Line #86 Manga/Kakegurui


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kakegurui_3.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''"Shall we gamble?"''[[labelnote:Note]]Foreground: [[TheGamblingAddict Yumeko Jabami]] (right) and [[StudentCouncilPresident Kirari Momobami]] (left) / Lower right: [[OnlySaneMan Ryota Suzui]] (above) and [[{{Tsundere}} Mary Saotome]] (below) / Lower left: [[IdolSinger Yumemi Yumemite]] (above) and [[TrueNeutral Runa Yomozuki]] (below) / Top, left to right: [[TheSmartGirl Sayaka Igarashi]], [[CoolMask Ririka Momobami]], [[YamatoNadeshiko Yuriko Nishinotouin]], [[TheOneGuy Kaede Manyuda]], [[AxCrazy Midari Ikishima]] and [[ProfessionalButtKisser Itsuki Sumeragi]][[/labelnote]]]]
3
4	->''"In a capitalist society, money is naturally life. No sane person would entrust their life to luck. And yet, many people go to casinos, because they derive pleasure from this insanity! In other words... gambling is more fun the crazier it gets!"''
5	-->'''-- Yumeko Jabami'''
6
7	''Kakegurui'' (賭ケグルイ, "The Compulsive Gambler") is a manga series written by Homura Kawamoto and illustrated by Tooru Naomura (who also wrote and illustrated ''Manga/{{Shitsurakuen}}''), which began serialization in Creator/SquareEnix's ''Gangan Joker'' magazine in 2014.
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9	Hyakkaou Private Academy is a prestigious school for the children of the richest of the rich, where the main curriculum is the art of reading others and taking advantage of chaotic situations: in other words, the art of [[GamblingTropes gambling]]. Within this world, a sadistic regime of [[TheSocialDarwinist Social Darwinism]] sees students betting [[AbsurdlyHighStakesGame huge amounts of money, or even their bodies]], for a chance to rise up the social hierarchy where the top rule like tyrants and the bottom students become slaves to their debt.
10
11	Into this cutthroat school steps Yumeko Jabami, a NewTransferStudent whose innocent facade hides a [[TheGamblingAddict psychotic addiction to gambling and high-stakes situations]]. With a keen intellect able to pierce through [[CheatersNeverProsper the elaborate cheating methods used by the most powerful students to rig games in their favour]], Yumeko threatens to destroy the twisted hierarchy of the school simply for the thrill of it.
12
13	Has an [[AnimatedAdaptation anime adaptation]] written by Creator/YasukoKobayashi and produced by Creator/{{MAPPA}} for the summer 2017 block. The series was picked up by Creator/{{Netflix}} for western distribution, releasing it worldwide on February 1, 2018. A second season aired in the winter 2019 block. {{Spin Off}}s include
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15	[[AC:AnimeAndManga]]
16	* ''Kakegurui Twin'' (賭ケグルイ双) (2015-): A series illustrated by Kei Saiki chronicling Saotome's own descent into gambling madness one year before the main series.
17	* ''Kakegurui (Kakkokari)'' (賭ケグルイ (仮)) (2016-): A {{Fourkoma}} {{parody}} series.
18	* ''Kakegurui Midari'' (賭ケグルイ妄) (2017-2020)
19	* ''Kakegurui Yorozu'' (賭ケグルイ公式アンソロジー) (2017): An {{Anthology}}.
20	* ''PictureDrama Shorts'' (2018): Three original shorts included with the first season DVD.
21	** ''Hyakkaou's Maid Café'' (メイド茶店百花王, meido kissa hyakkaou)
22	** ''Hyakkaou, the School of Cat ears'' (猫耳学園百花王, nekomimi gakuen hyakkaou)
23	** ''The Student Council's Coffee Shop Plan'' (生徒会 ☆ 喫茶店計画, seitokai kissaten keikaku).
24
25	[[AC:LightNovels]]
26	* ''Kakegurui Trip'' (賭ケグルイ悦（トリップ）) (2017)
27	* ''Kakegurui Joker'' (賭ケグルイ戯 (ジョーカー) (2019)
28
29	[[AC:Live Action Adaptations]]
30	* ''Kakegurui'': A 10-episode live-action adaptation that came out in 2018, and was renewed for a second season starting in the spring of 2019.
31	* ''Kakegurui: The Movie'' (2019): A theatrical film.
