Air Dates: March 31st to April 28, 2019 on MBS and TBS for a total of five episodes,
it was a lead in to the that was released on May 3rd.
Finally have gotten around to viewing this series and the first season was one of my top shows for 2018. That season had ten episodes while this one sadly just had five and think it mainly was a lead in for the movie. Will have all five recaps in a row and they shouldn't be too long as an episode is just 23 minutes long. Will also try having a different video at the top of every post, today's is a short scene from this episode. Like season one will list all of the characters with a pic and short bio of them, about ten from season one have returned and by the end of the second episode was introduced to four new characters. Will update the list as the episodes go on and of course the main star of this show is Minami though my fave character is Aoi's.
Minami Hamabe as Yumeko Jabami.... Was a new student in the first season and is totally addicted to gambling, she's on the hit list of the student council though they do respect her fearlessness.
Aoi Morikawa as Mary Saotome.... Now a friend of Yumeko's though that wasn't the case in the first season. Avid gambler whose only loss has been to Yumeko.
Mahiro Takasugi as Ryota Suzui.... Best friend of Yumeko's who dislikes gambling, is also a huge fan of the Idol Yumemi. Like Mary role is much smaller than season one.
Sayuri Matsumura as Yumemi Yumemite.... Student who returned to the school after beginning her career as an Idol and she's a popular one, member of the student council.
Taishi Nakagawa as Kaede Manyuda.... Student council's accountant who is determined to become the next president, role is much bigger than the first season.
Elaiza Ikeda as Kirari Momobami.... Student council president who we don't see too often, new to the series.
Yurika Nakamura as Sayaka Igarashi.... Assistant to the president, bit of a quite female who seems she's always about to explode though never does.
Natsume Mito as (L)Runa Yomozuki.... Student council member and a character who deserves a much bigger role.
Ruka Matsuda as Itsuki Sumeragi.... Former student council member who had to give up her position after losing to Yumeko, now is a part of her small group.
Miyuki Sawajo (voice) as the Vice President.... Hope the name is correct as she wasn't listed on any cast list, student council vice president who always wears a mask.
Yuki Someno as Saori.... Yumemi's manager and also a student.
The other students who don't have major roles, top person is new to this season. Bottom character will be explained a bit more in the fifth recap as through four shows she's had at the most twenty minutes of screen time but Mary seemed to join her group during the third episode.
Huge cast for a 23 minute show but of course most of the screen time belongs to Yumeko which is fine as she does deserve it. Bit of a background and then we'll dive into the recap, will leave this intro in all of the posts but may tweak things a bit here and there.
The setting is the exclusive Hyakkaou Private Academy which has been in existence for 122 years. There only the elite of the elite students are in attendance as save for a few their fathers are extremely wealthy or are high ranking politicians. However the school is anything but an academic institution as the main activity there is.... Gambling! And not for small stakes as the wagers run into the tens of million yen. Your school ranking is determined by how much money you have plus whether you've won at your gambling showdowns.
Losers are considered 'house pets' aka dogs or kitties depending upon your gender. They need to do anything the winners or student council members demand of them, for now no student on the above class list is a house pet though three once had been in that category. In the first season there was a new student who is the show's star, Yumeko. She shook things up as she was able to defeat three student council members which had never happened in the school's history, her main goal is to face off in a duel with the student council president. That should make everything easier to understand and I won't have to discuss those details, let's get on with this recap.
The 'Who has what it takes to be the best Idol?' contest continues on into it's sixth round. It's a game of Tic-Tac-Toe so whoever gets three marks in a row wins the entire match, one more victory for Yumeko will clinch the contest for her. And it should be a cinch as the sixth question was to guess the birthday of a chosen member of the audience via their ticket number. The hall was packed with Yumemi's fan club save for the three in Yumeko's small group.
The odds were high but Mary, Yumeko's ex-rival and now friend, was chosen out of the hundreds of tickets and Yumeko should know when her friend's birthday was. The trio didn't want to come to the concert which is what the event originally was but were given tickets by Yumeko. She knew the gambling match could come down to something like this contest and she always has a trick up her sleeve, that trick was having her friends there just in case an occasion like this happened.
The contestants had to write the month on a card, Yumeko wrote it so Yumemi could see through it and it appeared as though Yumeko wrote a 6 for June. She used some reverse psychology as Yumemi figured she wouldn't write the correct month for her to see, to Yumemi the card was turned upside down meaning a 9 for September which is the month Yumemi chose. It's showdown time and Yumeko's answer was... June of course as her trick worked. In real life Aoi's birthday is in June but however Mary answered from the crowd they're both wrong, her birthday is in March. Didn't matter as Yumeko was closer to the date which meant she's won yet another gambling match from a student council representative.
To the victors go the spoils and for Yumeko it meant 50 million yen and one other thing, the recording of Yumemi berating her fans in private would be played. Yumemi's manager Saori tried to bribe Yumeko with another 50 million yen to destroy the tape but Yumeko wouldn't hear of it, she has another trick we'll soon see up her sleeve. The recording was then played and of course her fans were so hurt and disappointed with how Yumemi thought so lowly of them. They all fell to their seats but in a few moments her fan club jumped up and said they could live with how Yumemi feels about them, they'll still be her fans forever which naturally shocked Yumeko and her friends.
But the main reason Yumeko wanted to play the recording was to relate the events that led up to it for the crowd. The previous day someone had left in her school locker the recorder plus some fan letters Yumemi had tore up, there was a note we couldn't see but the objects were left for Yumeko to use against Yumemi. Just who would do such a thing to bring down Yumemi is what Yumeko asked the crowd, obviously it wasn't her fan club so then who?
Yumeko's had been staring at the balcony during her speech where the student council members were sitting. Someone in the small group attending had wanted Yumemi out of the council and had used Yumeko for that purpose. Yumeko eyes had been focused the whole time on one person, the only male in the group who was the council's accountant Manyuda. We finally got to see more of this character as even though he was also in season one we seldom saw him but do know he's a ruthless person whose secret goal is to bring down the council's president and take over her position.
Manyuda wanted nothing to do with Yumeko or at least then, he does want to destroy her but has a different plan to do it. He was prepared to leave the hall but the chants of the crowd pressured him into staying plus he did have to make a good impression on the other council members. So Manyuda took a long stroll down the main hallway to the stage, the whole time roaring with laughter how he brought down Yumemi with Yumeko next on his agenda.
Manyuda turned the tables on Yumeko saying that her statements were just a pack of lies but however she was backed up by Yumemi. She too knew that Manyuda wanted her off the council but didn't think he'd stoop so low to do it. The bantering went on for a while and the crowd of Yumemi's fans weren't believing a word of what Manyuda was saying but it's too late now as with her loss Yumemi is out of 50 million yen plus no longer is a council member. This scene was also the last we saw of Yumemi in the series.
It really didn't matter what Manyuda was telling the crowd as Yumeko's plan was going perfectly. What she wanted was a situation where she could confront Manyuda in front of a crowd so he'd be forced to accept her challenge. That challenge was to have a gambling match with Manyuda, to Yumeko defeating him would mean she's one step closer to her match with the council's president. However Manyuda has refused her offer of having a match even with the crowd pressuring him to, with that going on the third episode came to it's conclusion.
That scene will continue on into the next episode, as mentioned many times before they do really stretch out these scenes to make them more suspenseful. Bit of a slow start to the drama but it's picked up nicely but seriously wish it was more than five episodes long but the last two shows are the best of the bunch.
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