Manga / Gamble Fish

Gambling is Serious Business

Gamble Fish is a manga written by Kazutoshi Yamane and illustrated by Hiromi Aoyama. It was serialized in Weekly Shonen Champion from 2007 to 2010, and compiled into 19 volumes.

Shishidou Academy is a boarding school reserved for the children of the financial and intellectual elite of Japan, where the future leaders and CEOs of the country are prepared for their future. As a result, the school is full of arrogant, aggressive, class-conscious people.

Enter Tomu Shirasagi, a mysterious fourteen-year-old boy with poor parents who transfers in. Soon after his introduction, he makes clear that his only reason for attending Shishidou is competing with other students in "fights of intellect" for money, starting with low bets and going progressively higher.

Not to be confused with Rumble Fish.

---

This series provides examples of:

• Absurdly High-Stakes Game: The series quite often, where they are usually betting large amounts of money. In one case Tomu even bet his own finger, he lost and immediately had it chopped off with a chainsaw. The blood from his finger spilling on to the deck means that the card-sharp he's playing against can no longer shift cards without it becoming obvious.
• Abusive Parents: Mayo Hanasaki's parents when she was small. Her father was directly abusive, a drunk who hit her and even burned her hands with a lit cigarette for no real reason, while her mother was a Dirty Coward who fled her home, abandoning her own child just to save her own worthless ass. When a young Mayo goes and finds her mother to seek help from her father, her mother immediately blows her off, just so she could selfishly keep her pleasant lifestyle. Even when Mayo's father died and her mother got custody, she immediately sent her daughter to the boarding school and still has yet to contact her.
• Americans Are Cowboys: Emily Dawn is a living collection of American stereotypes.
• And the Adventure Continues: Tomu uses his winnings to purchase a yacht to go on a world tour as well as find the Sanctuary of Gamblers, where he would challenge the elite. Mizuhara, Mika, Natsumi, Yuka, Rio, Mayo, Emily, and Gokijima bring themselves along for the ride.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: In the final round against Abidani, when Tomu looked to be on his last legs, Yuka took that moment to scream out she loves him.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Abidani teaches Yoshio, whose dream is to be an Evil Overlord, about gun disassembly, hand-to-hand combat, and... proper intimidating horse riding posture.
• Back from the Dead:
  • Abidani likes to think that this is what happened to him when he turned to what he is now. As he states himself, "God ordered me to die, but the devil ordered me to come back from the dead!" and more recently "The truly strong shall rise forth from the dead! No matter how many times!"
  • Abidani does this again in the Russian Roulette Poker match against Omaha. His gun was fully loaded, and Abidani shoots himself through the forehead, supposedly killing himself. Omaha believed he has won and was about to take his corpse to unlock the Abidani Formula tattooed on his body, but was taken by surprise when Abidani gets back up. Turns out he shot himself through the forehead rather than from the side on purpose as due to the bullets' small size, it was able to pass between the two hemispheres of his brain, completely missing it.
  • Tomu now also pulled this on purpose to break Abidani's edge in mental strength. Bonus points for him actually using poison to stop his heart, having death confirmed by electric chair, then still coming back.
• Batman Gambit:
  • Tomu is a master of this. He manipulates opponents who think themselves at an advantage against him into accepting an ever so slight modification of the rules, then proceeds to wipe the floor with them.
  • Abidani has also proven that he is a real master at this.
• Beyond the Impossible: The manga screws laws of physics and biology because a gambler's soul transcends the body's endurance or something like that. How much of this is genuinely impossible, how much is excused by coolness and how much is psychological warfare is fluid.
  • An example is closely related to Back from the Dead. How do you otherwise call surviving a Russian Roulette with a fully loaded 10-shot gun? The trick though is still awesome.

• Bland-Name Product: A background panel advertises an "Xfox 360".
• Bound and Gagged: Yuka Tsukiyono during the "Rabbit Capture" game with Tomu against Emily Dawn. Some time in the game, the "Mountain Tengu", attacks the player, and captures Yuka. Stripping her down to her bra and panties, then tied to a tree in the snow, she was used as bait by the Tengu to attack the other players.
• Cast of Snowflakes: Characters do have their own specific faces, and are not all flawless Bishōnen. Check Abidani (even though he used to be quite the bishie in his younger days), Kaoru Gokijima, and Yoizame.