32	* ''Kakegurui: Part 2'' (2021): Sequel to the previous movie.
33
34	[[AC:VideoGames]]
35	* ''Kakegurui: Cheating Allowed'' (賭ケグルイチーティングアロード) (2018): A gambling game for the iOS and Android systems. Closed in 2020.
36	----
37	!!Madness is the essence of troping:
38	* AbsurdlyHighStakesGame: Hyakkaou allows student-gamblers to bet millions of yen or basically be sold into slavery for their entire high school career or even beyond if they lose enough in any game. Later arcs even have players gambling over shooting themselves in the head or injecting themselves with deadly poison.
39	* AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil: By the time Kirari took control of the Student Council two years ago, she instituted reforms such that [[spoiler:student-gamblers with high enough debts can be legally owned by the Council, handing him/her a life schedule that will dictate his/her adulthood, thus exerting a huge financial ''and'' political sway over Japan]].
40	* AdultsAreUseless: Obviously, there are teachers at this school, but they can't do anything about the gambling that goes on, since it's the Student Council that holds all of the power.
41	* AdaptationDeviation: While he is still a "Pochi", in the 2019 live-action film, [[spoiler: by teaming up with Mary (and by extension Yumeko & Suzui), Kitawami is able to gamble out of the status by betting Jabami to lose in the finals and happily proclaiming his top dog status. Utterly contrasted in the manga, where he is only able to get out of debt because he won enough election coins by beating Jabami off-screen, cashing out with Sakaya and vowed never to gamble again]].
42	* AdaptationExpansion:
43	** In the live-action adaptation, Kitawami & Tsubomi appeared earlier than their original appearance. [[spoiler: In the 2019 live action film, Kitawami even managed to become a Deutronologist in his own right by teaming up with Mary and got rid of his "Pochi" status faster than in the manga counterpart]].
44	** Season 2 final game has the main cast interacting with [[spoiler: Ikishima & Nishinotouin, who managed to earn back some coins by winning games against their club members. Though later on they did manage to participated in the TournamentArc]].
45	* AlternateCharacterReading: The 双 (literally "pair", but in this case short for ''futago'' 双子 "twins") in ''Kakegurui Twin'' (賭ケグルイ双) is read as the English word instead of the Japanese ''sou'', ''futa'', or ''futago''. The manga cover and some promotional materials append the katakana ツイン (''tsuin'') to inform of this. It's probably a reference to Mary's twintail hairstyle.
46	* AmbiguousSituation: Kitawami's fate is left uncertain after the Debt Swapping Game. It's never mentioned whether he manages to pay his debt, if he became a house pet or what. It's only lightly hinted at by the anime that he stopped bullying Tsubomi, which still doesn't answer any question.
47	** [[spoiler:Addressed in the Election Arc, where he is able to pay it back, but got so traumatized and disheveled that he's never going to gamble again]].
48	* AntiClimax: The last episode of the first season is anime-original, and while it has input from the original author, [[spoiler:it's still a very basic game that ends up in a draw]].
49	* ArtShift: While characters normally appear in a plain manga/anime style, as soon as they get serious about gambling, they're suddenly drawn with full-bodied lips, more angular facial structure, nightmarishly detailed facial features, eyes that are so stylized they begin to look inhuman, and so on. In the live-action adaptation, eyes start flashing various colors, and irises and pupils also shrink creepily at certain points.
50	* ArtisticLicenseAwards: The crux of Yumemite's plans at Hyakkaou revolve around the fact that she felt merely acting was "taking too long" for her to earn an Academy Award, so she joined Hyakkaou to increase her fame and earn one quicker. Unfortunately, this ignores the fact that the ''average'' age for Academy Award for Best Actress winners is ''thirty-six'', that only a handful of foreign-born actors have ever won it, and as of 2023, only ''one'' Asian woman has ''ever'' won Best Actress (also notably, Michelle Yeoh is the second person of color to have ever won Best Actress). The Academy is notorious for blatant cronyism, with most award voters being middle-aged Caucasian-Americans who have traditionally leaned toward that demographic. In short, if Yumemite wants to win an Award, she has a ''lot'' of more important issues to overcome than "time" or "fame".
51	* BaitAndSwitch: Despite the chapter title "The Girl Who Became Human" seemingly leading you to believe that Yumeko becomes freed of her debt, the title actually refers to Tsubomi, whom Yumeko willingly gave up her chance to be clear of her housepet status in order to free her from her horrifyingly abusive "owner".
