Kakegurui×× – 10

「理の女」 (Ri no Onna)
“The Logical Woman”

Well it may not have been the longest arc by Kakegurui standards (student council election still going strong didn’t ya know?), but the Tower arc certainly met the criteria of fun. Lack of “true” gambling and utterly ridiculous awesome crazy faces? No worries, we have some suicide jumping and hints of future gambling shenanigans to take care of those withdrawal symptoms. It may have been a brief respite (technically), but I’d say the results were worth it.

As discussed last week the main feature of this arc wasn’t showcasing gambling as much as exploring the act of it. Sayaka by her nature is the antithesis of everything driving Kirari and Yumeko in life: she values logic, rationality, and guaranteed, sure-fire roads to victory. In her mind if you cannot see the path forward why take the first step into the dark? Yes it could be in the direction you require—but what if it’s not? What if that step leads to the defeat you’re desperately trying to avoid? Thus Sayaka’s conundrum and the reason she became so infatuated with Kirari. Much like with our collective societal love of action flicks, Harlequin romance, and isekai stories, Sayaka chose to live vicariously through Kirari because Kirari provided the thrill and risk taking she believed she could never take for herself—just in a more intimate fashion than simple stories would provide.

The problem Sayaka encountered of course was that gambling (especially Kirari’s variety) does not operate according to logic. Kirari and Yumeko love gambling for the thrill of it, the incredible risk-reward dichotomy that can leave victory—or defeat—up to the whims of irrational chance. Find the logical path to success? Great, but where’s the fun in it? This is why the Tower is arranged in its peculiar fashion: to encourage the irrationality which drives the exhilaration of the act of gambling. Yumeko won precisely because she recognized this aspect and ran with it all the way. She could have easily lost—i.e. if the outer door still faced the moon once she opened it—but like Sayaka would have never found the real solution if that initial gamble wasn’t made. To Sayaka’s benefit she did ironically embrace the “correct” mindset in defeat though, proving in a sense the correctness of her idol’s gambling approach. If you never take a risk you’ll never get any sort of decent reward, so learn to suspend logic and take a leap; sometimes the results can wind up surprising.

In the immediate future however it’s back to the grind as those forgotten student council shenanigans make their triumphant return. Think there’s just too many happy feelings going around right now? Never fear, because the crazy is about to get crazier.

Preview