Monday, March 12, 2018

Kakegurui Part 2 Episodes 4-6


Yumeko Jamabi’s thunderous winning streak has ended in a crushing defeat orchestrated by the Student Council President herself.  But Yumeko isn’t letting the loss go to her head.  In fact it fuels her desires more and now she’s got her sights set on gambling with the President herself, Kirari Momobami.  But before then, she’ll have to wade her way through everyone else who wants a shot at her.  From perverted upper classmen to an insane beautician with a death wish, Yumeko seems to be attracting all kinds of the wrong attention.  But even the equally insane Yumeko needs allies.  When the time comes to possibly remove her debt, Yumeko finds herself paired with Mary Satome, the girl she crushed on her first day who finds her situation only getting more and more dire.  Oddly enough, this looks like the beginning of a beautiful (ish) friendship.
 
So now we’ve got potential rapists and a fashionista who gets off to trying to blow her brains out with a revolver at chance…sometimes I just need to go sit down and think about the things ive just seen.  The second week of Kakegurui kicked things into high gear and sent us further down the dark rabbit who that is Hyakkou Academy and it turns out this place is far more messed up that I initially thought.

Last week we saw a lot of how the more common placed students deal with life in this hellhole of a school (is it even a school at all?).  And while we got more of it, this time involving a poor house pet named Nanami and a twisted jerk of a man named Jun, this week we felt more of the Student Council’s influence at play.  In a way, my comment about the rules of games not mattering in the long run ring true here as well.  I always got the sense that while the Student Council is content to let things play out to their twisted content, their more than happy to step in and overrule things at random.  Even if someone were to win a game, their president, the sadistic Kirari, could just say otherwise and damn a poor student for eternity.  Case in point, the SC is shown to makeup “Life Plans” for all students, determing their profession and even who they’ll wed down the line.  It makes me wonder how the hell this whole set up even got started and just how deep this False God Complex really runs in this school.

Then we have characters like upperclassman Jun and beautician Midari.  One I mentioned above, is a true sick example of a man who uses his position to get whatever he wants, even from girls who don’t deserve his cruelty.  The other is an eyepatch sporting psycho with a fetish for living as dangerously as Yumeko.  But while Yumeko is thrilled by the gamble of any kind, Midari gets off on walking the line between life and death, carrying around loaded revolvers and trying to blow her own brains out…it’s a bit much and its characters and moments like those that make me wonder what genre to place Kakegurui in.  Just seeing Yumeko and Ryota thrown into an “interrogation chamber” by Midari and her cronies looked like something out of the Saw series…that’s not cool.  In fact the only reason I’m sure Yumeko will survive this weeks cliffhanger is because this is only the halfway mark of the series…small comforts I suppose.

It’s darkness like this that actually makes me like Yumeko a bit more than I did last week, though I was more so on the fence and never really disliked her.  Yumeko’s a gambler with an addiction but she isn’t without her own code it seems.  One of the big highlights of this week was seeing her team up with Mary Satome to win some big cash and help a house pet gain some confidence.  We actually saw a bit of Yumeko’s more compassionate side with Mary last week during the latters desperate attempt to gamble away the debt Yumeko had landed her in.  Cruelty towards others is something Yumeko wont stand for, though she is willing to say cruel things to get others to stand up for themselves.  Its weird motivations like this that make the combined victory Yumeko, Mary and Nanami score over Jun all the more satisfying.  Maybe Yumeko will be the hurricane that tears this school down.  Also, as jarring as it was to see their rivalry quashed for now, it was fun to see Yumeko and Mary on the same side and equally fun to see Yumeko clearly has a thing for her new friend (as she made clear to Jun, dudes are far from her type it seems).

This school is messed up, no arguing that.  And yet the action on screen keeps hold of you and refuses to let up.  Even now im anxious to press on and see just how screwed Midari becomes when Yumeko inevitably one ups her.  Call me crazy but if I were walking into Hell and it was called Hyakkou Academy…Yumeko Jamabi might be the one and only person id want in my corner if I wanted to survive.  Especially when there’s a member of the Student Council who’s a far more twisted version of my Anime Spirit Animal Umaru Chan (right down to the hamster hoody AND THAT’S JUST WRONG!!!!!)

Ahem, anyway, see ya next week for more Kakegurui.

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