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This Week in Anime - Kakegurui's Second Season *Intensifies*




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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4410
PostPosted: Wed Jun 19, 2019 2:59 pm Reply with quote
I was hoping to see this soon. I am quite pleased that season 2 turned out to be exactly what I hoped for.

The fact that it might as well be a shonen anime is undeniable once you see it. Mary getting a chance to shine when Yumeko was poisoned might as well have been Vegeta's fight against Android 19.
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MiloTheFirst



Joined: 10 Dec 2014
Posts: 429
PostPosted: Wed Jun 19, 2019 6:10 pm Reply with quote
I actually came out disappointing from watching this season. it was still fun, but overall and aside from a few moments (such as the tower arc) it felt like a dumbed down version of the first season, as if they were aiming only for the spectacle without caring so much for the thematic depths, yes there was indeed some commentary but it wasn't presented as tastefully nor directed as elegantly as the first season. I don't mean to sound as a snob but from my point of view it appears as an instance of deciding to make the product more marketable by making it less intelectual, they doubled down on making the rich guys more scummy and the girls more crazy because that's what your average joe in netflix remembers from the first season.

This season is still an enjoyable show in its own right, it is just that it could have been way more than just erotic tension with crazy faces and occasionally competent thrilling moments. not that I mind the spectacle, as a Heterosexual dude with a thing for dominant ladies I found the show really sexy, as much as "this week in anime" insist in not letting you forget a show is gay every time they come across it (not saying there is anything wrong with an anime having gay elements, just that you guys don't shut up about it, we get it X show is gay, you don't have to repeat it for the 10th time in the same article), the eros in this show can still be enjoyed by pretty much anyone. if you liked the first season you will most likely enjoy this one. there is a fatal lack of Mary but it is compensated by an added focus in Kirari
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
Posts: 3767
PostPosted: Wed Jun 19, 2019 8:39 pm Reply with quote
MiloTheFirst wrote:
I actually came out disappointing from watching this season. it was still fun, but overall and aside from a few moments (such as the tower arc) it felt like a dumbed down version of the first season, as if they were aiming only for the spectacle without caring so much for the thematic depths, yes there was indeed some commentary but it wasn't presented as tastefully nor directed as elegantly as the first season. I don't mean to sound as a snob but from my point of view it appears as an instance of deciding to make the product more marketable by making it less intelectual [sic], they doubled down on making the rich guys more scummy and the girls more crazy because that's what your average joe in netflix remembers from the first season.


I don't even know what you are talking about. The girls are no crazier than the first season, and in a show where people often become house pets to their fellow students by being on the wrong side of a bet, I'm not sure anything in this season is dramatically more scummy than anything we have seen previously, especially not from the guys in particular. It has always been to a great degree a crazy, lurid, over the top spectacle, and I don't see any less thematic depth than the first season, and the direction is much the same as well, though a bit more theatrical in the final arc. Frankly this all seems like an exercise in tooting your own horn at the expense of the "average joe", and if you are trying not to sound like a snob, I'm not convinced you were trying much at all.
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HyugaHinata



Joined: 25 Jun 2005
Posts: 3505
PostPosted: Wed Jun 19, 2019 10:54 pm Reply with quote
At the very least, spoiler[they should have made it 50% longer and finished the Election Arc.]
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Covnam



Joined: 31 May 2005
Posts: 3627
PostPosted: Thu Jun 20, 2019 12:04 am Reply with quote
While still entertaining, I found the "battles" in the first season to be a more enjoyable watch. Regardless, I'll join you in hoping for a 3rd season =)
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jdnation



Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 1994
PostPosted: Thu Jun 20, 2019 5:02 pm Reply with quote
There's a lot of smart stuff buried underneath the more outrageous aspects of this show.

If there's one complaint I'd make, it's sort of one that's typical of a lot of high-school setting anime.

Where are any of the adults and teachers? Do they even have classes? Who's doing the teaching?

