Kakegurui XX Episode 9 Review: The Woman by Her Side

If the stakes are always too high, can the stakes ever really get higher?

Plot

What a strange episode that was. I mean, it was pretty straight-forward that it going to be all about Sayaka and her not-very-rational relationship to the president. I mean, it could be a bit more rational if we clarified how Sayaka is madly in love with Kirari, instead we get this kind of blind senseless dedication from one person to another. Oh well.

A few unimportant things took place apart from that. Batsubami waltzes around, sexually confusing the academy’s females with her androgynous style – I remember reading that she is female but wearing a male uniform, but I think the show is really emphasizing on her gender-bending qualities so let’s just treat it as that. I like the Batsubami package but I’m not entirely sure what role she has to play or why we should care that she is popular with the ladies.

Just as we’re about to get something that seemed to be Batsubami fan-service (probably) the show cuts to the least interesting thing that ever played in closed access television: a newsflash about the top 10 students in the election at the moment. Presenting this is the most annoying character in the whole show, the token loud-loli dressed as an animal with a voice that is said to be able to pierce eardrums light years away. I’m already tired. Then the top 10 is being presented and we get to sit through a small brief for each contester in loud squeaking. Help. Yumeko gets to talk, and she jumps out to challenge the president straight away. Ah, dear Yumeko, don’t you know how anime work? I think you’re in the wrong show. If you wanted to get things sorted quickly, you should do a cameo in One-Punch Man. I hear he likes to be done early so he can pop to the shop on his way home.

Naturally, the gamble with the president never happens. Sayaka interrupts Yumeko in the rudest way imaginable and challenges her to a gamble, by grabbing her left boob (spoiler alert boys – women don’t really casually grab each others tits, especially if they don’t even know each other, I know it’s a hard concept to grasp but you know, it works both ways – I don’t imagine you interact with other men by grabbing them by whatever is hanging loose, amirite?). She wants to bet her life, okay, Yumeko doesn’t seem to care, but she is interested in betting her gambling addiction against her addiction to the president (lol Yumeko, you nasty). So death is out of the question. The president decides to deal this bet.

Kirari takes them to an extremely phallic building (more on that later), they all climb to the top and there she explains that their goal is to go to the first floor then up again. There’re numerical riddles and many doors to choose from, and the Kirari recommends the loser jumps off into the void, anyway. So death is basically back on. But now you get to die with some extra humiliation? I don’t know, this makes no sense. And this brings me to one of the main points I want to make about Kakegurui XX: the stakes are constantly TOO HIGH. Believe it or not, risking lives and body parts in every episode with nobody actually ending up losing any of these things becomes a little wee bit banal.

Oh, and I suppose I should say something about Yumeko wanting to swallow the phallic-shaped tower. That would require some skill, then again I did recently read an illustrated story about a lady who had a baby with a lighthouse. Yes, there were pictures.

I still don’t get it.

I don’t see how this is a gamble or how anyone can make sense of how it works. Meh.

How did you find this Kakegurui XX episode? Let us know in the comment section. And don’t forget to check the rest of the Winter 2019 anime reviews on MANGA.TOKYO!