• Chainsaw Good: For severing a finger.
• Chick Magnet: After building an Unwanted Harem/loyal group of friends composed of Natsumi Kimura, Yuka Tsukiyono, Rio Asahina, Mika Shishido, Mayo Hanasaki, Emily Dawn, with acts that could cross the border into Chivalrous Pervert territory (though to be fair he only steals kisses; does that disqualify him as a Chaste Hero?), except that Tomu is not at all perverted as opposed to his sidekick, Mizuhara. He also fits half the bill for The Casanova, except that he does care about his loyal harem and friends and will go to incredible lengths to defend them.
• The Clan: The Shirasagi clan and Shishido family, a long time ago in Japan's history.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Tomu's Unwanted Harem seems to be made of these.
• Clothing Damage: When attacked by the Tengu, Leica is slashed down the front, cutting through her assault rifle, her tank top AND her dog tags.
• Collector of the Strange: Isamu Shishidou seems to collect "failures" in the Class Reunion Tournament. As he was looking forward to adding Jasmine suspended in water of his fishbowl and revealed he had Tomu's father's corpse taxidermed and added which he planned to do to Tomu as well.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Averted. Tomu is playing a game in which the loser gets a pot full of 1200 degree coals dumped on them. Everybody is getting noticeably hotter as the pot gets closer and they're all perfectly aware that if the pot gets close enough Tomu will get roasted without even touching the coals. Sure enough, at a distance of 30 centimeters the stone table on which the game is being played begins to melt. Just to get close enough to take his turn Tomu has to fashion a makeshift safety suit out of several layers of clothing, and it only lasts a few seconds before bursting into flames, leaving Tomu himself with quite a few burns.
• CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: Tomu does this on Jasmine Night after destroying the fishbowl chamber to revive her from drowning. Comically, his harem was upset at the mouth to mouth with another woman.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Akira Juumonji despises Tomu because Emily has a crush on him while rejecting his own advances. In revenge, he tries to sabotage Tomu's attempts to enter the Class Reunion, but ultimately failed.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Mizuhara, at least as far as gambling goes. He looks and generally acts like a lame perverted geek, but he is in fact very skilled at poker. Online Strip Poker, that is.
• Cute Indignant Girl Stance: Natsumi Kimura reacts this way out of jealousy when the other members of Tomu's harem start glomping him. Additionally, her pigtails go up on either side for Rule of Funny.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Most of the girls in Tomu's Unwanted Harem/group of friends group were previously his opponents.
• Determinator: What else do you call someone who's willing to get his own finger cut off with a chainsaw in order to win at cards by marking them with his own blood? It gets Lampshaded by Tsukiyono when they lost almost all Tomu's money when they gamble as his substitute:
  Tsukiyono: But that's his finger-severing, self-immolating, eardrum-piercing money that he risked his life for dammit!!.
• Diabolus ex Nihilo: Barack Obama... I mean "King Omaha" turns out to be the Surprise Guest at the Gamble Tournament.
• Didn't See That Coming: What Tomu inflicts upon his opponents countless times through luck, sheer Heroic Resolve, Loophole Abuse and cheating.
• Dirty Old Man:
  • Shyu Omei, the legendary chinese gambler.
  • Also the academy's headmaster Isamu. To the point he was completely fine with having his great-granddaughter to be stripped by a pervert for a gamble match for an entire audience to see.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Headmaster Shishidou forces Yuka, Mayo, Rio, and Emily to be unwilling participants in the Beheading Mahjong challenge in response to Tomu and Emily interfering with the Russian Roulette Poker match earlier.
• The Dreaded: Pretty much every student flees the room when Abidani shows up.
• Drowning Pit: Used in one of the Class Reunion battles where the gamblers are chained inside a tank filling with water with the winners being freed while the loser drowns.
• Eagleland:
  • King Omaha, President of the United States, lives and breathes the positive side of this trope. He exudes patriotism and honor in just about every panel he's in. On the other hand, there are those (especially in America) who consider him an obnoxious Type 2 Parody Sue, with his admittedly Marty Stu-esque actions throughout the story (such as reversing the Rapid Aging of two young girls by draping them with an American flag to taking on the main villain in Russian Roulette and surviving the headshot) being satire of Obama's more controversial aspects and depictions, if not America's in general.
  • Emily Dawn is more of a Mixed type.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Say what you will about Abidani, but you can't deny that he's a fair referee.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Mizuhara is only known as "Mushroom Head" or other variations like "Mushroom boy" etc.
