Manga: Gamble Fish

You are playing a dice game of sorts that you have just been introduced to. You are playing against a woman who claims to be a witch and able to control the way the dice roll. She has been winning most of the rolls and your 1 roll away from losing.Oh, and there is a huge pot 2 meters above your head. Do you feel lucky? Or do you feel you can win? This situation is but a taste of the delicious and suspenseful madness that is "Gamble Fish"   Created by Aoyama Hiromi and drawn by Amane Kazutoshi, Published by Weekly Shonen Champion.




Shishidou Academy, a private school for the rich and elite. Tom Shirasagi (or Tomu, if you speak engirsh) transfers to this school on one stormy night for one reason, "It's filled full of suckers." This leads to Tom being challenged to various games that have a wager involved. Starting with 100 yen to his name and making it his goal to amass it to 10 billion yen by doubling it with every bet. However, Tom isn't just any gambling fool as he applies different strategies with each game he plays. 
So anyway, let's get to gambling!

YOSH!!

Presentation: 8/10 Good

The manga set's itself up to be a thinking manga. Like Death Note, Detective Conan or any other mystery series. There isn't much hand to hand combat, though it does get pretty damn close to it. The first thing I will mention are the Tankobon (the manga when put into book form). And the covers these things have simply FAN-SERVICE. Fan service, fan service, fan service... It was honestly hard to find a fitting poster for the series. HOWEVER, the fan service doesn't take away from the action and tension this series holds. The fan service really doesn't do much to the series except add humor and... provide fan service. In fact the fan service didn't really start until a few chapters after the first few, so I believe this was a suggestion on the editors part to draw to more readers. On a downside, sometimes the backgrounds for the chapter titles and Tankobon usually have blank backgrounds, and it does get tiring to have almost each tankobon be a fan-service cover. 



Art: 8/10 Good...
  

The art is great, and works well with keeping the tension up with the story. It especially works with keeping up with Tom's character and his facial expressions when he is in deep thought. However, there is one thing that I need to nitpick, in the majority of the panels, there are NO BACKGROUNDS. There are action lines and gradients in used, but those are given. The lack of backgrounds can be understood with the chapter titles but in the main manga? Come on guys, your better than that. Now, the backgrounds aren't a necessity. I was interested and got into it anyway, but such a basic thing when drawing manga really should be addressed.  


Still... when it comes down to it, the character design, and the oh so demonically evil facial expressions. The art just out-does so much and still makes it look realistic. So I will let the lack of backgrounds slide a little in this situation.








Characters: 9/10 Great


Hmm where to start with characters. There are just so many good ones. Well, let's start with the-

                                                            
HOLY CRAP! Well... this is Tom Shirasagi. And he is definitely a great character. He's smooth and witty on a normal basis. But when he's in the middle of a good game he really gets with it. 

For those of you who know about Hiruma from Eyeshield 21, if you like him you will like Tom. Not only is Tom highly intelligent and is able to win his games using bits of mathematics, physics and human psychology to his advantage, but he also doesn't give a match so easily. To the point that he will end up betting his body parts. (though this happens rarely, and is more for intimidation purposes.)  I should also mention that he plays more than conventional gambling games, he also gambles on games such as Billiards, Two up and other more complicated games. So don't think you will be seeing the same games.

And as the story continues, it becomes apparent that the money Tom is collecting isn't as important to him as he makes it appear in the beginning. But that there is something else that he is after.

Other than that, you have your standard straight man, your standard cute female character who likes the main character. BUT, there is one thing that makes the series characters great and he happens to be... My Favorite character!
ROULETTE PLEASE!

                                     Abidani                                     

OMG IT'S THE MANGA VERSION OF THE GREEN GOBLIN!

But really, Abidani is a villan that will make you piss yourself whenever he makes his appearance. He is what would happen if an Nazi general  did the fusion dance with a World of Warcraft Goblin, and he's 5x as fierce. But what makes him so fierce? What makes him so evil and feared. Simply put, he likes to see Tom play and Gamble, in fact after he's the one who manipulates students to challenge him for his own pleasures. He want's to see Tom play and eventually fail, but he wants to make it one hell of an entertaining match as well. Remember that picture with Tom's index finger was cut off? Well Abidani was behind that... personally... but I will leave it at that. Abidani and Tom play off of each other extremely well, not in a good vs.evil combination but a dark vs.dark struggle.

Finish it!

This is a great manga, and the only reason it's so unknown here in the states is because it wasn't published by a better known publisher like Shonen Jump or such. This is still a great series and should be read by anyone who has read or watched Death Note and liked it.

Also just as an added bonus, the trick Tom uses in his matches can be used in real games. It's true, everything he does can be used in real practice. I tried what he did in chapter 1 and it worked almost completely like he said. 

Now I do green light "Gamble Fish". But... it doesn't have an official release outside of Japan and the only thing I could do is really point you out to an illegal stream since not everyone can read Japanese and pay for the original Tankobon online. HOWEVER, if you want to be a honorable Otaku then go to Tokyo pop, Viz Media or any manga publisher and write them an email or letter telling them that you like Gamble Fish and you tell them exactly why. And if an official release does come out, you buy them! Or you can do what I do and buy the actual Tankobon while learning Japanese. We need to let our opinions be heard. We should tell the official companies what we want to read, not whats popular in Japan all the time. Give your opinions everyone. And it will matter.

OVERALL: I give Gamble Fish. For rolling the dice of judgment and receiving...

9/10 Great