52	* BitchInSheepsClothing: Nearly every major character, including Yumeko, uses a polite, friendly veneer to disguise the vicious gambler within. The only exceptions are Suzui, who is genuinely nice, and Midari, who is openly crazy pretty much all the time.
53	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: PlayedWith, the 2019 live-action movie ends with Arukibi and Murasume leaving school and The Village disbanded, but Murasume at least got the closure to his sister's death. Meanwhile, Jabami and Suzui are in a huge debt by losing the finals, but quickly bailed out due to Mary implementing Jabami's plan. Actually, the person who got the biggest reward is Kitawami, who got rid of his status as Pochi without going through the off-screen traumatizing phase in the manga and Mary, who got really, really rich from that sure bet]].
54	* BookEnds: Twice over in the ending of the anime's season one, both used for the two main [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools uses of this trope]] (to showcase something changed or something didn't change).
55	** To showcase what changed, the ending of episode 12 is made over Suzui's narration, going over what's happening in the academy and the kind of people there. Both narrations also start the same way, with him saying "Hyakkaou Private Academy..."
56	** To showcase what didn't change, both the final scene of the first episode and the final scene of the final episode are a focus of Yumeko's eyes glowing red as the camera zooms into them shot after shot.
57	* BlandNameProduct: Episode 8 of the anime references a pop idol's success on "[=YourTube=]".
58	* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Good and bad are irrelevant to the great majority of the cast. Most of them are in it to fulfill their own objectives or just to get the most thrills out of it.
59	* BreakingTheFourthWall: In the first episode of the anime, Saotome seems to face the audience while taunting Jabami's apparent folly of challenging her to another duel... moments before the latter turns the tables on her.
60	** The live-action adaptation runs on this trope. Suzui acts as the AudienceSurrogate[=/=]{{Narrator}} throughout the series. Saotome also has a few moments of narrating to the screen.
61	* TheBusCameBack: [[spoiler: The Season 2 anime original "Vote Auction" game has the cast having a gamble with Ikishima, Nishinatouin and part of the Hundred Devouring Families]].
62	* CastFullOfCrazy: Other than Suzui, who seems to be the [[OnlySaneMan one sane guy]] at school, the entire cast is filled with lunatics who bet millions of yen, and even the freedom of themselves and others, on cards, roulette, and even ''children's games'' that have even lower odds of actual success under normal circumstances. Other than Suzui, the rest of the cast also frequently break into contorted {{Nightmare Face}}s when gambling, with Jabami being ''the worst''.
63	* CentralTheme: You cannot obtain anything worthwhile without risk.
64	** People are only able to be free of the housepet system when they stop leaving decisions to others and make a choice with consequences themselves: the Debt Settlement Party [[spoiler:with Tsubomi disobeying Jun freeing her from his control]], [[spoiler:Mary's rejection of her life plan and refusal to be on the Student Council]], [[spoiler:Itsuki refusing to stop supporting Yumeko when Kaede tells her to back down]] and even [[spoiler:Ryota not picking the marked Tarot card]] in the anime)
65	** In the Yumeko vs Kaede game, Sumeragi is only able to make Manyuda acknowledge her by putting everything on the line.
66	** Yumeko and Kirari reflect the theme in a NoChallengeEqualsNoSatisfaction way, with their abilities to [[SherlockScan read]] and [[AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil manipulate]] anyone making gambling the only time earning anything they want involves them actually putting anything on the line.
67	* CheatersNeverProsper: Many people Jabami plays against are rigging their games to give themselves an overall advantage. Unfortunately for them, Jabami is ''very'' good at seeing through tricks, and regularly "bets" they will continue to follow through with their little cheats to try and win. When they do, Jabami ends up beating them miserably, whereas if they had abandoned their schemes they could have won.
68	** Averted in her duels with [[spoiler:Manyuuda and Igarashi -- the former simply staked a huge amount of money in a game where money is an advantage, while the latter didn't cheat at all, and was also in the dark about the new structure Kirari introduced them to.]]
69	* TheClan: Student Council President Kirari Momobami belongs to a clan of a hundred-or-so interrelated and equally ruthless families with the character for "devour[=/=]eat" in their last name (with Kirari belonging to the "[[ImmortalityInducer peach]] eater" family). [[spoiler:Many of them appear in the Student Council Presidential Election arc.]]
