Refusing Women (Episode)

## Refusing Women

**Refusing Women** is the seventh episode of Season One in the *Kakegurui animated series*. It is produced by MAPPA and aired in Japan on the 19th of August, 2017.

## Summary

Yumeko Jabami and Ryota Suzui continue their gambling match against Midari Ikishima. Meanwhile, Mary Saotome makes her decision on whether or not she will accept Kirari Momobami's offer and join the Student Council.

## Plot

Picking up where it left off at the end of episode 6, Yumeko Jabami recommends to Midari Ikishima that she doesn't pull the trigger on the gun she's wielding. Midari believes that Yumeko is begging for her life, but Yumeko explains that the gun Midari is pointing at her is actually her gun revealing that there's a mark on the barrel of the gun and that not only did she loaded half of the gun with lipstick and the remaining half with three bullets meaning that there's a 50% chance that the gun will misfire. Midari looks at the gun and points it back at Yumeko asking if she has no choice but to pull. Yumeko then tells her that what she said was just a bluff and that she didn't load the gun with any bullets. Disappointed, Midari sits back in her seat. Yumeko asks her why she's doing this, and Midari explains that she enjoys the thrill of taking a risk. Whenever she's gambling normally for money, she doesn't feel anything no matter how much she wins or loses. It's all the same to her. She then talks about how she can't see out of her left eye. She then explains that it's because she lost it in a gambling match against Kirari Momobami.

The scene then switches to a flashback to a gambling match between Kirari and Midari. Midari lost ¥300,000,000 to Kirari and had no means of paying it off. To Midari, gambling was boring, so she didn't care how much debt she had. Hearing that, Kirari learned that not fearing was her biggest advantage when it came to gambling. Realizing that making Midari a house pet and making a life plan for her wasn't gonna work, Kirari asked her if she's seen the other side of the moon and then explained how she's never seen the other side from Earth. She then talked about how she's never seen the other side of a human, so she decided that Midari's left eye will be payment for the ¥300,000,000. Kirari then told her to have surgery for the removal the next day, but Midari stopped her and gouged out her own eye with a ballpoint pen. Midari then explained that the true risk of gambling is pain, physical pain to be exact. Afterwards, Midari then challenged Kirari to another gambling match, but Kirari declined stating that she had no obligation to accept then she didn't have any money to put on the line. Midari told her that she does in the form of her other which Kirari stated was worth ¥300,000,000. Kirari fell silent and asked her to join the Student Council, but Midari declined the offer because she only wanted to gamble. Kirari then compromised by saying that if she joined, she would kill her someday.

Back in present time, Midari remembers how her mind went numb from the thrill. In her mind, she understood why the world loved to gamble. They don't want to feel pain let alone die, and she believes that Yumeko understands. Yumeko pretends to not understand, but Midari tells her not to be like that believing that they're the same inside. She then goes on about how Kirari still hasn't accepted her her challenge ever since. Now she believes that Yumeko is the only option for her.

The second begins with Ryota Suzui thinking about the first round and how he and Yumeko have information they can share. He thinks about how his cards were aligned, how Yumeko's cards were aligned, and how Midari's cards were aligned. With that information, he decides to match one of those hands since he knows that Yumeko is well-aware of the fact that he could only come up with those three options. The downside to this is that he only remembers how his cards were aligned and how Yumeko's cards were aligned because those were what he was looking at. Then he realizes that it's normal not to remember something since the average person can't naturally remember something like that. If Midari wanted to remember how one of their hands were aligned, she would remember Ryota's hand instead of Yumeko's hand. On the other hand, that's not the case for Yumeko since she remembers every detail of every hand. With that in mind, Ryota decides to copy her hand from the first round.

The scene then switches to Mary being pressured to join the Student Council by Kirari. Mary asks her why she set up the House pet system to begin with treating those who don't have money like animals. Kirari walks away and looks at the fish tank in the room. She talks about how the fish in the tank live in a world of survival of the fittest. If the weakest of the bunch were eliminated, what would happen? Another bunch over that would be considered the weakest. The system would grow, and some would rise up and fight against the strong and could possibly steal from them as well. Kirari then wonders if people were like those fish. What would happen if the people at the bottom rose up against those at the top.

