There is a moment in the series that indirectly addresses this point, it’s one of my favorite small moments.  It’s towards the beginning of “The Zero Girl” - Rei has just told everyone the story of Yumeko’s sister being destroyed by the Momobami clan, and Suzui, ever the innocent, asks if such a horrible story could be true.

Midari (who, despite her slobbering lack of impulse control, often makes very incisive observations) knows what’s up. Why would we expect anything less from the family that produced a destroyer of worlds like Kirari?

Midari directs her last remark at Ririka, who is then given a meaningful close up, even as she does not move or respond. 

btw, I LOVE when the show cuts to Ririka as if for a reaction, though she stays completely still and silent. It emphasizes her inhuman creepiness, but also encourages the viewer to imagine what she might actually be thinking. And in this case, what might she be thinking?

Is she thinking of the horrors she herself endured in that family?

Is she thinking of the terrible things she did to people like Rei? Was she passive in these injustices, or an active participant?

Is she thinking that no outsider could possibly understand what happens in the clan? That it’s boring to have to sit there and listen to Rei talk about something totally beyond their comprehension?

Does she feel guilt? Shame? Pride? Defensiveness? Anger?

We can only imagine, but the fact that Ririka offers to officiate the subsequent gamble between Yumeko and Rei may say something about what responsibility she feels to those that her clan has wronged. And of course, there is the moment afterwards where Mary asks if Ririka identified with Rei, which I wrote about briefly in this post. 

So all of that is to say...I think Ririka and Kirari are very different people, though the recent flashback to their childhood in the manga seems to show that when they were very young, they were truly identical, both in body and in character. However at some point they seemed to have split into sun and shadow, an operator and a vessel. I would love to know more about what caused this fracture, I would guess it correlates with the point in time when Ririka started wearing the mask - but did the change in character necessitate the mask, or did the mask bring about the change in character? We may never know! 

Final thought - while I do believe Ririka is more sensitive and fearful than Kirari, we have seen plenty of examples of her wielding power in a very cold and merciless way (her part in the poisoning of Yumeko, her defeat of Rin). Just as Midari points out that we should not be surprised by the vicious actions of the clan that raised the president, we should likewise not be surprised by the capabilities of the person who grew up alongside her. 

I think of Yumeko as being more of a demon of chance/risk/freedom/choice and not so much as a person with a set of personal circumstances that shaped her character. I love this about her! I think the story of her sister tells us something about the extent of Yumeko’s commitment to Life as Gambling, but does not necessarily explain how that commitment came to be. 

On the surface, Yumeko’s sister is a tragic case. She was crushed by the Momobami clan and left a shell of a person. That’s what Rei thinks of her, at least. When Yumeko says that she has no remorse for those whose egos/identities she blows to smithereens while gambling, Rei is furious. I think it probably seems to Rei that Yumeko is just as bad as the rest of the Momobami clan - she’s a sadist, she destroys people’s lives for the fun of it, or is just indifferent to the suffering of others. Later, in one of Rei’s memories, we see baby Yumeko looking very much the like the inhuman Gambling Demon we know her to be, even while visiting her sister at the hospital. 

But! Rei is wrong. Yumeko may be inhuman, but she is not a force of evil and she’s not without concern for other people. I think the reason Yumeko has no remorse, not even for her own sister, is because she does not see the loss of everything in a gamble as a tragedy. The ability to make a choice to risk everything you have for what you want or what you need - that, to Yumeko, is the essence of life. She wants to people to experience that, because she believes it’s the best way to live. And while Yumeko has yet to be completely devastated and destroyed in a gamble (the series would be over if she did), I think she is 100% ready to accept that outcome should it happen. It’s just part of the game. As long as you continue to play a game where chance is involved, you must eventually lose. As long as you continue to live, you must eventually die. This to her is not a tragedy. It’s part of the joy, the meaning, the necessity of life and gambling.

Rei eventually comes around to Yumeko’s way of thinking, and re-evaluates the story of Yumeko’s sister.

In summary, when I think about Yumeko, I like to think about her worldview, her philosophy, what gambling means to her. This mainly comes from the things she does and says during the months (weeks??) that she’s spent at Hyakkou during the course of the series, not from her personal history. I welcome anything new we learn about her, but I don’t expect any big reveals that drastically change how we as the audience think about who she is and how she got that way. 

Hello, thank you for the note and I’m glad you’ve enjoyed what I’ve written! 

I think the last several chapters have emphasized the way that Mary’s relationship to Yumeko has changed since the beginning of the series.

They went from this...

to this...

Mary no longer sees Yumeko as an unfathomable monster who humiliated her. She also doesn’t see her as someone to compare herself to. Now that Mary has enjoyed gambling with Yumeko and started to understand the meaning and appeal of her madness, Mary actually can start to relate to her as a person. They’ll still be competitors, but they will compete as equals. 