70	* {{Cliffhanger}}: The epilogue of season 1 of the anime ends with the President announcing [[spoiler:the dissolution of the Student Council, which will lead into the Presidential Election Arc]].
71	** Season 1 of the live-action adaptation ends after the duel with Midari, and after Saotome refuses to join the Student Council. Not even half of the current student council has been challenged, or even had their faces revealed in the case of the president and vice-president. Season 2 ends after the duel with Kaede.
72	* CollectorOfTheStrange: Sumeragi loves painted nails, so she collects them. Though she says she could easily just collect fake nails, what she really loves are ''human'' nails; everyone who's lost to her in gambling has [[{{Fingore}} had their nails ripped off]] so she can add them to her collection.
73	* ConnectedAllAlong: [[spoiler:Right after the reveal that the Momobami Family has multiple branch families, Yumeko refers to some of the representatives of those families as her relatives, confirming that she is also part of TheClan and thus a distant cousin of Kirari (and Ririka).]] In an inversion of how this trope is usually played, it seems both characters knew all along that they were related, while nobody else in the cast did.
74	* CreepyCrosses: The anime opening features a number of candles with the image of Virgen de Guadalupe, an apparition of the virgin Mary and one of the most important symbols of Mexican catholicism. They have no relation whatsoever with the story and are just there for creepy effect.
75	* {{Cult}}: The Amish like 'Village' in the 2019 live action movie, though averted as the founder Marasume founded it as a non gambling solace for the "Pochi" and "Mikey" without any ill intentions.
76	* DealWithTheDevil
77	** The opening song of the anime is called "Deal with the Devil", and its lyrics discuss being offered endless entertainment in return for being owned down to your last hair by a self-identifying insane person.
78	** [[spoiler:After her initial attempt fails in the Student Council Presidential Election arc, Ririka gets Saotome to join forces with her by revealing that Mary will only be able to save the recently poisoned Jabami from another set of competitors by helping Ririka.]]
79	* DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist: Dropping out of The Election, then participating back is this, given that you can simply accumulate debt votes and bet with other people to get some votes back. The anime makes it more risky by making the debt coins having a value of 24 hours being served to the Student Council.
80	* {{Deconstruction}}: Yumemite's arc takes a long hard look at the dark side of being an IdolSinger. She genuinely dreams of one day being famous, and willingly subjected herself at an early age to the rigors of training to be an idol. However, dealing with a fanbase full of creepers and social losers is slowly eating away on her sanity, which isn't far from RealLife judging [[LoonyFan how far some fans will go to express their admiration towards celebrities]], so Yumemite's fears and paranoia aren't exactly unfounded.
81	* DefeatMeansFriendship: Many of the opponents Jabami beats eventually end up joining her faction at the school, including Saotome (after the two team up in a debt relocation competition) and later Sumeragi (who thinks befriending Jabami is her ticket to getting back a seat on the Student Council). Subverted with Ikishima, [[spoiler:due to Ikishima fixing their game so that Ikishima alone will be killed, Jabami ended up despising her even though she would be a very loyal ally for Jabami and giving her a connection to the Student Council who is hellbent on shutting her down.]]
82	* {{Dehumanization}}: The bottom 100 student-gamblers are treated as "house pets", and are restricted to public matches, which bear the risk of adding to their humiliation. One of the student council members, Nishinotoin, also lets "pets" play against her for a chance to recover from their debts, [[spoiler:though it's severely rigged against them]].
83	* DemotedToExtra: Yumemi in the 2019 live action movie, everybody else [[spoiler: except for Manyunda for obvious reasons]] have some lines in either announcing, competing, appearing [[spoiler: or even being in a turf war]], while Yumemi disappears after the opening scene.
84	* DickDastardlyStopsToCheat: Many of the villains would have been able to defeat Yumeko if they had cheated once to gain an insurmountable lead and then stopped. Yumeko manipulates them into cheating multiple times with the same methods, allowing her to discern how they are rigging the game and turn it against them.
85	* DoItYourselfThemeTune: Yuki Wakai (Itsuki Sumeragi) is a member of J-Pop band D.Selections, who performed the ending theme.