Back to the match between Yumeko and Midari, Yumeko tells Midari that this game will 100% end in a draw. Midari retorts by saying that she knows that Yumeko is like her. The risk of gambling is the greatest pleasure she feels and that she wants to risk death with her. Hearing that, Yumeko feels justified about only doing three rounds showing that she doesn't want to risk dying if she loses and that she doesn't feel any sort of fear in this game. The reason why she doesn't feel any sort of fear is because she has faith in Ryota. Enraged by her reasoning, Midari loads six bullets in her gun and dares Yumeko to try and end the game in a draw. With the guns loaded, they flipped their cards over. In the second round, Yumeko wins 5-3. She holds up a peace sign letting Ryota know that she saw what he did. Ryota sighs in relief knowing that Yumeko is safe for the next round. Meanwhile, Midari wonders how she managed to guess correctly on all five cards. After some thinking, she realizes that Yumeko was better than she expected. Yumeko then pulls a gun out of the box and points it at Midari. Midari grins and starts hyperventilating in hopes that she gets shot and dies. When Yumeko pulls the trigger, nothing happens. Yumeko knew that she was holding her gun since her gun by itself weighs just under a kilogram meaning her gun weighed lighter than Midari's gun. Midari realizes that she won't be able to beat Yumeko, so she decides to put a plan in motion.

In the observation room, Ryota is amazed over the fact that Yumeko basically read her mind. While he was too busy mesmerized by Yumeko, the girls in the room with him gets an order from Midari and presses a button on a remote. Coming to his senses, Ryota decides to use the same plan from round 2 and copies Yumeko's hand again, but that plan is put on hold when he looks at the monitor realizing that Midari and her girls were cheating. He calls them out on it, but they feign ignorance and tell him to lay out his cards. He refuses to go along with it, so they put Midari on speaker. Midari then tells Ryota that if he doesn't lay down his cards in ten seconds, she will kill Yumeko. She starts counting down from ten and with no other choice, Ryota lays down his cards. Finally getting Ryota to do what she wants, Midari looks at Yumeko only to realize that she's enraged her. Yumeko puts two bullets in her gun and points it at Midari telling her that she shouldn't have threatened Ryota the way she did so as punishment, she put two bullets in her gun. Midari laughs hysterically at the sudden turnabout and decides to follow suit by putting two bullets in her gun as well.

Afterwards, Ryota reluctantly flips over his cards. Yumeko looks at the monitor and gets bored. Midari looks at her wondering what she meant. Yumeko explains that Ryota is right-handed, yet for the first two rounds he flipped the cards with his left hand with the wave card he played being backwards every time. That meant that the video Yumeko and Midari were watching was reflected in a mirror with left being right and vice versa. In the third round, Ryota was flipping the cards with his right hand with no reflection, but that doesn't explain how he managed to recreate Yumeko's hand from the second round. If anything, he should have done it reversed bringing Yumeko to the conclusion that the video that Ryota was seeing was also reflected in a mirror. This is revealed that Midari has been cheating the entire, so Yumeko tells her not to insult her by denying it. She also revealed that she knew exactly what Ryota was gonna do, and it went exactly the way she expected even with the cheat being exposed. When Midari realized that Yumeko incorporated her cheat into her plan, she smiled and flipped over her cards revealing that she got all five cards wrong making it near impossible to end the game in a draw. Midari jumps for joy when she realizes that Yumeko is pretty much the same as Kirari. She then tells her to flip over her cards and then control her like she's supposedly controlling Ryota.

Annoyed by her character, Yumeko flips over her cards one a time. She then gives a speech bout how she knew that Midari was intentionally trying to lose the game explaining why she let Ryota play the dealer. In the first round, the main reason why Midari didn't hesitate to pull the trigger was because she didn't care if she was in danger or not. Yumeko tolerated that for the time being, but she reveals her true feelings saying that the entire game was just plain shameful. When she flips over the fourth card, Midari desperately tries to stop her to no avail. She then talks about how the cheat was basically meant to be exposed just by the wave card. She goes into a "what if" situation where she asks what if there was another wave on it showing that there was no way to know if it was upside down or not. With all that in mind, Yumeko comes to the conclusion that in Midari's mind, she wins only if she dies. After flipping over her last card, she shows that she got every card wrong. In the observation room, jumps for joy when Yumeko ended the game in a draw.

