Manga: Kakegurui Twin 2

Kakegurui Twin Vol 2 
Rating: 4/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review! 

After losing her hard-earned profits to student council member Aoi Mibuomi, a penniless Mary is given a chance to take it all back on just one condition: she must team up with Aoi to oust the student council president! But in order to do so, she needs to first prove her skills in one of the academy's most popular annual events-the Coupling Party! Will Mary be able to use her gambling prowess to survive this dirty game of cupid? 

I've probably already said this but I want to reiterate...I love this spin off, it's such a strong spin off and is consistently strong each volume much like the main series! As we all know from the previous volume, Mary has no choice but to team up with Aoi if she wants to avoid becoming a house pet, and this volume reveals his plan to take down the Student Council President...of course we know certain things from the main series so I'm curious to see this play out. 

This volume sees Mary get roped in to a Coupling Party to prove her gambling skills and I have to say it's an interesting game and we haven't seen one quite like it just yet in the main series, so it made a nice and exciting change from the card and dice games as you wondered how Mary was going to come out on top and how this game could be cheated when it relied on people. Of course as always...there's never any guarantees with this series that our protagonists are going to win! 

I felt a lot of empathy for Mary who's struggling in this volume with being constantly deceived and is struggling to trust people, it's a realistic reaction for her circumstances and seeing her pull herself out of it was admirable. I'm always amazed that the creator for this series can take characters that you might not like...and have you sympathising with them. 

This volume makes for tense reading (which volume of this and the main series doesn't?!) as it was unclear who the mole was. Then there's the fact that if the person who is the mole, really is the mole...then how did they do it? And if they weren't the mole, who was? And again...how did they do it? Along with all of that tension we also get a shock twist and betrayal that I didn't quite see coming and I was left screaming after that chapter! 

This volume really had me going at one point, and it's as twisty and tense as ever! I may or may not have cheered in relief once I'd gotten past the tension, but then...Mary has only succeeded in attracting more attention to herself, which leaves me with a little bit of foreboding! Now that this little interlude is over, and Mary has proved what a badass, scheming genius she is I'm excited to move on to seeing her participate in the scheme against the Student Council President in the coming volumes! 

Manga: Kakegurui Twin

Kakegurui Twin Vol 1 
Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review! 

As a first-year student of the renowned Hyakkaou Private Academy, Mary Saotome knows her future is set for a one-way cruise to the top...That is, until an encounter with an old-classmate-turned-housepet throws the newbie princess into the world of gambling! Can a normal girl like Mary make friends and survive debtless through only wit and luck? 

As you can probably tell from the synopsis, this prequel series starts from when Mary first joins the Academy and when we first meet her, she's a scholarship student and new to gambling. Plus she's not familiar entirely with how the school works which is quite the contrast between the Mary we know from the main series and met in the first volume of the main series. If you fancy reading this before diving in to the main series, don't worry, I don't see why you can't. There's even a refresher on the school's system for such an occasion. 

I was very interested in getting to see this slightly different Mary, but we also got some of her background, her childhood and some information on her family. I've warmed up to her character a lot in the main series, and become more intrigued by her so I was ready to get more information on her. I wasn't entirely expecting her to be how she is in this one though. I could see she was being messed with in the first chapter, and she was so naive to the school and gambling and it was so at odds with the Mary I know....which made me so excited for the coming volumes in this series to see her become the Mary we know from the main series. 

Mary spends this volume acclimatising to the school and gambling and she learns quite quickly. I have to say I felt more of a cheer for her wins than I did for Yumeko's in the beginning of the other series as I feel like Mary is a bit more of an underdog compared to Yumeko the gambling addict. Plus she comes across as such a regular person, I feel like Mary's a bit more relatable. 

We meet one of her childhood acquaintances, Tsuzura, which adds to the intrigue as I don't recall seeing her in the main series so I'm curious about what happens to her. We also meet a student council member who seems to have an issue and a plot against the President.....and now I need volume 2 asap! 

This volume hooked me in so fast, and as usual it had me on the edge of my seat with the high stakes and the twisted rules of certain card and dice games. We see a different, but no less determined, Mary from that we're used to, and we watch her start to build her way up to becoming a winner which is her ultimate goal.