• Exposed to the Elements: Poor Yuka gets stripped down to her bra and panties before being tied to a tree in the snowy mountains by the "Tengu" during the rabbit capture game.
• Eye Scream: Self-inflicted by Tomu to protect himself from Emily's Rainbow Dawn. It's later revealed he faked this, instead destroying his ear drums.
• Fanservice: It will be seen, for example, Tsukiyono stripping naked in chapter five. It's everywhere, and so blatant, a blind man couldn't miss it. And as the story goes on, the fanservice gets more and more explicit and exaggerated. Every female character in the series ends half naked and in embrassing poses with the peak during the last arc.
• Fat Bastard: Kaoru Gokijima.
• Female Angel, Male Demon: For the "Angel & Devil" themed Blackjack game, there are two special cards that serve its own purpose: the Angel card (depicting a graceful female opening her arms) can become any number the player draws out to guarantee a 21, whereas the Devil card (depicting a demonic man holding a scythe) forces the player to end his turn with the current points accumulated so far.
• Flag Bikini: Elizabeth Dawn wears one as her normal outfit.
• Four Is Death:
  • Abidani wins the 10-Point Poker match using Four of Diamonds, Hearts, Clubs, and Spades plus the JOKER for his wild card combo.
  • Then happens to him combined with Number of the Beast where he is given three 6's and then busted with the fourth card being the Demon forcing him to stop.
• The Gambling Addict: Oddly enough there is no character that shows an addiction to gambling.
• Gilligan Cut: While trapped in a cave during the Victory Flag arc, Tomu asks Mika if he could sit on her shoulders so he can get a better look at the cracks of the cave's ceiling. She refused, citing that it is usually the woman that sits on top but he debates that her being a tennis pro her legs are stronger to support them. She ultimately suggests they Rock–Paper–Scissors for it. The next scene she is seen carrying him on her shoulders, cursing that she should have never gambled with a cheating gambler.
• Give Me a Sign: Abidani pretty much goes insane trying to get a sign from God if he should publish his mathematical formula which he believes has the possibility to destroy the world.
• Gory Discretion Shot: The traffic accident of Tsukiyono's brother.
• Graceful Loser:
  • Tomu whenever he is the victim of someone else's schemes.
  • Abidani after losing to Tomu in the electric chair blackjack match.
• Guile Hero: Tomu, and he comes from a long line of them.
• Ham-to-Ham Combat: Abidani against Tomu, all the time. Also Mika against Emily.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: The Headmaster made sure that Shirasagi suffers in any way for the Change Mahjong game: If Shirasagi wins, the other 3 girls could get executed along with the losing players, whereas if he loses, he'll be decapitated by the guillotine necklace and die along with the guardian angel assigned to him.
• Human Notepad: Abidani's body is covered in an elaborate tattoo that is made of tiny numbers. When decoded they describe the Abidani Equation that could end the world.
• Identical Granddaughter: Mika could pass as her grandmother's twin when she was the same age. Becomes a plot point when Tengu mistakes her for her grandmother.
• Identical Stranger:
  • It turns out the man that Abindani has locked up isn't Tomu's father, but a con artist that takes advantage of his father's face and identity to scam people by gambling and dealing.
  • Later, it's revealed that Tomu's opponents in the tournament were the true fakes. In fact, the one posing as his father is the same con artist that scammed Rio's family. And he can change his face at will. The one posing as his mother is his student, who is also trained in the use of the face-changing ability.
• Heroic Second Wind: Just when President Omaha is about to give into the fear of his Russian Roulette penalty, the spirit of Abraham Lincoln show up. Thanks to the 16th POTUS, Omaha renewed his conviction and pulled the trigger without any hesitation.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Tomu has this with Molly in the fishbowl match. He manages to bring out Jasmine's real personality back in control, shutting out Molly for good.
• Interrupted Declaration of Love: Mika attempts to confess her feelings for Tomu before he heads out for the final match against Abidani, but he tells her he had to go and will listen to what she has to say after the match is over. Could double as an Anguished Declaration of Love as Mika knew that the match was one where the loser will die and laments she may never get another chance to tell him.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Abidani a long time ago.
• Jerkass:
  • The students of the academy. In the first chapter they were planning to drive the new transfer student away simply because he wasn't from a wealthy family like they were. They do the same to Asahina, just because she is a scholarship student.
