#I can even predict kirari’s first line | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

snakedevour · 1 year

Text

new kakegurui chapter released today and as i am like to do... i've got a couple thoughts. i dunno if this'll constitute a full deep-dive but (finger guns) another month another dump of my thoughts on kakegurui chapter 99.

spoilers galore for the kkg manga as always

i recommend referencing my deep dive on chapters 96 and 97 for some supplemental context but i'll probably be recycling a few panels from it. a lot of things are still/are even more relevant so like. yeah

the first major bullet point for chapter 99 is that souko's appearance is Somewhat consistent with her formerly anime-only appearance from rei's flashbacks

and by that i mean... she wore a kimono and had her hair in that updo whenever she was at the momobami mansion. the design isn't 100% but the jist is more or less the same. ideally this means that while kkgxx had some anime-only contrivances in it, homura isn't writing the manga in a way that contradicts it. with that in mind, there's a standout detail from kkgxx:

rei was present during souko's breakdown. where was rei when this happened? the momobami main house. souko, as of this chapter, is about to gamble vs her aunt tsugiko... at the momobami main house. these particular stars are aligning despite the schrodinger's canon of rei's backstory.

should we suppose that this stays consistent, we know this gamble is going to go one of two ways:

souko loses

souko wins, but something else goes awry

the gamble itself is for the title of the jabami family head, but furthermore operates on the conditions of

if souko wins, tsugiko is ousted from the family

if tsugiko wins, she adopts yumeko as her daughter and heir

considering what we know in hindsight and putting that together with these conditions, we'll probably see souko's breakdown by the conclusion of this game and moreover and at the same time, it's probably most likely that souko will win. this is a reasonable guess because sayaka ran that background check on yumeko waaayyy back in chapter 10:

just like i did in my summaries for 97 and 98, i'm going to re-highlight "yumeko jabami currently lives alone" and "her only other family is her sister"

the reality is that aunt tsugiko is not in the picture. as possible as it is that souko loses (which would facilitate some manner of breakdown, which we know will happen somehow) and then something else happens to tsugiko between that and the main plot, that feels a little contrived when this whole game has been set up. iunno.

the other thing is that we have terano's line about "kirari killing jabami"

we already know that to be "killed" in the momobami family means to lose your personhood and to lose your seat in the clan. this can still refer to something with souko we just haven't seen yet, but it's worth remembering that this was the condition in the event of tsugiko's loss.

the problem is that... if souko wins, something else causes her breakdown. if she loses, we know that her breaking point is probably losing guardianship of yumeko.

on the other hand, her winning still leaves that circumstance a mystery unless her aunt were to go on to do something unhinged after losing. though admittedly, tsugiko doesn't seem to be above going off the deep end:

i will say though that tsugiko doesn't outright answer souko's question here... it's more like she doesn't deny it and that leaves room for elaboration later... that this is a red herring i think is in the realm of possibility. the jabami parents' death either has something to do with tsugiko or kabura (who's definitely up to something) -- they're the only new characters of note introduced in this flashback and that's how storytelling works.

my tentative prediction is that souko "wins the battle but loses the war" so to speak. i think she'll beat her aunt in the gamble because tsugiko is just Not There in the main story, implying she's been ousted, but something else is bound to go wrong. maybe tsugiko gets real ugly upon losing, who knows. if absolutely nothing else, we know from her interaction with kabura last chapter that there's Something Else going on with her.

we also have to remember that yumeko thinks of souko when manyuda asks her if she feels remorse for "the people whose lives she's ruined" but now for all we know that could refer to souko playing this game for her sake, so...there's definitely stuff that's yet to be revealed. too bad we gotta wait another month 🤨

#the kkg deep dive #kakegurui spoilers #long post /

13 notes · View notes