Kakegurui

Kakegurui at best is an oddball anime. I kept asking myself, "do I enjoy watching this anime?"... and the answer was always a maybe? To quickly summarize how I feel... the show left me intrigued at times... uncomfortable at other times.

So the big premise of this anime is gambling. The school bases it's hierarchy in gambling... which inherently is a game of chance sprinkled in with some skill. Just like in real life, there are winners and there are losers. The ones that lose too much become lower class citizens... often shunned and abused. The main characters include Ryouta, who is basically a generic mc from a rom-com and not a whole lot beyond that, and Yumeko. Yumeko.... is um... unique... or at least that's what I thought at first.

So in this school, everyone pretty much gambles. With that comes with people who are obsessed with gambling. Okay sure. Yumeko though is so obsessed with the thrill of gambling... it makes her lose control of her body. It's basically lust. What the heck? Basically think of Shokugeki no Soma, except replace the food with gambling. Now I say that I thought this was only going to be a Yumeko thing... but like... every competitor is disturbed in a similar way. Maybe it's just me... but I found that almost every character was just unlikable, unrelatable, crazy people... with a few exceptions. And oh yeah, basically everyone cheats... which that's fun too. It's all about learning how the other person is cheating to learn how you could win.

There are a few elements that I thought was interesting. There are a lot of different games they did while they gambled... and it was interesting to see how one could use strategies to gain an advantage. If the anime was just that... this would have really intrigued me. Instead, it felt like I was watching Yumeko keep winning the lottery against the odds against the cheaters. It just comes off as unbelievable after seeing it for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th. Specially when just happens to keep winning when the game was just pure chance. Like how many times can you win a 1/30 chance or something?

In the end, do I recommend it? Eh... not really? Did I enjoy it? For a bit, I did... but as I progressed through the season... it became less and less. This anime wasn't exactly "enjoyable" for me... just a little disturbing? I wanted it to focus more on the gambling/games and the strategy that comes with it. Perhaps a good start would be having more likable characters... but as I mentioned most of the females seem to be pretty insane (yes there are a few not that insane.. but they are more minor characters). The core concept of the anime is there... but it just has too much baggage for me to willing to continue to further seasons. Sometimes I even forget that I was watching an anime about gambling. It may be enjoyable for you, but it's just wasn't right for me.