86	* DrivingQuestion: For the spinoff ''Kakegurui Twin'', the biggest question being [[spoiler:what happened to Saotome's friends that she made in the first year to the point that she didn't mention any of them in the main series?]].
87	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The first episode features a relatively normal classroom scene, with students sitting at their desks, Suzui fulfilling his role of class president, and even an appearance from an ordinary adult teacher with a few lines of dialogue. For the rest of the series, the classroom aspect of Hyakkaou is entirely dropped to focus solely on gambling, with teachers nonexistent and adults relegated to shadowy figures in flashbacks.
88	* ElaborateUniversityHigh: Hyakkaou is an exclusive university for the children of the rich and famous of Japan.
89	* EveryoneHasStandards: Jabami is usually very polite and doesn't hold grudges even towards those who do their best to destroy her, as long as they do it in a risky way with elements of chance. However, she despises Ikishima, since her way of cheating is trying to ''guarantee'' Ikishima's own suffering. Jabami believes this to void the element of chance and risk, robbing the games of all of the fun.
90	** [[spoiler: During the 2019 live action movie, a Student Council official warns Ikishima against shooting people in the turf fight with The Village]].
91	* EvolvingCredits: The live action opening theme, where the main characters sang the theme song along with Jabami's opponent of the episode.
92	* ExpositoryThemeTune: The anime's opening theme goes through the series' general plot from Jabami's point of view, with her discussing how she wins games through {{Batman Gambit}}s, her condition as [[TheGamblingAddict a compulsive gambler]], and how much she loves the insanity of it all.
93	* FateWorseThanDeath: The life schedule for the house pets who accumulated a ridiculously high debt, where in exchange for not collecting their debt, they would have to follow the decades long schedule which includes marriage, birth and political future. Though in Mary's (or presumably anybody with decent looks) case, even she herself noted that it is somewhat pleasant (compared to the other examples for this trope) when she looked at her schedule, if she's wasn't enraged at the council for playing her like a fool.
94	* FireBreathingDiner: During Yumiko and Yumemi's contest against Wataru, they have to guess which macaron is the “Death Macaron,” which has habanero in it. Runa is the unlucky victim to show how spicy it is. The match end in a tie with Yumemi being outed by faking a reaction by breaking her own finger and Yumeko wins by observing the number of times Wataru chewed...and then making a guess on the last two.
95	* FixingTheGame: Jabami's opponents all cheat in various ways to give themselves overall advantages in games. For instance, in the first arc, Saotome has 21 of their thirty classmates placing the same card her "dog" Suzui selects in advance into the draw pool in her RockPaperScissors card game and thus can predict what kind of cards will be in her opponent's hand.
96	* GamblerGroupies: {{Gender inverted\|Trope}}. TheGamblingAddict Yumeko Jabami can almost always be seen with her fairly attractive male classmate Ryota Suzui by her side.
97	* GeckoEnding: The anime, which played a very different game [[spoiler:between Jabami & Kirari instead of Jabami & Igarashi]], due to the fact that [[spoiler:the Tower of Doors arc would need more than 1 episode to finish, and the manga is still ongoing]].
98	* GenreDeconstruction: Of your typical school-based action shounen. Things as the AbsurdlyHighStakesGame and the AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil are there, but they are treated as exactly that: absurd. The school's council are seen as absolutely crazy people for what they do so often and how they turned the school into a caste system where the ones with too much debt become playthings to be mistreated. It's even mentioned in-universe that they are more like manga characters than real people. Every character with a semblance of normality are absolutely terrified of the main characters, since they are legitimately crazy and nearly sociopathic in their love for gambling.
99	* GlowingEyesOfDoom: Each character's eyes glow a different color when they're at the height of their gambling craze. For instance, Saotome's glow yellow, and Jabami's glow [[RedEyesTakeWarning bright red]].
100	* HollywoodBoardGames: The Top Idol Championship has GuileHero Jabami and IdolSinger Yumemi face each other in several GameShow mini-games such as a dancing competition or collecting audience votes. Winning a mini-game gives the contestant a chance to put her tally on a TabletopGame/TicTacToe board's square. The first to complete a row, diagonally or linearly, is the winner of the Championship. Jabami's tally is a snake, which alludes to the meaning of her name: "snake-devouring dream girl". Overall, it's also kind of silly that such high stakes (both girls are gambling an exorbitant sum) are, in the end, decided but such a casual game like Tic-Tac-Toe.