But well, that's the sort of thing you have to overlook to enjoy this kind of show as more like a fantasy. It is still fun though. Still needs a season 3 to clear up this arc which leaves you hanging unlike the first one, but it's probably coming.
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RenRen94



Joined: 08 Jul 2018
Posts: 221
PostPosted: Thu Jun 20, 2019 5:54 pm Reply with quote
I didn't really care for Kakegurui S2. It felt like S1 but with a new coat of paint to try and hide the fact that it's the same old thing, with the exception of adding ~15-20 new characters in the mix.

For me, the premise isn't fresh anymore: new challenger appears and challenges Yumeko and co., said new character makes several freaky faces while gushing about how smart they are and how badly they'll Yumeko and co., Yumeko spouts something insane about her love of gambling and enjoing the game to its fullest, new character is soundly defeated. Rinse and repeat. One of the only times this was subverted was that one time she lost in S1 and became a pet, and when she was poisoned and unable to participate this season, leaving Mary to win in her place.

For me personally, the shining parts of S2 was when Mary stepped in and the 2 episode battle with Sayaka at the tower. Otherwise, it was a pretty average viewing experience.

Kudos to Steve and Nick for making my middling experience with S2 a hell of a lot more hilarious and entertaining. This feature was gold.
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Acrylic6



Joined: 07 Dec 2018
Posts: 28
PostPosted: Sun Jun 23, 2019 12:19 am Reply with quote
The only character I like is Akira Ishida character.
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Acrylic6



Joined: 07 Dec 2018
Posts: 28
PostPosted: Sun Jun 23, 2019 1:06 am Reply with quote
The only character I like is Akira Ishida character.
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Dosmundos



Joined: 03 Sep 2018
Posts: 41
PostPosted: Mon Jun 24, 2019 9:11 am Reply with quote
jdnation wrote:

If there's one complaint I'd make, it's sort of one that's typical of a lot of high-school setting anime.

Where are any of the adults and teachers? Do they even have classes? Who's doing the teaching?


This is not a high school anime. The academy is just the extremely constructed board on which the games take place. Nobody would complain about a chess board being a too simple version of a battlefield, right?
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Dosmundos



Joined: 03 Sep 2018
Posts: 41
PostPosted: Mon Jun 24, 2019 9:22 am Reply with quote
RenRen94 wrote:
I didn't really care for Kakegurui S2. It felt like S1 but with a new coat of paint to try and hide the fact that it's the same old thing, with the exception of adding ~15-20 new characters in the mix.


It's not even trying to hide it. The added members of the Momobami clan are just additional chess figures, so that more games can be played.
We are two seasons into the show, and there is no character development of the main player Yumeko (or anybody else, for that matter), nor do we get to know much about her background or her motivation. Now people can complain about this, or they can finally come to understand that show is less about the people and really about the games.

Plus some yuri action of course for those who don't really care about the games.
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darkchibi07



Joined: 15 Oct 2003
Posts: 5459
PostPosted: Mon Jul 01, 2019 8:21 am Reply with quote
Greed1914 wrote:
I was hoping to see this soon. I am quite pleased that season 2 turned out to be exactly what I hoped for.

The fact that it might as well be a shonen anime is undeniable once you see it. Mary getting a chance to shine when Yumeko was poisoned might as well have been Vegeta's fight against Android 19.


For anyone who's first anime that jump started their hobby was shounen anime where female characters tends to play second fiddle to the males (like Yu-Gi-Oh! for example), seeing Kakegurui gender-flip that concept feels so cathartic. You get to see a variety of females in various states of power and intellect plus added yuri fuel for fan artists (though the entirety of the Tower of Doors arc was so legitimately gay). I wish this is the norm to coincide with other one instead of a once-in-a-while exception of the subgenre.
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yuna49



Joined: 27 Aug 2008
Posts: 3804
PostPosted: Mon Jul 01, 2019 9:45 am Reply with quote
I've always found the games themselves more interesting than the characters. I'm still not sure how I would play the 63 game, and the coin game raises interesting game-theoretical issues akin to Prisoner's Dilemma. I don't care about games like the guillotine or the tower for that matter. I prefer the games like Nym where the mix of luck and strategy is made clear.

Also, unless the tower is built on super friction-less bearings or something like that, the characters should have felt its movement. Not knowing whether the numbers were shifting, or the tower was moving, seemed pretty implausible to me.
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