  • The Headmaster is even worse. In the Meat Pie Roulette challenge, he explicitly stated he would have told the players the trick with the Dragon's Beard after a "meat pie" was made just to throw salt into the players wounds.
• Jerkass Realization: Emily Dawn once Tomu beats her in the rabbit flag game.
• Kiss of Distraction: Tomu first does this on Mayo Hanasaki when she tried to commit suicide via drinking a vial of poison. He stopped her from swallowing, sucking the poison out and spitting it to the ground. He later does this with Emily Dawn to catch her off guard and win the Flag Capture game, tricking her into thinking he's under the influence of her Rainbow Dawn eye.
• Kubrick Stare: Everyone uses these in conjunction with a Slasher Smile to show a Let's Get Dangerous! moment.
• Large and in Charge: Isamu Shishido, the Headmaster of the Shishido academy.
• Large Ham:
  • Abidani and Tomu. The chainsaw scene was a fight to out-chew one another.
  • The literally larger than life Headmaster, Isamu Shishido also qualifies as a Large Ham of epic proportions.
  • During the tournament, also King Omaha, who acts more like The Messiah than like a president.
• Laxative Prank: Tsukiyono was incapacitated with a cow laxative in one chapter.
• Looks Like Orlok: Abidani. He's a vindictive, macabre, sadistic character with a bald head, a very angular face, spindly limbs, a hooked nose, elf ears, a slight hunch and spiky teeth. This appearance was caused by Abidani being nearly electrocuted to death by an electric chair as a young man.
• Mad Mathematician: Abidani is revealed to be one of these. In specific, he believes to discover a message from God itself within his mathematics. He tests whether or not he should share his discovery with anyone by suicidal exploits in hopes of testing whether or not God would protect him, ultimately leading to his Start of Darkness when he's electrocuted and believes he came Back from the Dead.
  • It turns out the Abidani Formula is a way to crack any form of encryption, giving himself access to bank records, troop intelligence, and even nuclear launch codes if he desires.
• Magnetic Hero: Mostly through Defeat Means Friendship and sheer charisma, Tomu manages to gather a core group of allies who would be willing to go to Hell and back for him, as well as a few who have their own agendas and one in particular who is explicitly Only in It for the Money.
• Marshmallow Hell: Mizuhara buried his face in Rio's ample cleavage when he, Rio, and Natsumi didn't want to see Yuka potentially getting crushed in the roulette wheel.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Characters that seem to have magic powers are described as accomplishing feats through sheer force of will or self delusion. From future sight to reversing their ages.
  • Abidani's entire Start of Darkness. After several failed attempts to kill himself, his luck finally runs out and is electrocuted in an electric chair. However a freak power outage occurs and he survives. He claims that the Devil sent him back to Earth to cause as much suffering and chaos as possible.
  • King Omaha is spared several close brushes with death by extremely unlikely events. Emily says that he was spared by God.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Abidani. The kanji in his name and shout of "Avi" are pretty ominous, referring to "Abi-kyoukan": agonizing cries, Pandemonium, or more precisely the Avici Hell, the Eighth Hell in Buddhism and the most painful of them. You could therefore interpret his name as "Valley of agonizing cries", raising a bit of "why the hell didn't his family change names?" Also, "kyoukan" from "Abi-kyoukan" can be read both as "screams", and as "instructor", which is appropriate since he technically is a teacher.
  • Shirasagi also could qualify for this, since his name means literally "white heron" (and he does have white hair), but "sagi" can be read as "fraud, swindle" too, though in his case his clan has history in such matters in feudal Japan.
• Moment Killer: Yuka was placed in a huge roulette wheel in a game Tomu was playing in the Class Reunion. Once he won, she was released and passionately tackled Tomu to the ground, happy he was all right. She looked like she was going to kiss him, but then the realization of being spun around at a fast rate in a huge roulette wheel where she accumulated much motion sickness came to the fore, and she accidentally barfs on Tomu as a result.
