Kakugurui Twin takes place a year before the main Kakegurui series and follows Mary Saotome in the year before Yumeko arrives as throws the school into chaos with her compulsive gambling ways. However, from episode one it is clear that the Mary we see in Kakugurui Twin is far different from the Mary we are introduced to at the start of the main series.
Mary in Kakugurui Twin is kind, supportive, and a bit unsure of herself. She goes to extreme lengths to free her friend Tsuzura from housepet status and grandly rewards those who work with her like Yukimi. Mary at the start of Kakegurui, on the other hand, is sadistic, violent, and loves mocking those she sees as beneath her. The games she plays are rigged to the point where its nearly impossible for her to lose and she readily uses house pet students as furniture.
This is the mystery at the heart of Kakugurui Twin: what happened to change Mary so drastically in one single year of school. And while we don’t have a specific answer given in the first season of Kakegurui Twin, there are some big hints when you compare the two anime—namely what’s not present across both: Mary’s friends.
Tsuzura and Yukimi are no where to be found in Karkegurui. Mary still goes to the literature club room but is seen alone there. She controls her class with an iron fist—with most of her classmates in debt to her—but she has no one that she trusts enough to show any weakness to. When she and Yumeko play the debt swap game, the plan hinges on Mary going massively into debt—preferably to someone who will return the money after and not hold it over her head. However, the fact that she choses Ryota and not Tsuzura or Yukimi means one of two things: either Tsuzura and Yukimi are no longer Mary’s friends, or they are no longer at the school.
Among these two, it is the latter than seems more likely. After her confrontation with the school president in the seventh episode of Kakegurui, Mary goes to the literature club room there she holds Tsuzura’s signature hairpin and rages at how the president looks down on house pets and her by association. However, this is the only sign of Tsuzura and Yukimi in the series. In fact, for all we know, either or both could be dead.
While what happened with these two is likely vital to Mary’s massive shift in personality between the two series, that’s not to say it’s the only cause. Even over Kakugurui Twin’s first season alone we start to see the bad side of her personality come out naturally—especially against those who look down on her. Kakugurui Twin makes it clear that Mary has a massive inferiority complex stemming from the fact that she is a scholarship student unlike the rich kids that populate the prestigious private school. Perhaps it not what happened to Tsuzura and Yukimi that changed Mary as much as it is the absence of having people she can trust in her life to reign in the worst parts of her personality. After all, once Ryota and Yumeko enter her life, she largely stops her random acts of callousness and soon becomes an ally they can count on (with her own goal of bringing down the school president).
Regardless, the interpersonal mystery surrounding Mary’s change in personality makes each episode captivating. I for one can’t wait to see more of Mary’s fall from grace if/when we get more episodes of Kakegurui Twin.
Top image copyright: ©河本ほむら・尚村透・斎木桂/SQUARE ENIX・「賭ケグルイ双」製作委員会
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