Manga Review: Kakegurui Chapters 22-27
By: Mithrandiel
SPOILERS AHEAD!
NOTE: Since the gambling obviously involves money changing hands, and the series uses Yen, I’ll be doing loose conversions to USD for the sake of comparison.Following her victory over pop-idol Yumemi in the previous arc, Yumeko wastes no time in setting her sights on the next victim in her scheme: Kaede Manyuda.
Yumeko calls out Kaede by name in an attempt to turn the student body against him. After all, he was the one who tried to set up their beloved Yumemi! Expecting the pressure to get to him, Yumeko challenges him to a match. Now, Kaede does what any of the others could have up until this point: he refuses.
This was something that annoyed me about previous student council matches - they could have saved face and prevented Yumeko's continued rise if they had simply refuse to indulge her.We get a bit of insight on Kaede's backstory, though it's not particularly compelling. The son of a high-profile businessman, his value is placed solely on his ability to follow the path set out before him from childhood. Challenged to take "the high road", Kaede is determined to manipulate others and scheme his way to the top. Though his backstory is fairly flat, I appreciate his more strategic mind.
Kaede demonstrates his restraint as well as his strategic mind by attempting to deny Yumeko - but she has an ace up her sleeve.
As a housepet, Yumeko is at the bottom of the social pyramid, but there is one very powerful right that she has: the ability to challenge any member of the student council once. Since they cannot refuse, Kaede expected Yumeko to reserve this privilege for the student council president, whom he was hoping to topple anyways. This miscalculation throws him off, but he steels his resolve to take on Yumeko and hopes that by defeating her he can consolidate the power as the 2nd year group originally planned.The game they play is "Choice Poker" - where the player who bids the most gets to choose which hand wins: strongest or weakest.
Since Kaede is the student council accountant, he has a staggering amount of resources to out-bet Yumeko and essentially bully her out of the game, putting her at a distinct disadvantage. Though she takes the first few hands, Kaede attempts to put her out of commission by revealing his hand and declaring that the strongest hand will win. Yumeko, surprisingly, has nothing to combat his play:
Rather than conceding her defeat, however, Yumeko invokes her recently acquired ally: Itsuki Sumeragi.
Sumeragi's hesitation to assist Yumeko is understandable: having just lost to Kaede, how could Yumeko possibly ask Sumeragi to sponsor her further challenges against him? Kakegurui takes the time to explore a bit of Sumeragi and Kaede's past relationship. They wished to pursue the top spot together - forming an alliance to pursue the position of student council president. Once she realizes that Kaede was looking down on her, she is spurred to go all-in and throw her support behind Yumeko for one final hand.This is where things jump on the train to crazy-town. A fierce round of betting leads the wager into the stratosphere. With $30,000,000 on the table, Yumeko makes a final bet:
Kaede attempts to refuse the raise - but in a world where lives are made and broken over a round of gambling, there's nothing abnormal about putting your life on the line. Since Sumeragi's father owns a multi-billion dollar company and she is the sole heir, the dealer approves the raise and values it at a staggering $100,000,000 raise! Oh - and she reveals one more thing:
That's right! The dealer was the student council president the whole time! (Classic scooby-doo plot twist)Following her reveal, Kaede doesn't dare challenge her call, and it leaves him in a painful position: either surrender the high ground to Yumeko and give her the choice to declare strong or weak hand wins, or put his own life on the line to overtake their bet.He opts for the latter, placing his own life on the line and setting up the final showdown. Kaede reveals his final play: three of a kind!
Unfortunately for Kaede - Yumeko reveals that she too has three of a kind - and Jacks to boot. And so, the $230,000,000 round of poker comes to a stunning conclusion as Kaede is released from the student council, and Yumeko and the President hurry towards their inevitable confrontation. Overall I really enjoyed this arc. While Kaede was a fairly flat rival, the difference in how he approached gambling made the round a real nail-biter. We got to see more of the intricacies within the student council, including some behind-the-scenes scheming and an intriguing reveal at the end of Chapter 27. What does it all mean?! We'll find out more as we move forward in Kakegurui. Now that we've caught up with the current chapters, we will likely wait to review it again until the next arc wraps up. Still, if you haven't picked it up yet I would highly recommend you download the volumes from Amazon and read through this great series. I'm certainly looking forward to an anime version of this as well - I hope someone can bring it to life for us!