• Mood Whiplash: Near the end before Tomu was about to face off against Abidani in the final arc. Mizuhara starts to celebrate Tomu making it to the finals and raises a champagne glass for a toast. The next page suddenly shows he was the only one raising his glass as it shows Tomu sitting depressed while surrounded by Natsumi, Yuka, Mayo, and Emily. He tells Mizuhara he's really not in the mood for celebrations since Jasmine almost died the previous round.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: Gokijima. Lampshaded at the end of the story when Tomu was about to leave on his yacht, Gokujima gets angry Tomu was going to leave without so much as a word to his friends. Natsumi and Yuka call out since when did they ever called Gokujima a friend of theirs, which makes him indignant.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • King Omaha is Barack Obama in every sense aside from his name. As well as his cabinet members.
  • Yoshio Yoizame is strongly inspired on Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein, an ex-guitarist of The Misfits.

• Number of the Beast:
  • The dice gamble match had it to where an automatic win comes if one rolls three "6"s with three dice.
  • Abidani's hotel room number in Macau is this number, quite fitting.
  • The final match between Tomu and Abidani in the electric chair blackjack game. Abidani met his end in this manner after he was dealt three "6"s followed by a special devil card that forced him to stay his hand.
• Obviously Evil: Subverted somewhat with King Omaha. While he is based on real life Barack Obama as a positive political figure, his motive is more than questionable when he's willing to borrow 800 billion USD of taxpayer money on a bet.

• The Ojou:
  • Mika Shishido. Curly hair? Check. Family treasures? Check. Lineage? Check. Ojou speech style? Check. Also has loads of Tsundere vibes.
  • Emily Dawn. Filthy Rich? Check. Heir to the largest weapon manufacturer in the world? Check. Spoiled brat? Check. Also has Yandere tendencies. And also, when those two have fights, it gets into Large Ham proportions too.
• Only in It for the Money: The only reason Gokijima agrees to help Tomu out.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Everyone calls Mizuhara "Mushroom-head", to the point most students thought that was actually his name. Tomu's the only one who doesn't call him "Mushroom-head". When he does, Mizuhara realizes something is up.
• Parental Abandonment:
  • Tomu's parents. His dad Yumeichiro appeared to have been captured by Abidani, but it turned out that it was an Identical Stranger; the real Yumeichiro managed to escape and reappear at the Shishodo Class Reunion with Tomu's mother, who Tomu thought had died.
    • As it turns out, those two were actually con-artists who can change their faces at will. The one impersonating Tomu's father is actually the swindler who ruined Rio's family, and many others.
  • Mayo Hanasaki's mother, who ditched her own daughter to find a better life for herself away from her abusive husband. When Mayo found her later, she didn't want her because she would have interfered in her new life. Then after Mayo's father died and she gained custody she immediately sent Mayo to this boarding school and hasn't contacted her since.
  • Jasmine was abandoned by her father Shuu after she lost against Abidani and he revealed to her she was nothing more than a pawn to him to defeat Abidani. This trama let her to develop a split personality.
• Pet the Dog: Yoshio, nasty as he is, has a protective instinct when it comes to women.
• President Evil: A subtle version but King Omaha shows signs of this. To list off his offenses he leaves running America just to join in a very shady gambling match, bets the entire US Deficit (800 Billion taxpayer dollars, something which is illegal for a political official to use for personal reasons) for the year on a single bet, and was willing to allow the national monument Mt. Rushmore to be defaced if he lost a bet. All while he constantly refers himself as King of the World, which to any president would be extremely insulting to refer themselves as that as the country of America has a strong dislike towards a monarchy.
• Punny Name: Barack Obama's name changed to Omaha, as Omaha is a version of Poker. Essentially he is the King of Poker.
• Red Baron: Several characters have nicknames or epithets. Such as:
  • "Extreme Gambler" Tomu Shirasagi
  • Mika Shishidou as "The Rose of Shishidou"
  • "Lolita Computer" Nana Hiruko
  • "Hell's Elite" Yoshio Yoizame
  • "Cockroach" Kaoru Gokajima
  • "Stripping Emperor" "Kaiser Mizuhara
  • "Prodigy Dealer of Vegas" Jasmine Night
  • "King of the Black Market" Don Romero
  • "Dragon of Gamblers" Tatsushima Susumu
• Refuge in Audacity: Tomu's favorite tactic in battle. When faced with the worst possible situation for him, he'll attempt something so daring that at first glance looks totally crazy, with one of the two following goals in mind : it will give him an absolute edge due to Loophole Abuse, or it will just Mind Screw his opponent out of his brains. To the point this gets lampshaded to him in later arcs.
