Kakegurui has always been known for two things: Mentally deranged high schoolers gambling and outstanding opening/ending credits. The halfbaked prequel series Kakegurui Twin only has one of those things. Unfortunately the opening is a generic instrumental song with awkwardly lifeless visuals. If you enjoyed Kakeguruis first two seasons for its ridiculous characters disturbing facial expressions and idiotic games Twin might scratch that itch. Instead of following Yumeko and her generic male companion I do not remember his name this short spinoff series focuses on Mary Saotomes origin at Hyakkou academy. Upon enrolling a naiive Mary allies with Tsuzura a friendly girl with no gambling skills. Both immediately become in debt conned and forced into the role of Housepet AKA Kakeguruis bondageinspired penalty for broke students. The dynamic duo leads a refreshing hybrid sitcom Gambling Apocalypse x 2 Broke Girls as they attempt to rise in the schools ranking. Its a lazy rehash of the first seasons plot. 1000https://gaminguardian.com/wpcontent/uploads/2022/06/Kakegurui.png Theres a handful of side charactersmostly girls only distinguishable by candycolored hair and the number of times the camera zooms in on their breasts. The few male characters onedimensional perverts at best are motivated by their desire to win against and/or date the girls. The guys bet for girls like a more NTR version of RentaGirlfriend whereas the girls bet for cash. Each gamble is laced with the series patented horninessif that annoys you dont even bother watching Twin because its more like a fanservice OVA stretched thin rather than a standalone spinoff. Twins most noticeable difference from the anime is its aesthetics. Oversaturated lighting and highcontrast colorgrading make it feel like youre tripping on psychedelics. Those effects look fabulous in the colorful posters in the anime its a cheap attempt at covering lackluster art and mediocre animation. MAPPAs entire production appears rushed and with zero impressive animation cuts its clear the studio was on a time constraint. Twin sucks as a spinoff to Kakegurui because the author wrote the original manga with zero thought for a prequel. You could easily watch Twin without seeing the first two seasons. The original story themes and characters are irrelevant. Six episodes pass and almost nothing new is learned about Mary partially because thatd risk messing up the continuity. The new characters are gone and forgotten by the end. At least it makes no pretense of complex characters unlike the main anime. The ending teased a sequel which Ill watch like the fool I am so perhaps theyll explain how dozens of characters disappeared. Even the mysterious student council is barely referencedwasting the opportunity to develop the enigmatic members. However theres not much you could do to fix the originals flaws. Almost every problem in the first two seasonslack of logic no stakes shallow characterization etc.applies to this one so go read AndoCommandos reviews if you want an indepth analysis. 1000https://i.ur.com/WbE0KSI.png Kakegurui was ironically entertaining in its own schlocky way. Twin was just phoned in Netflix fodder. The overthetop personalities unhinged mannerisms and overexaggerated voice acting of the first two seasons are nowhere to be found. Its as if someone fed Kakegurui to Netflixs algorithm and removed all the trashy charm. Thank god this was only a mere 6 episodes. I dont think I wouldve survived anymore.