101	* HomoeroticSubtext: Between Rin and Ibara, who entirely dedicate their lives to each other. The end of the war game has a particularly poignant scene where Ibara uses his hand to hide their faces while they're talking and Rin is crying, but [[https://s8.mkklcdnv8.com/mangakakalot/k1/kakegurui/chapter_625_lie_unraveling_girl_part_2/12.jpg the scene is framed as if they were kissing]]. The scene is followed by Ibara cleaning Rin's tears, both hugging and then walking off together while remembering good times.
102	* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: The titles of the manga chapters and the episodes of the anime all have the word "woman" in them.
103	* InMediasRes: The first episode of the second season of the anime starts with the GameOfChicken between Yumeko, Midari and Erimi with no context. Then it goes back in time to show what happened after the {{Cliffhanger}} of the previous season. Even then, the episode closes off before a proper explanation for what's happening in the school can be given, so viewers don't get the context for to aforementioned game until the second episode.
104	* InterplayOfSexAndViolence: Or, rather, between Sex and ''Gambling''. The series has gone through lengths to show that Jabami gets fulfilled through gambling, regardless of whether she wins or loses. Played directly with Ikishima, who believes her ultimate climax will come from losing her life in a gamble.
105	* IronicEcho: After winning the first round of games, Saotome taunts Jabami that she must be having cold feet. The latter returns the favor, word-for-word, once her gambling madness sets in as she asks for round two.
106	* KansasCityShuffle: Played with during the entirety of the Debt Swap Game. [[spoiler:Jabami and Saotome discover that their opponent, Kiwatari, is using his personal house pet, Tsubomi, to help rig Debt Swap Games, so they work together to take him down. With two different sides cheating, and each making it public knowledge that the other is cheating, it lets the two girls conceal their biggest cheat: that the values of their chips were swapped beforehand. Instead of Jabami's chips being worth 31 million yen, making them the big prize to gain, hers are actually only worth 5 million yen, while Saotome's chips, supposedly only 5 million yen each and therefore not that important in the grand scheme of things, are really 31 million yen each. This allows for Jabami and Saotome to manipulate Kiwatari by carefully guarding the number of Saotome's chips while luring him into going after Jabami's chips, leading to his downfall.]]
107	* {{Leitmotif}}: Yumeko has one in the anime, a pleasant, dreamy refrain that fits her personality. Receives many a DarkReprise in the background music, generally at the exact moment when the other gambler is at their most confident.
108	* LibertyOverProsperity: The student council draws up "life plans" customized for each housepet. For the girls, this generally involves marrying them off to wealthy individuals to bear their children, letting them live a comfortable life while exerting influence over their husbands for the benefit of the student council and their associated parties. Of course, no housepet is known to accept this and they all fight to regain their freedom.
109	* LonersAreFreaks: Jabami's gambling ability and the various victories she wins for herself ought to win her popularity and prestige in Hyakkaou Private Academy, but her high-stakes persona is so disturbing that barely anyone wants anything to do with her. She takes it in stride though.
110	* LonelyRichKid: Jabami is one of the most skilled gamblers in school, as well as being incredibly rich. But while that would get her prestige and popularity at other schools, the majority of the other students think she's a lunatic and want nothing to do with her.
111	* LostHimInACardGame: Somehow Hyakkaou can allow student-gamblers to bet ''themselves'' to each other, and anyone else they now "own", despite human slavery being completely illegal in a first-world country like Japan. Somehow justified in that [[spoiler:Kirari belongs to a very influential clan that has the potential to control Japan as they please]].
112	* MaliciousMisnaming: Students who have "house pet" status are on the receiving end of this; male students are called "Pochi" while female students are called "Miike" (in Japan, both of these names are [[StockAnimalName commonly given to pets]], a la "Fido" and "Whiskers" in English).
113	* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Deconstructed. The eccentric Jabami's entrance into Hyakkaou allows Suzui to get out of his servitude to Saotome, and even make friends with her later. However, though Jabami genuinely considers Suzui her friend, she still [[TheGamblingAddict loves gambling]] ''much much more'', and pulls him into increasingly dangerous situations as the series goes on. The more Suzui warns her against doing something, the more excited Jabami actually gets.