And as far as what I expect to happen next, it seems like we’ll be getting some good Momobami-centric arcs. Terano said she’ll never gamble with Kirari so that’s certainly going to happen eventually, and I’m thrilled to see the Twins gamble together. We’ve never once even seen them exchange words throughout the entire comic and manga! As I’ve said before, I believe Ririka has been running some kind of con on Mary throughout this Election Arc, and I imagine that in the next few months some secrets will be revealed and Ririka will have to reckon with where her allegiances truly lie and what she really wants. Almost all the non-Kirari/Yumeko characters in Kakegurui have had a moment of this sort of ego-death/rebirth, and I think Ririka could really use one!

And forecasting many months ahead, I would expect the conclusion of the Election to involve Kirari, Terano, Yumeko, and Mary. I expect we still have a lot to learn about Terano, and it will have to be pretty juicy to earn her a seat at that table of heavy hitters. 

I love this question. Spoilers for Ch 74, obviously, and also speculation about what will happen in upcoming plot arcs. 

So here we have Ririka in Ch 74, watching Yumeko vs Mary from the sidekicks section with Suzui.

There’s a few things to consider from just these few panels.

It’s fair for Ririka to suspect Yumeko is being careless with Mary’s feelings, it’s the same assumption Ternao makes. But Ririka is wrong; Yumeko has a lot on her mind, but she loves gambling with Mary and she’s excited to go forward with her in the Election. So what aspects of Ririka’s worldview leads to her to misread this situation?

Rirka probably is very familiar with the feeling of not being seen. She is Kirari’s shadow, always present, but never the focus of attention. Even when she is looked at, she’s not seen. The mask hides her and objectifies her, it makes her less a person and more of a symbol of power (and not her own power, but Kirari’s power). Ririka must be used to living like this (”What I want? I don’t want anything”) but the idea of this kind of disregard being leveled at Mary makes the the pain and abjection of that treatment suddenly seem fresh. The idea that Mary is being made to feel the way Ririka feels all the time is extremely upsetting to Ririka, as indicated by the way we see her gripping her fists in the following panel, seemingly shaking and sweating with emotion. 

We also learn in that panel that Ririka is particularly upset by the idea that Mary is being treated so cruelly by someone she considers a friend. On one hand, we can just take this as an example of how Ririka is envious of Yuemko and Mary’s close relationship (which is getting closer by the second in that Summary match game), and that Ririka thinks someone like Yumeko doesn’t deserve that closeness. But beneath that, I believe that Ririka is not really angry at Yumeko - she’s angry at herself, and is projecting her own guilt and shame.

Rirka is very concerned with what it means to be Mary’s ‘friend’. We all remember the legendary moment when Mary tousled Riri’s hair and said (in her begrudging, scowling, blushing, tsundere way) that she would be Ririka’s friend. But since then, Ririka has questioned whether she herself really sees Mary as a friend. She sabotaged Miyo so that Mary could win her semifinal match, which as far as we know Mary has not been told about. After that match, we saw Ririka wondering if this would have been the right thing to do if (if!) she and Mary were “heartfelt friends.” 

Why did Ririka help Mary win that match? Was it because she wants Mary to reach her goal of becoming President? Is it because they promised to be partners? Or is it because even now Ririka is just an extension of Kirari’s will and body, and everything she does for Mary is just meant to secretly move her forward in some bigger plan that has nothing to do with what Mary wants?

Let’s take a closer look at the figure in Ririka’s fantasy of what an evil person Yumeko is for taking advantage of Mary while pretending to be her friend:

Is there perhaps something slightly mask-like about Yuemko’s face here? It’s not an exact replica of Ririka’s mask, but I think it evokes it. Ririka imagines that Yumeko is making Mary believe she is her friend while she secretly pursues her own secret goals. I think this is exactly what Ririka is actually doing, however reluctantly, and I think the guilt and shame she is experiencing about that subterfuge is starting to become too much to suppress. I have long suspectd that before this Election is over, Mary is going to experience a revelation about Ririka that leaves her feeling horribly betrayed. Mary works so hard not to trust anyone to avoid being betrayed, so that’s going to be rough. I think ultimately Riri will do the right thing, repair the damage, and will somehow end up Real Friends with Mary. But first all will have to be revealed and I think it’s right around the corner.

Last thing: in that moment in Ch74 where Ririka is clutching her hands, feeling so upset about how Mary is being treated, we should be reminded of another moment:

This was at the very beginning of Ririka and Mary’s partnership, when it was more obviously based on coercion and force. This was before Mary had read Ririka down about being weak and indecisive, before Ririka saw how inspiring and generous Mary could be, before Ririka proved herself in the War gamble, and before Mary called her a friend. I think at that at the start of all of this, Ririka may have really wanted nothing, and was just going forward with whatever plan had been given to her. But by chapter 74, she is probably reconsidering what she wants, and if what she wants is Mary, I think she’s going to have to make her choice soon.