Kakegurui Twin Part 2 Episodes 4-6

Barely into her first week at Hyakkaou Academy, Mary Saotome is approached by Student Council member Aoi Mibuomi with an unusual request: help him take down Student Council President, Kirari Momobami by joining his underground resistance movement.  To this end, Mary is thrown into a gauntlet of grueling games that will test her resolve, her intellect and how much she trusts those she has allied herself with.  The pressure mounts and soon Mary begins to doubt everyone around her, including Tsuzura, who Mary has sworn to save from House Pet status.  Can Mary rise to become the symbol of hope for Hyakkaou Academy?  Or is she doomed to fall prey to the merciless hands of the demented Student Council, especially Sachiko Juraku, who will stop at nothing to make Mary her own personal House Pet? 

 
Before we get started, Happy New Year Everyone!!!!
 
Learning that Kakegurui Twin was only going to be six episodes was admittedly a bit of a buzzkill before I even started it.  Like it’s sibling Anime, Twin is hampered by the fact that the Manga is still ongoing and you’d be lucky enough to get two volumes of it in the same year.  This is the chief reason why we probably wont see Kakegurui Season Three anytime soon.  When it comes to Kakegurui Twin, however, it’s not that I’m worried it might not get a Second Season, it’s that what could be that Second Season could have easily fit into this First Season.  Why was this Anime so short?  Why is it ending just as Mary made some bold moves in her plan to become a Winner alongside Tsuzura and Yukimi?  And let’s not even begin thinking about how Mary goes from this optimistic and hopeful spirit to the more cynical girl we see in Kakegurui, sans the many friends she’s made or any of the major supporting players from this Spin Off.  I feel like this intro is a lot of rambling and complaining and it is.  That said, this back half of Kakegurui Twin was as solid as you’d expect from a Kakegurui Anime and it’s left me wanting more, or at the very least I need to dig more into the Manga.
 
We already knew that Mary was a force to be reckoned with thanks to the main Kakegurui series.  However, Twin is rightfully her stage and she commands it with style, confidence and a pinch of overacting in order to sell her strategies.  In both major games during this set, Mary had to virtually trick everyone around her, including her friends, in order to secure victory and keep her opponents thinking they had her dead to rights.  Like Yumeko, Mary’s Sherlock Holmes level of deduction is incredible.  Where the rules of pretty much any game Kakegurui tosses out go over my head, I could listen to anyone break down their own well thought out plan anytime, especially if it involves douchey opponents getting what’s coming to them.  Seeing Mary revel in her win is a lot of fun, especially when Tsuzura and Yukimi need to hold her back a little. 
 
Speaking of those two, there’s a subtle air of tragedy to Mary and her two new besties.  Where the heck are they in Kakegurui?  It seems like Mary is a better person for having them in her life and their absence must have had a major impact on her before Yumeko came along.  Seeing Mary, Tsuzura and Yukimi work together to figure out Juraki’s little treasure hunt was just what I think we needed to see from them from the beginning.  It allowed Yukimi to be more included in things and not just Tsuzura depending on Mary to pull everyone through.  Each girl showed a unique intellectual talent that enabled them all to win big and defeat Sakura, who was so confident in her own abilities that she allowed Mary to have Tsuzura and Yukimi help her as a handicap.  I was even more surprised to see Mary tearfully apologize to Tsuzura and Yukimi for having to coldly deceive them during the Dating Competition just so she could root out the real spy in their ranks.  This is something I’d never see the present day Mary Saotome doing with Yumeko or Ryota.  Seriously, what the heck happened to start Mary down a darker path?  Do I even want to know given how good things are for her now?  Will any of those revelations play a role in the main Kakegurui series when it comes to Mary’s motivations? 
 
This back half saw another competition in play but not for Mary.  Sachiko and Aoi were open about it but they’re both going head to head for who can get Mary Saotome to be theirs.  Sachiko is a fun villainess, as sexy as she is demented and just plain psycho.  She sees Mary as the ultimate toy to be broken and give her the ultimate thrill of humiliating defeat.  But we also learn Sachiko’s twisted desires go beyond that.  She’s fully aware of Aoi’s Full Bloom Society and is content to let it continue for one reason: she wants to see who will win between Aoi and Kirari Momobami and revel in their failure.  Sachiko calls herself a “neutral party”.  But we all know she’s “Chaotic Neutral”.  Aoi showed his true colors as well.  He’s downright obsessed with Mary, so much that when Sakura loses the treasure hunt, he casts her out of Full Bloom with a coldness that we’ve only seen hinted in glimpses.  Mary was right to swat Aoi’s hand away for his disregard for Sakura.  If Full Bloom does overtake Kirari, Aoi becomes the man in charge and honestly, that doesn’t sound much better if he’s ok with keeping his fiancée around for marriage purposes while also trying to hook up with Mary for his own messed up reasons.  Actually, Aoi didn’t deserve to have his hand slapped away, he deserved to be punched.
 
And that’s kind of where Kakegurui Twin ends.  Mary rejects Aoi’s invite to Full Bloom, Sakura is out of Full Bloom, Sachiko’s enjoying the show from the sidelines and Mary’s Gambling Den continues to thrive.  It is good from a finale standpoint to have Mary decide where she stands in the little civil war between Aoi and Kirari but I also feel like so much more could have happened….gah, WHY WAS THIS ONLY SIX EPISODES!!!???  I might be only five volumes into the Manga but there are 12 volumes total at the moment.  Each episode covers roughly one volume each so there’s no reason you couldn’t stretch this out to maybe 9 episodes if you didn’t want to do a more common 12.  Given how popular Kakegurui is overall, I cant imagine Twin wouldn’t get a second season.  How long we have to wait for that remains a mystery.  Will it take an approach like Kakegurui XX and add in Anime exclusive twist to pad things out?  Will it only cover another handful of Manga chapters?  Gah, so many questions still left unanswered and I want them NOW!!!

In the end, I did like Kakegurui Twin but the problems are evident and I’ve been harping on them for two reviews now.  The first episode is needlessly rushed and goes against any reasons why this show was only six episodes long.  The shows need to add in that Matrix-esque green hue kept distracting me when otherwise, this show looks just as good as its sibling show.  As a debut season, Twin does a good job establishing a very different Mary at Hyakkaou Academy while asking a ton of questions regarding this long year leading to her first meeting with Yumeko.  The supporting cast gets better with time and the villains are that special Kakegurui blend of sexy, demented and downright evil and heartless, only living for their own personal thrills.  I really with this season had been closer to twelve episodes but I’m not in charge of the production and cant really theorize why it was so short.  I liked watching Mary school those who doubt her while contending with those who wont take her “no” for an answer and I’d like to see more of it and the journey she takes towards becoming who we know her to be in the main series.  I didn’t hate Kakegurui Twin, far from it.  But it did leave me wanting more, a lot more and I hope we all get more sooner rather than later…otherwise yeah, time to go splurge on the Manga.
 
Kakeguri Twin receives a 7/10.
 
Tomorrow, we begin our year long look at the epic saga of the one and only Sailor Moon (though we looked at Season One during last summers Extended Summer Series Review).  So we’re picking up right where we left off with the start of Season Two, Sailor Moon R, tomorrow right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.