What a view | Kakegurui – Compulsive Gambler: Japanese anime about a very singular school
- Now showing on Netflix, the series follows students at Hyakkaou Private Academy
- The institution for the privileged offers an extraordinary education based on high-stakes gaming
Honestly, youngsters these days. No sooner have you waved them off at the gates of their exclusive, overpriced, pompous colleges than they’re winning and losing millions of yen in extracurricular, high-pressure, rite-of-passage gambling showdowns. In the universe of Japanese anime, anyway.
The animated antics of Kakegurui – Compulsive Gambler, on Netflix, poke breathless fun at the real, developed world’s obsession with losing all its money in games of chance and believing the odds, and the cheat sitting opposite, can be beaten.
Hyakkaou Private Academy, favoured by wealthy parents, is the setting for Kakegurui. It’s a school for peculiar children whose talents lie in gambling, especially while playing card games, and the crazier the stakes – Russian roulette, or ripping fingernails from a defeated opponent – the better, not least for sinister new girl Yumeko Jabami. Living for the exhilaration of risking it all (and never mind the millions of yen in her school satchel), Yumeko, much more than the demure schoolgirl she seems, derives some steamy thrills from just the thought of a wager.
Her arch-enemy Mary Saotome, vanquished by Yumeko and dethroned as card-table queen, oozes venom as she plots to bring her nemesis down; violent intimidation is visited by school bullies on the lowest losers (“house pets”) in the school league table, who serve as slaves to the best players; and a shadowy student council gathers “donations” from all pupils to exercise its power over the whole establishment. And everyone, with a flash of anime magic, can turn a coy smile into a deathly, eye-bulging rictus.
Only in Japan.
The 12 episodes of series one are available now, as is the live-action version – a spin-off from the anime but not nearly as fast-paced or fun. Series two is coming soon, plus a live-action film; put your money on the former.