A Resisting Girl
After the treasure hunt in the last episode, Kakegurui’s finale comes down to one last conflict between Sakura and Mary. Who will come out on top? Hyakkaou Academy is in for quite the showdown and this final chapter rounds everything out nicely, with a couple of well-placed twists along the way. Aptly titled “A Resisting Girl” (a throwback to Mary’s tenacity and never-say-die attitude this season), Sakura and Mary – having both won their respective treasure hunts – prepare for their final match. And of course, they’re both going to be gambling.
What game do Mary and Sakura play?
Aoi shows up to oversee proceedings, deciding to be the dealer for this. He tells them both he’s rooting for them, but Sakura and Mary are guarded and don’t give much away. The game the girls will be playing is called Dice-Nim. Essentially, two players remove 1-3 stones from a 20 stone pile. The loser is the person who takes the final stone. To spice things up, they’ll be using a dice to remove the number of Go pieces from the pile against whatever they roll. There’s no fancy equipment and barely any room for manipulation. A lot of this game is luck-based. With Mary doubting her own abilities, given she’s only just descended into this world, Tsuzara promise to stay by her friend’s side throughout the entirety of this game. So the match gets underway and each of the girls take it in turns. They’re only using the black Go stones for now, but both girls test the stones to make sure they’re legit (they are). Mary’s plan here is to try and use her numbers to her advantage, tasking Tsuzara with making loads of noise as a distraction. There’s a bigger plan to work here but it backfires on Mary.
How did Mary lose the game?
Remember the distraction? Well, it turns out Mary was actually biding her time to switch the die with only 7 pieces left, making sure she rolled 6 so Sakura is left to roll 1 and lose the game. However, Mary still loses the game. But how? Well, it turns out Sakura actually removed one of the Go stones earlier on and decided to play Mary at her own game, having sussed out what she was up to earlier on. Given Sakura’s unpredictable bouts in the past, she’s wise to these sort of deceptions. Mary is shocked. She’s lost the game and her plan has gone up in smoke… or has it?
How does Mary find the treasure box?
Tsuzara and Yukimi leaving earlier on served as an alternate ploy other than an annoying distraction. They were heading off to find the other treasure box. Something Sakura overlooked is that the two numbered musical notations represent a point on the map… that has three-dimensional coordinates. This is the real secret they needed to decipher and something Sakura completely overlooked. She’s shell-shocked when Mary’s friends return with the box, leaving Sakura empty-handed and losing overall. Sachiko is impressed by Mary’s foresight, given the entire game was actually a ploy to buy her more time to find the treasure. Sakura’s confidence – especially showing them the map – was enough for Mary to come out on top.
How does Kakegurui Twin end?
Mary’s win also gains her entry privileges to Full-Bloom. Aoi certainly doesn’t object and neither does Sakura either. Only, Aoi shrugs off the latter’s courtesy and tells Sakura she’s gone and dropped. Aoi sees her as a liability given how much she underestimated Mary. “We don’t need people who fall behind,” He says. Hearing all this, Mary slaps away Aoi’s hand and promises she’s never going to join Full Bloom. Instead, she decides to carve her own place in this world. As she walks away, she prepares for her role to play in Kakegurui. But wait, there’s a final scene involving Aoi after the credits! With the focus on Sachiko, Aoi mentions off-screen that he’s confident Mary is going to join Full-Boom in the future. And as the camera cuts across to Aoi, he admits that he has a crush on Mary too.
The Episode Review
So Kakegurui Twin bows out with a decent final chapter, layering on the usual delicious twists. With Mary down on her luck, it was perhaps obvious that she’d get the upper-hand over Sakura using her friends, and alas that much is true with the big revelation at the end. With Mary winning the treasure box game and overcoming Sakura, the latter’s over-confidence comes back to bite her as she finds herself losing out on not just the game but also a place in Full Bloom too. The story has been pretty formulaic though and 6 episodes are certainly not enough time to fully get invested in Mary’s backstory. In fact, the first 2 minutes just rockets us through her history before diving into the gambling. There’s nothing wrong with that but given where we found her at the start of episode 1 in Kakegurui (or volume 1 of the Manga!) then it perhaps would have been nice to see a bit more of her early life. Ultimately, this prequel bows out on a high, with a compelling final chapter and a nice way of easing into the main series. Read More: Kakegurui Twin Season 1 Review Thanks for reading our Ending Explained article! What did you think of Kakegurui Twin’s ending? Did you enjoy this prequel? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
