it’s about how good you are at the art of the gambling game.  If you’re good, you’re part of the elite echelon of students.  If you’re bad, you’re a pet until you can clear your debt.  It’s the worst kind of class system and someone is about to challenge it like never before. Her name is Yumeko Jamabi.  She may look serene and beautiful.  But beneath her heavenly appearance lies the ultimate demon, a woman who gambles not for position or fortune but for the sheer thrill of betting it all.  Hyakkou Academy has no idea the storm that is about to befall it when Yumeko joins the game.

Wow…am I glad I never went to this Academy for high school.  At long last, after a half year wait, ive finally been able to watch the first few episodes of one of last summers big hits, Kakegurui.  I’ll admit, my interest came from the odd premise and, let’s face it, an extremely attractive lead character.  And while both are here and work in their own way, I’m still trying to recover from all the crazy overload that was also promised in the previews, I dare say they didn’t do the final result justice.  Hyakkou Academy is a mad, mad world and Yumeko Jamabi has come to play to her crazy hearts content.

Yumeko Jamabi.  She certainly is something.  At first she seems like the ultimate, unattainable girl next door, a transfer student whose beauty easily dwarfs anyone in the school.  But once you really get to see her in action as she show goes on…it’s almost a good thing she’s not interested in being anyones love interest.  Yumeko’s true love is the thrill of betting it all and seeing where the pieces fall.  The higher the risk, the hotter she gets, literally, the girl is in a near sexual frenzy a couple of times.  It made me think of Alucard from Hellsing when he fought Luke Valentine and got excited at the prospect of battling a monster as wacky as he was.  Actually, Yumeko’s showdown with first year Itsuki ends in a similar fashion, with Yumeko seeing she’s all talk and feeling a bit letdown.  Past the obvious crazy, it’s hard to get a clear read on Yumeko or her intentions.  Is she really just a gambling addict who gets turned on by playing the game?  Is she here at Hyakkou to challenge the hierarchy, a la Ryuko Matoi in Kill la Kill?  One thing that I will say surprises me is Yumeko’s Sherlock Holmes level intellect, being able to sniff out deceit and how one pulls off a cheating maneauver in almost no time flat.  She may be addicted but Yumeko got the smarts to back up her skill.

Hyakkou Academy’s school life is bizzare and plenty times downright cruel.  Students used as prop stools or chairs for superior gamblers, others being forced to clean up messes and most “house pets” often spoken to as less than human beings, everyone in this school deserves to get punched.  As uncomfortable as Yumeko’s special brand of psycho makes me, im kind of glad she’s here to shake up the social order and challenge it.  The games she and the other students play are all very unique in their own way.  The library of gambling options goes beyond your standard Las Vegas casino and mostly features customized versions of classic games like Rock Paper Scissors or Memory Games.  Each episode takes a small chunk of time to explain the rules.  Still, when everyone is basically breaking the rules in some form or another…I kind of have to wonder what the heck the point is.  In the end, the rules don’t matter.  What does are the inevitable freakouts of the losers that put any witness in a Phoenix Wright game to shame.  Every girl looks pretty but when they think they’ve got the drop on Yumeko or Yumeko sees through their scheme, their faces turn absolutely, and probably intentionally hideous.  Most of them are downright terrifying and yet not as terrifying as a super turned on Yumeko being both sexy and insane at the same time.

Prior to checking out the series, I took a look at the first volume of the manga (I have Volume 2 and still need to read it).  It took me a while to get through the first volume because it took me a couple of reads to wrap my head around the rules.  In the series, however, everything feels a lot more brisk, heck some episodes feel over just as swiftly as they began.  It’s rapid fire storytelling for sure.  Still, the first three episodes felt pretty similar for the most part with the same story structure: Ryota narrarates “welcome to my God awful school”, Yumeko discovers a new game, she begins to lose then realizes the trick, Yumeko gets turned on and the opponent collapses, rinse repeat.  I guess it was a surprise then when Yumeko doesn’t win the game at the end of Episode 3.  Normally this would break any main character a little.  Yumeko, however, does what we might expect…and behaves like a sexy kitten, taking it all in stride…this is going to be an odd one to grade at the end. 

Kakegurui so far is pretty something.  It’s exciting, it’s crazy, it’s hard to look away from and…wow Yumeko, how can I be afraid of you and yet intrigued at the same time?  And just how many more ways can the animators find to create the ultimate overreactions to tearing ones world down at the single turn of a game?  Kakegurui has begun…let’s see where the crazy train takes us.

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