• Rule of Cool: It feels like this whole manga breathes this trope. Most of the stuff Tomu pulls could be done without resorting to it, but it just adds to his psychic warfare arsenal that he pulls all his antics with STYLE. Other gamblers also use and abuse this, and the whole manga itself too, screwing laws of physics and biology because a gambler's soul transcends the body's endurance.
• Rushmore Refacement: Mister Abidani is challenged by the President of the United States to a game of Russian Roulette Poker. If the President Wins, Abidani (or his corpse) is taken into the custody of the US government so they can study the code-breaking math formulas he tattooed on his skin. If Abidani wins, the President adds his face to Mount Rushmore. Abidani wins, and the epilogue of the series show his face on Mount Rushmore along with a blurb about the United States citizens being very upset and confused. The President can only say it was "for the sake of national security".
• Sadist Teacher: Abidani. Just Abidani. For hell's sake, he even has his own secret seminar, which is really where the most dangerous elements of Shishido Academy are locked up, or where its 'bad pupils' get sent for 'correction' by him and said dangerous elements. Needless to say a lot of corporal punishment is involved. And, it seems the Shishido Academy Headmaster can top him at this sort of game, though he does not "teach" per se.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Tomu.
• Schmuck Bait: Shyu Omei challenges Shirasagi to a game: he drops a bundle of cash in one jar, a poisonous snake in another, puts a cloth over them, shakes them a bit, then lets Shirasagi pick one. There's no trick to it and the choice should be obvious, but Shirasagi grabs the snake anyways because Shyu Omei specifically manipulates him into overthinking the game.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Tomu may be playing gambling matches with loads of cash on the line, but the money is secondary to him. His objective is getting back the Shirasagi Clan's family treasure, the Twin Herons. He also intends to settle things with Abidani, which is why he turns down a bribe of several million dollars from Don Romero, who wanted him to drop out of the competition.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!:
  • The main reason Abidani is allowed to essentially do whatever he wants at the school no matter how blatantly illegal it is. As he makes mind boggling amounts of money during the Class Reunion Tournament for the school.
  • Emily Dawn blatantly stated that she could kill Tomu in the middle of a full classroom and suffer no punishment because of this trope. It also allowed her to drive a tank through a school wall.
• Serious Business: Gambling, in this manga, takes so much importance, even the president of the USA, King Omaha, participates in the Shishidou Alumni Meeting's gambling tournament. Hell, if gambling wasn't Serious Business, and if the Headmaster didn't have his own business to settle, Tomu would be expelled out of school for his antics.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Con Artist in the Gamble Tournament gets stopped by the group and Mika throwing a high heel shoe at his forehead. His response when he is arrested?
  I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling kids and that dumb shoe!
• Slasher Smile: Every gambler in the manga gets to show this when they get fired up. Abidani has one stuck to his face permanently.
• Snow Means Death: Used for the traffic accident in which Tsukiyono's brother died.
• Star-Crossed Lovers:
  • Mika seems to think of herself as this to Tomu, due to their dueling families.
  • It must run in the family as Mika's grandmother was this with Tengu, as her family would not allow her to be in a relationship with a unnamed mountain man.
• Strip Poker:
  • First round of the Dice battle involves calculating prime numbers — with the loser being forced to remove clothing. Later, Tomu uses his three female sidekicks as his stake in poker, in which they each have to strip in front of the casino crowd. In typical Tomu fashion, he freely loses until he is able to figure out his opponent's weakness; his patience naturally concerning the ladies who are becoming more and more exposed!
  • Mizuhara is revealed to play this online in his free time under the alias Kaiser Mizuhara. It is because of this he is actually a very skilled poker player.
  • Then a literal version in 10 Point Poker where the cards are covering a naked Mika. So she is being stripped of the cards as the game continues.
• Take Off Your Clothes:
  • Tomu gets Tsukiyono, Natsumi and Mizuhara to take off their uniforms so he can wrap himself against a burning hot cauldron. The clothes catch fire, leaving the three of them in their underwear in front of a whole crowd. They (the crowd and the trio) aren't too phased considering how the gamble was Serious Business.
  • Subverted when Tsukiyono spontaneously takes everything off to prove to Abidani that she isn't hiding any tricks.
  • Tomu instructs Mika to take her ski clothing off. Mika misunderstands the instruction and ends up stripping naked.
  • Natsumi, Yuka, and Rio were forced into this in a game of strip poker Tomu was playing with 100 billion yen and the Shishidou Crystal Lion at stake.