114	* MarkOfShame: The bottom 100 student-gamblers are handed dog tags which denote them as "house pets". At the start of the story, Suzui gained his tag after losing to Saotome, then lost it after Jabami defeats her and gives him a ¥5 million tip; Saotome gains hers after that loss, and redeems herself [[spoiler:after she and Jabami teamed up in a debt clearance game set up by the Student Council; Jabami also gets hers after her game against Student Council member Yuriko Nishinotouin was sabotaged by Kirari, but ultimately was released after defeating Kirari's secretary, Sayaka Igarashi]].
115	* MeaningfulName: The name of the school the story takes place, "Hyakkaou Academy", literally translates as "Hundred Peonies Academy". Peonies are known as both the king of flowers in Japan, and in the Japanese language of the flowers, peonies are the symbol of bravery, making it a fitting name for a school where the children of the most powerful families in Japan are expected to regularly put their livelihood or freedom on the line in gambling matches. The western world's equivalent makes a double bonus of the existing trope with the translation of a Latin proverb, ''"Fortune favors the bold."''
116	* NightmareFace: A handful of characters do this when excited, crazy, or just plain sadistic. Complete with spittle.
117	* NonuniformUniform: Though the school has a uniform for all students, most of them don't wear parts of it, like the jackets, or have different dress shirts, leggings, and so on.
118	* TheOneGuy: Ryota Suzui for the main trio consisting of himself, Jabami and Saotome, as well as Kaede Manyuuda for the Student Council.
119	* OutsideContextProblem: Yumeko, for the social structure of the Academy. She just wants high-stakes gambling, pure and simple. No tricks. No cheats. Just the opportunity to be able to blow her money for the thrill of her addiction. Yet not only do her opponents constantly keep trying to cheat against her, but the Student Council perceives her as a threat to their regime, as Yumeko wants to gamble against the Student Body President. Since the current President got her position by out-gambling the previous one, they want to stop such a game at all costs, instead of interpreting Yumeko's wishes literally, as in, she merely wants to gamble with the president with no cheating and no ulterior motives. As such, she is turning the Academy on its head just trying to cope with her insatiable appetite for an actual high-risk game without any interference.
120	* ThePowerOfFriendship: [[spoiler: Murasame's team wins the finals against Jabami's team (much to the surprise of everybody) in the 2019 live-action movie due to Mary and Kitawami (for their own interest) rallying The Village to fight back against Midari's siege and by breaking the non gambling vow in taking loans from the Student's Council and betting for him]].
121	* RedOniBlueOni: The cold, manipulative Kirari uses blue lipstick and nail polish. The impulsive "gambling junkie" Yumeko is frequently depicted with red eyes and fingernails.
122	* RelatedInTheAdaptation: Downplayed. Ibara and Rin are from the same family, and in the dub, they are referenced as brothers, but the manga itself heavily implies that they are just cousins.
123	* RockPaperScissors: The first gambling match between Mary and Jabami is a card-game variant, with their classmates drawing rocks, papers or scissors on blank cards and putting them in boxes where both girls pick them at random.
124	* RewatchBonus: If you pay attention during the Greater Good Game Arc to what number Yumeko gave to each of the players of what number of their coins they should put in during the second round it becomes clear [[spoiler:That Sumeragi and Honebami are the cheaters.]]
125	* SerialEscalation: How much higher can the stakes get?
126	** In order, the bets from the first part of the series were in yen: 120k, 10 million, 20 million, 40 million, 310 million (in debt to the loser and paid to the winner), 1 billion (and possibly getting shot in the head), 50 million (plus defining how Yumeko would spend the rest of her life), much more than 10 billion (and the winner gets to decide the loser's life plan) and finally, in the battle against Sayaka, [[spoiler:the loser loses something important to them and must jump out of the top of a tower]].
127	** In the second part, due to the election, the numbers are restarted, betting one vote in the finger guillotine, 100 against Miyo and Miri, about 144 votes in the Greater Good Game and [[spoiler:300 votes in the outside bet of the Greater Good Game]].
128	* SeriousBusiness: The story has characters betting hundreds of thousands of dollars on games like RockPaperScissors and other simplistic, normally hard to win games. People even get sold into slavery over card games, roulette, and so forth.
129	* ShoutOut: The place that Midari takes the protagonists in episode 6 seems to be inspired by the bathroom where the DeadlyGame from the very first ''Film/SawI'' takes place, specially considering the deteriorated state of the walls and pipes. The visual similarities are toned down in the live-action adaptation though.
