Kakegurui Twin
a review by R2R
a review by R2R
Before going into Review;
"Kakegurui Twin" is pretty stand alone.
You don't really have to watch the main series to understand what's happening here.
Also, it's incomplete.
The story follows "Saotame Mary" in Hyakkaou Academy where not a single day passes without someone in school loosing their shit. Money, virginity, dignity, anything can be a prize and nothing matters in this school, as long as it's an end result of gambling. What makes this is even more f-ked up is that "cheating is allowed", which is the biggest problem here.
Because when you allow cheating, you're basically distinguishing the characters, not based how intelligent they are but based on how stupid they are. The moment you hear a character inner monoluging about their plan as an attempt to hook the viewer, it pretty much tells why the said character will end up ridiculed later down the game, and this basically what happens through out this Anime and so it does in many of these kind of Anime that have been lately popular.
Now one would argue, "Well, Kaiji also does the same thing" for which I agree. Kaiji becomes predictable but there's an underlying theme in Kaiji, which what makes it a great psycological Anime, and one Twin didn't had. That is;
Kaiji draws you into its gambles, mainly because it constantly reminds you why gambling is so fucked and it takes a realistic approach to do it. Kakegurui Twin doesn't have this. Most of the 'Gambling' part went into its mind games complexity which I applaud for but it doesn't work either because if you remember correctly, "Cheating is a-OK". The reason I repeat this is because the show repeats this too. "No one said [insert convenient loophole in rule], so you lose/win", that's the underlying structure of all explanations at the end of every game but it does have some interesting character antiques to look forward to. The underlying theme in Kakegurui Twin is just "Gambling is fun, and hot-crazy-yurified chicks are cool", that's basically it. But;
With all my rambling about why Twin don't hold a candle towards my favourite Anime makes it seem like I'm hating the show, which I don't because "Kakegurui Twin" is definitely a fun show. As I said, its underlying theme is "Fun with crazy Anime girls" and it does that part great. As over the top as it is, it is confident in its mind game elements, and it does it with style. MAPPA's trademark visual flair can be found in it's Jazzy opening, absolutely bop of an ending and the over the top characters does their job to deliver the fun you want to see. I personally thought characters weren't bad, they're pretty one dimensional except Mary, who's two dimensional (Wow, who would've guessed your waifu is 2D xD) and the whole Yuri element is.. well, it is a bit charming, except that pet, if you know what I mean.
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