  • In the Guillotine Mahjong match, Emily takes off her clothes to use as a makeshift rope to pull herself to safety, but the wire she lassoed was electrified, stopping her attempt. Regardless, she managed to bounce herself to safety onto the stage's rafters. Later, Yuka, Rio, and Mayo strip to their lingerie to use their clothes as makeshift ropes to prevent themselves from falling into the spiked floor when their support balloons pop.
• Tank Goodness: Emily performs a Dynamic Entry with one by driving it through a wall.
• Tempting Fate: At the beginning of the dice game arc when Tomu was trying to find two more teammates, Natsumi assures him if he doesn't, she and Mizuhara would be his allies (much to the latter's fear). Tomu gets Yuka and Hiruko as his teammates. However, Hiruko turned out to be The Mole for Abidani's team and effectively took out Yuka through the use of a cow laxative, leaving Tomu alone. Fortunately, Natsumi returns to fill in for one of the missing spots, and Mizuhara gets forced into it by the next opponent.
• The Bus Came Back: Every opponent (From his first opponents Aoto and Kaizuka to the Green Berets) that Tomu defeated throughout the series made a reappearance on chapter 161 on the premise that they're rooting for Tomu to defeat Abidani.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Pretty much everything Emily Dawn does: from playing tennis with swings so powerful they look like cannon fire, running a tank through a building to employing the Green Beret (complete with Helicopters and real guns) to help her in a game of Capture the Flag against teenagers.
• This Is Unforgivable!: The reason why Jasmine holds a grudge against Shuu Oumei is because she is the daughter of Shuu, yet he casually abandoned her in a casino baccarat match against Abidani all by herself. Not only did Jasmine lost against Abidani and the $100 million USD of the casino's money, Shuu Adding Insult to Injury by disowning Jasmine as no more than a pawn for his scheme to defeat Abidani. This emotional trauma leads to Jasmine developing a Superpowered Evil Side in the form of her split personality "Molly", Abidani's lover.
• Together in Death: In the Guillotine Mahjong match, where losers die alongside their respective "guardian angel" hostage, Yuka (Tomu's "guardian angel") laments that if she is going to die there, she can at least take comfort in seeing her dead brother again as well as dying alongside Tomu if he loses. This gets on the nerves of the other "angels", Emily saying she won't forgive Yuka if she were to be married to Tomu in the afterlife, and Mayo saying Emily is in no position to demand that then bragged about how she got further with Tomu than the rest of them. Rio had to remind the girls that they still need to figure out how to stay alive from the spike pits.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Yuka's Tomboy to Natsumi's Girly Girl.
• Tournament Arc: Occurs later in the manga when Tomu attends Shishidou Academy-hosted Class Reunion in summer.
• Troll: Abidani. Just... Abidani...
• Tsundere: Mika Shishidou, definitely. She comes off hating Tomu in the beginning, but her developing crush on him becomes very apparent, especially after Emily Dawn entered the picture.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: Mayo Hanasaki at the conclusion of the dice games. She wore a dress with a plunging neckline showing an ample amount of cleavage, yet she was able to hide a small vial of poison down there, which she planned to use to commit suicide, but was stopped by Tomu via "Shut Up" Kiss / Kiss of Distraction.
• Villainous Breakdown: Headmaster Shishidou at the end of the manga.
• Waif-Fu: Natsumi may look delicate, but she's got a surprisingly strong punch. Gokijima learns this the hard way and gets floored after Tomu realized he was disguised as the chef.
• Worf Had the Flu: Throughout the first two rounds of the dice games Tsukiyono was incapacitated by a powerful laxative administered by the mole, leaving Tomu without the aid of what seemed to be his two strongest allies.
• Xanatos Gambit: The Pool Hustler had one during the Pool Arc. If Tomu wins, he gets 4 million yen, and if he loses, he still has the 2 million he got up front. However, Tomu is later able to get back said 2 million.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Mizuhara realizes that Tomu is trying to give him a strategy during the dice stacking game when Tomu calls him Mushroom-head, as Tomu is the only person who does not called him that.
• You Meddling Kids: Said word for word by the Con Artist as he is arrested in the Gamble Tournament.
• Younger Than They Look: The Gato sisters, who are actually children who developed adult bodies. This is a result of either the pact they made with a local god, or just sheer force of will.

---