Gamble Fish

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Shirasagi Tomu... The Extreme Gambler, and the main character of Gamble Fish. Gamble Fish is a lovable, goofy, sexy and amazing series. Tomu and the rest of the cast are fantastically comical and creepy at times, only making them so much more lovable. The story starts off slowly but at a steady pace only getting faster after each gamble and all the more risky. the more characters join the party the more amazing the story becomes. This is not a story to be taken seriously, this is one of those wacky adventure stories similar to JoJo. I was kept satisfied throughout this story the entire ... time, especially with all the lewdness. The manga covers are also amazingly done and so vibrant. This is a great gambling story and I would recommend any manga lover to read it, can guarantee you wont be disappointed.

Story:
So this story starts off a bit strangely. As most people are use to the characters being of high school age, Tomu and his friends are actually all of middle school age. The story was well thought out with a lot of twists and turns. Of course it also made you feel smart as Tomu explained each one of the tricks to the games. The only downside to the story is when the games started to get a little TOO complex. It really took away from how Tomu really was outplaying his opponents and generally just lead to 'yay, he won, I guess?'

Art:
I personally am ... not a fan of the art style, but for what it was, it was well done. There were times were there was too much detail and it took away from the enjoyment, but other than those few times, nothing else was too distracting.

Characters:
Characters are some of the most important parts of the story, and every character was well thought out. Of course, almost every character had some flaw to them, along with some tragic background, except for Tomu's best friend. Even then, I never really lost sight as to why these characters were doing what they were doing. Every action was part of something meaningful to that character.

Enjoyment:
Like I previously stated, when the games started to get a little too complex and there were walls of text just trying to explain how the game was played, the enjoyment of the manga seemed to leak away. As much as I like details and knowing how things are working, when there is a whole chapter explaining how the game is played, I found myself skimming the chapters because it was rather boring to read. Then I found myself lost as Tomu is trying to explain how the game is beaten.

Overall:
This manga was something I had picked up a long time ago and came back to recently only to find it finished. It was rather enjoyable and the only thing that really ended up bothering me was just how I was no longer trying to find loopholes with Tomu, rather I was just waiting for him to explain to me how he had seen the 'trick' and he would win somehow.

In a school composed of elitist students, which is dominated by gambling matches with very high stakes, Shirasagi, the mysterious transfer student, declares war upon the school by stating that he will bring ruin to it through a series of gambling matches. Who is he? What are his motives? Gamble Fish appears to use an interesting concept, but fails to transmit a coherent and realistic storyline with uninteresting characters.

The story of Gamble Fish is simple: Shirasagi, an extreme gambler, who transfers to the famous Shishidou elite school where he challenges students in his conquest to bring ruin to it. As stated earlier, there is a ... gist to the matches: the stakes are extremely high. The bets ranges from "harmless" unaffordable amounts of money to own body parts, subjection to slavery in case of loss, even their own lives. What makes these confrontations even more interesting is, that as the story progresses, more complicated games surges with intricate "death" constructions.

This appears to be appealing, but there problems associated with it: the variety of games remain steady, but the various deathtrap constructions do not. In fact, the pacing in which these are introduced throughout the manga is fine for the beginning of it, but this has as problem that it is not possible to keep up with this pacing. This causes to lose the novelty in these traps, consequently a bit in the games as well.

To keep the readers interested, the author decides to introduce a different direction for the manga into supernatural powers and myths nonsense, as well as introducing military forces in a game; this is where all realism left. This was a rather big drawback, as so far the mangaka managed to create a somewhat realistic story progression with believable matches, even though being won through sheer luck or plot convenience. Going back to the story, the author manages to represent an image of what he considers how a real gambler is: ruthless, unwavering, knowledgeable and with a lot of guts, which was a positive point to the manga.

The characters of Gamble Fish are varied, be it directors or tengu, yet lack any depth. Shirasagi is your typical badass shōnen character who is good in everything he does, is good looking and has immensely success with the ladies. He seems to have an intriguing past, yet little of it is displayed. Throughout the series of matches Shirasagi defeats countless opponents, be it male or female, yet all females fall in love for the protagonist for no real reason, even for harem standards it's pretty unreasonable.

There is Mizuhara, whose only purpose is to highlight the main character and remark and explain the games; then all the other females, who basically have no personality at all, being the only distinguishable feature their character design. Some background story has been provided, but no expansion onto it is provided. The villain Abidani was the most interesting character, being a ruthless and insane gambler, which further enhances the ruthlessness and craziness of the manga.

Gamble Fish's art style is distinct and clean, yet character designs have the same facial designs, and thus don't really provide any real distinction, besides of me personally not being a fan of the art. Nevertheless, the facial expressions alongside with good shading, makes the art shine, though some inconsistencies can be found.

Now the question is whether Gamble Fish is enjoyable. Yes, it is, to a certain degree. But is it good? No, it is not. It tried to display a realistic storyline which was accomplished in the beginning, however with the unsatisfying change in narration in order to keep the manga entertaining, as well as over the top challenges just didn't leave any satisfaction. Characters are dull and shallow with little development, with a debatable art style. Recommendable if you're fan of ecchi/harem with over the top games, though even on these terms it fails to a degree.

Thank you for reading.