When the recipe works, why deprive yourself of the desire to reproduce it on other productions? When a film or series is a hit on the streaming platform, it's common to see Netflix approve projects heavily inspired by it. How many offshoots have Stranger Things or La Casa de Papel given birth to, not to mention franchised content of course? So imagine when a show intends to merge TWO successful recipes! Why are we telling you this? Because we decided to look at Bet.
Bet is currently Top 4 on the SVoD service. A great success for this series which is loosely adapted from the manga Kakegurui, which you may know better through its anime adaptation (also available on Netflix) under the title Gambling School. A series that has had spin-offs and even a first purely Japanese live-action version (still on the SVoD platform). Then, the Americans arrived.
What is Bet about?
Yumeko is a compulsive gambler deeply affected by the death of her parents. She manages to get into the prestigious private St Dominic high school, a place where future elites are trained. All the powerful in the world, legal or illegal, send their offspring there to instill in them the notions of power and victory.
Because here, gambling is king. Poker, Blackjack, Truth or Dare... everything is an excuse to challenge each other, bet, and cheat to win. The most gifted and richest students thus manage to reach the formidable student council that dictates the rules. The others just hope not to be overwhelmed by debt and become their slaves. In search of her parents' murderer, Yumeko will soon shake up the established order.
Loyal, but to what?
Over time and with various projects, Netflix has built a rather good reputation around its manga/anime adaptations. While not perfect, works like One Piece, Yu Yu Hakusho, City Hunter and Avatar: The Last Airbender have received a positive and deserved reception, especially when you consider where we started from (Knights of the Zodiac, Death Note...). A new live-action version of Gambling School therefore seemed enticing on paper, with little reason to fear the thing.
Except that it is no coincidence that Bet is not called Gambling School. Aside from the universe and little details here and there to try to stroke the fan's fur, it seems certain that the creator Simon Barry has not read / seen the original model, or worse, he doesn't care.
One could even say that the marks of respect for the original work further handicap the series by sticking almost unnatural elements on it, like the costumes and makeup. Almost all the characters have been redesigned and the exuberance specific to the Japanese style constantly comes across like a hair in the soup with shifts in tone and overacting actors sometimes in the middle of a single scene.
And this is where our comparison with Wednesday comes out of the closet. It's obvious that the writing of Bet is influenced down to the tips of its nails by the enormous success of Netflix, as it takes every element from it. An atypical young girl arriving at an institution for special teenagers; a plot revolving around the parents' past; a male role added to the heart of the story to bring moral choices to the heroine; a shower of romances... Bet copied the score of Wednesday, put it in the Elite sauce and sells itself under the banner of a successful manga adaptation. The series oozes commercial project from every pore of its skin.
Should you get caught up in the game?
If you don't care about Netflix's marketing cynicism or the release date of Guillaume Musso's next film, Bet is perfectly watchable for a good reason: perhaps here too, like Mercredi, you can feel that everyone, from the directors to the entire cast, had a blast on set. There's a sort of positive, infectious energy around actors happy to be able to go over the top – with Miku Martineau at their helm – and have fun exaggerating every gesture, every line of dialogue... like teenagers.
This results in quite a few funny, entertaining situations, supported by direction and editing that embrace all the fantasies typical of Japanese animation. It's never that crazy, never that extreme, but the series plays with its cards – taken from someone else's hand, admittedly – to offer us an entertaining show full of joy, good humor, and a lack of inspiration and ambition. Mercedes season 2 comes out in a little over two months, Bet only has ten episodes of less than 40 minutes… there are worse ways to pass the time, especially if you've already watched Gambling School.
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