130	* SpokenWordInMusic: In the OP, there is a sample from one of former Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley's speeches regarding the 1968 Democratic National Convention clashes: "The confrontation was not created by the police. The confrontation was created by the people [...]."
131	* StripPoker: The 7th volume of ''Kakegurui Twin'' revolves around an elaborate game whose participants must take off a piece of clothing every round. The participants are all girls, and naturally, the authors milk the fanservice for all it's worth.
132	* TalkingToThemself: During the Auction Game, this is how Yumeko treated Ryota and Mary talking to Midari, utterly refusing to acknowledge her existence after the Finger Guillotine game.
133	* TarotMotifs: The season 1 anime exclusive game between Yumeko and Kirari involves pulling three cards of the major arcana. If the card is upright, the number represented is positive while reverse is negative. The Fool is the Joker and Yumeko will win or lose depending on its position. Yumeko draws the Present card first, Kirari drawing the Past second and Ryota drawing the Future card last. Yumeko draws the Upright Magician in the Present. Kirari draws the Reverse World in the Past. Ryota draws Upright Judgment in the Future. Ending in a tie.
134	** While the cards were almost certainly chosen for their numeric values, the meanings behind each card line up fairly well with the general theme of the show: in a Clairvoyant Tarot reading, reversed World Past symbolizes being trapped in a hopeless situation. Upright Magician Present represents the beginning of a new chapter, meeting challenges head on and with enthusiasm. Upright Judgement Future means that an important issue will resolve in your favor, but only if you have acted honorably.
135	* TeethClenchedTeamwork: [[spoiler:Saotome and Jabami in the debt recollection meeting, though more one-sided on the former when she discovers that their two opponents already established a master-and-slave relationship. It more or less evolves to full-on VitriolicBestBuds (with the "Vitriolic" aspect still one-sided on Saotome's part) at the end of it all.]]
136	* TemptingFate: During the debt recollection meeting, [[spoiler:Saotome wishes to herself not to be paired with Jabami. Guess who she gets paired with...]]
137	* TitleDrop:
138	** The first arc ends with Suzui straight out calling Jabami a "Compulsive Gambler" (''Kakegurui''), which is the title of the series.
139	** The anime's opening ThemeTune also includes the lines "I'm a compulsive gambling queen."
140	** When Jabami's worked up in a frenzy in the middle of a match, she invites her opponent to "lose themselves in gambling!" In Japanese, she's actually saying the title (''Kakegurui mashou!'')
141	* TournamentArc: The Grand Meeting that Sayaka makes happen. It involves eight characters in the competition betting all their votes in a tournament of a game mixing Rock-Paper-Scissors and Poker. The winner will take all the votes the eight of them have combined. Unusually for this, major characters like Kirari, Ririka and Terano are not part of the tournament, while characters that haven't been seen in a while like Miyo, Erimi and some members of the student council replace them.
142	* TheTower: [[spoiler:The Tower of Doors, commissioned by Kirari as the venue of Jabami and Igarashi's game, where they have to climb down and up the tower to win. The structure only contains doors on the walls and trapdoors on the floors, and an internal tower that contains a staircase that connects the bottom and top floors.]]
143	* TrappedByGamblingDebts: Students who can't pay their losses in gambling become the winner's "dogs", forced to do whatever their "owner" says until they can pay back what they owe or leave the school.
144	* TwinSwitch: [[spoiler:During Jabami's matches against Yumemite and then Manyuuda, the "Ririka" attending the games is Kirari all along, while Ririka herself attends a Momobani clan meeting as "Kirari".]]
145	* UncannyFamilyResemblance: [[spoiler:Kirari and Ririka Momobami have extremely similar facial features and the same HimeCut hairstyles as their distant cousin Yumeko Jabami. The only major differences between them is their inverted hair and eye colors, and some slight differences in their builds.]]
146	* VillainTeamUp: [[spoiler: Mary and Kitawami in the 2019 live action film]].
147	* WagerSlave: The top 100 most in debt students at the school have to do whatever the last person they lost to says. The student council similarly promises to forgive the debt of students who owe massive amounts of money to them if they go to the universities they say, take the jobs they say, marry the people they say, and so on.
148	* YoureInsane: Saotome calls Jabami insane in the first arc for betting 10 million yen on a single game of RockPaperScissors.

Context Manga / Kakegurui