Back in the interrogation room, Midari questions Yumeko on why she put two bullets in her gun if she knew she was gonna win. Enraged by everything she experienced, Yumeko tells her that the revolver had 6 chambers and that she put in 2 bullets with 4 empty chambers. If the difference in score was five then one bullet would have been fired. Yumeko then explains that she knew if Midari got all five cards wrong, a tie would have been impossible and that if Midari got one or two right, then there was a decent chance that Yumeko would have been shot. In the end, Yumeko lays it all out on the table when she says that this "gambling" match isn't gambling. It's a pathetic game that isn't even entertaining. She then states that she and Midari are nothing alike though she agrees with her the fact that a gamble can be entertaining if both sides might feel pain. This leads to Yumeko calling Midari out on trying to monopolize all that pain. In the end, Yumeko realizes that Midari doesn't enjoy the risk of gambling but in actuality she just wants to die. This makes Midari the type of gambler Yumeko hates more than anyone. To put it in Yumeko's words, Midari "pisses her off." Midari finally sees the type of person Yumeko is and basically worships her like she's some kind of goddess. Yumeko gets out of her chair and leaves, but Midari desperately begs her to stop and just shoot her just once. Yumeko looks her way, just says no, and walks out.

The scene then cuts to the Kirari and Mary. Kirari questions what Mary said to her, and Mary tells her that she won't be joining the Student Council. Kirari questions why she refused her offer thinking that Mary doesn't like the way she treats the house pets leading to her believing that she always had a strong sense of justice. Enraged by her comment, Mary tells her she doesn't have to answer that question and leaves the room leaving Kirari disappointed with this turnabout.

Later that day, Ryota confronts Yumeko noticing that she may be upset about the game between her and Midari. Yumeko looks at Ryota and asks him if he's in the mood for a sweets buffet. The catch is the loser of a coin flip pays. If it lands on Heads, Ryota must pay but if it lands on Tails, Yumeko must pay. Ryota politely declines the offer due to the fact that he barely has any money on him, and Yumeko desperately asks if he could. Unable to resist the adorable look on Yumeko's face, Ryota acts tough and agrees to the terms. Yumeko flips the coin, and Ryota hopes that it lands on Tails. Yumeko then asks him why he decided to recreate her hand in the third round of the game even though he knew they were cheating. Ryota asks her why she wants to know, but Yumeko begs him to tell her the reason. Obliging, Ryota admits that he didn't have much time and that he couldn't think of anything else, but he hoped that Yumeko would realize that he didn't know what to do and pick up on it unaware of the fact that he was doing exactly what she predicted him to do. To sum it all up, Ryota was hoping that Yumeko would just understand how he thinks and feels leaving Yumeko flustered by his reasoning. Ryota apologizes for not being able to do anything at the time, but Yumeko finally understands him. She lifts up her hand revealing that coin landed on Tails meaning that Yumeko has to pay for the sweets buffet. Realizing that he won the coin flip, Ryota jumps for joy like he just survived a life or death situation. Still flustered by his reasoning, Yumeko giggles and thanks him for the simple fact that because of him she had a lot of fun gambling.

In the final scene, Mary looks out the window of an empty room enraged by what she witnessed from Kirari. She comments about Kirari assumed that she had a sense of justice, but in actuality, Mary was enraged over the fact that Kirari doesn't see house pets as human believing that they're a lesser race. This leads to Mary coming to the conclusion that Kirari thinks that she's less than her. Because of this, Mary swears to put an end to Kirari and her reign over the academy.

## Differences between anime and manga

* When we see Midari gamble with Kirari in her flashback, in the manga, there is a small audience in attendance. In the anime, they’re only Student Council members Runa, Sayaka, and Ririka (Chapter 13).
* When Mary questions Kirari about why she created a house pet system, in the manga, Kirari explains the inspiration for actions coming from the policies on gambling in medieval Europe. Instead, in the anime, Kirari uses her aquarium in a survival of the fittest philosophy as an example to explain how she applies that to Hyakkaou Academy (Chapter 16).
* After Mary turns down Kirari’s invitation, in the manga, she runs into Yumeko and Ryota in the hallway. In the anime, Mary is seen in library prep room number two by herself, holding a hair clip from Tsuzura. This reference is the spinoff Kakegurui Twin (Chapter 16).