Kakegurui — Visceral Emotional Masochism
With what I’ve posted so far here, while it’s obvious that I enjoy sexual subjects in my anime, you may think that I’m only a fan of comedy ecchi. That couldn’t be further from the truth though. The most recent addition to my favorite anime is one that came out a few years ago, and while not overtly sexual in the same way other series I’ve talked about here are, has a lot of connotation to it that makes it incredibly intriguing.
Kakegurui is a series about gambling and predicament. While games start innocently enough, the stakes get higher, to the point where characters are putting their lives on the line for the thrill of it. Our protagonist is almost consistently in a state of panic, but the other characters go through the bets as if it’s their drug of choice, not necessarily to win, but because the risk has them so aroused. Particularly in the live action series, we see him lamenting frequently about how any risk is too much to handle, where the main girl dives right into the games for simply the rush involved, win or lose.
There’s more than a few times where you see characters talking their way through strategy and the difficulty of a situation, and we see them actually getting off from what they could lose. It’s a perfect example of how sexuality and kink can exist in a space entirely outside of physical sensation. Emotional masochism is something that we usually think about as degradation and name calling. However, it can also be the mindfuck of difficult situations with intense risk involved. Situations…