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FIRST REVIEW: Read at your own risk


Kakegurui, or Compulsive Gambler, is an anime about the effects of gambling. Adrenaline, excitement and many other feelings are what we should apparently feel while we play for money and for even more important things, according to this anime. However, this one absolutely fails to deliver these emotions to its viewers due to its numerous flaws and its terrible execution.

One of the main problems resides in the setting in which the story takes place. What do we really know about it? Students are gambling in a school to be ready to enter the real world, described as a terrible ... place made of money as well as ambitious, greedy and selfish people. Yeah, interesting, but how does it work? People will tell you: “Uh, they gamble a lot of money, and when they have no money left, they become “pets”, which means they have to do what other students tell them to do. Their future even gets planned by the council student when they are really dried up! Talking about it, the council student is reserved to the elite, its members are la crème de la crème of this school, that’s why they can decide on everything.” I don’t mind having a surrealistic setting, if it has a purpose and it is well established. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Everything, I mean, EVERYTHING is exaggerated: the sum of money the students are able to gamble, their reactions, their faces, and so on. The only goal it has, and, honestly, it is a goal the anime isn’t even able to achieve due to an important issue I will mention in the next paragraph, is to “shock” the viewer, such as jump scares in horror movies. It tries to make him care for what’s happening on the screen, to enforce him to feel what the characters are supposedly feeling themselves.

It fails because the setting lacks of consistency. Indeed, watching Kakegurui is the same as watching only the action scenes from an action movie, what happens before and after the games is not exhibited. Then, how are we supposed to empathize with the characters if we don’t know what are the real consequences of their gambles? Here’s the main problem of the anime: there’s no information about the outside world, apart from the “pet” and “planned life” system. The show doesn’t answer an enormous quantity of questions, and there’s particularly one that would have been great to answer: What are the consequences? Apparently, you can lose tons of money and then win it back. It seems that, eventually, these gambles don’t really matter. This prevented me to get into the anime and to enjoy it, because I couldn’t feel what it wanted me to feel at first: the power of gambling. The only episodes I was partially able to enjoy were those in which the students wager something else (I won’t tell what it is to avoid spoilers), since the consequences of the “game” were straight. However, these episodes heavily rely on shock factor, and that’s why I won’t praise them as well.

Moreover, this lack of concern I had for the show is also a result of the terrible characters it offers. Even Kirito from Sword Art Online is less generic than the male MC, Suzui Ryouta, whose only purpose is to introduce our dear Jabami Yumeko, the female lead, (obviously one-sided, as expected) who is here to turn on the traditional otaku. Don’t expect any development, her only character trait (except she is smart) is that she gets excited (sexually) while gambling. What? They all are excited by gambling? NEXT! There’s another main female that no one cares about: Saotome Meari, who is nearly as useless as Suzui. She is “Jabami number two”, their only difference (except the hair color and breast size, lol) is that she is selfish and greedy, while Jabami is “exemplar”. Shade doesn’t belong to this world as well.

To be honest, some supporting characters get more development than the main ones. We learn a little bit about their past and their motivations, which makes the show a bit more enjoyable when Jabami encounters them. However, the supporting cast still is strongly unidimensional and is not particularly interesting. I won’t even tell you how omnipresent fanservice is and how much the characters serve it.

Let’s give credit where credit is due. The OP is catchy, the ED is… uh… cancel that, let’s assume it doesn’t exist, the music and the voice acting are somehow fine, as well as the art and animation, even if their purpose is to exaggerate everything. Some of the games are engaging, despite the lack of characterization and worldbuilding.

To make it short, Kakegurui is your typical bad seasonal anime. Overdose of fanservice, lack of characterization, terrible worldbuilding, but decent music and visuals. Although this show was the most popular of summer 2017, it won’t be remembered for a long time before disappearing in the pile of mediocrity which is delivered to the anime community each season. You should rather gamble in real life to feel adrenaline, it is certainly more entertaining and rewarding than watching this anime. By contrast, don’t expect too much of it, because there probably won’t be a hot girl touching herself in front of you in the real world.


- Be careful, gambling can lead to debt, dependence, and so on. :)