Gamble Fish

Gamble Fish (ギャンブルフィッシュ) is a Japanese manga, or comic book, written by Aoyama Hiromi and illustrated by Yamane Kazutoshi. Gamble Fish is serialized in Weekly Shōnen Champion. As of January 2010 fifteen tankōbon collecting the chapters were released, the first one on June 8, 2007, and the last one on January 8, 2010.

Plot
The story follows 14-year-old Shirasagi Tomu, son of the infamous swindler Yumeichirou Shirasagi. He goes to Shishidou academy, a school attended mainly by the rich and influential, from a public High School, instead of a private one, for which he is snubbed, but not for long. He quickly reveals that he is not there to study, but to earn 10 billion yen within a single month and shows himself an expert con artist in an encounter with Shishidou Mika, the great-granddaughter of the dean. He earns two allies in his roommate and class representative Mizuhara and another ally in Kimura Natsumi, a first-year student and self-proclaimed mascot and idol of Shishidou Academy. As the series progressed, a darker side of the academy comes to light, as it is revealed Shirasagi's father disappeared investigating the academy and that students who focus on things other than studying disappear and are jailed by Abidani without anyone investigating.

Main

 * Tomu Shirasagi
 * The main protagonist of Gamble Fish. It is learned that he has already crushed two schools and, apparently, plans to add Shishidou Academy to that list. In order to do so he quickly makes a name for himself by humiliating the dean's daughter, calling her his "bait" as a wall to capture the "fish" who he gambles. This act helps set Tomu's plans in motion as he is quickly challenged by Aota whose loss consequently sets off a chain of subsequent challenges. So far Tomu has defeated all his opponents through a variety of tricks and tactics. To the point that he was able to win against Rio, billiards world junior champion, in a game of billiards despite having played the game for only 10 days. Tomu is primarily opposed by the dorm dean Abidani and the dean's granddaughter Mika. His abilities are his keen eyes for detail, strategic mind, but most of all his unbendable determination and confidence that gives him the luck he needs at the most dire of time.


 * In chapter 53, Tomu reveals that he comes from a clan with a lineage who at one point had influence with many major political types during the Feudal era of Japan. However, that influence was eventually lost to new merchants and the Shirasagi clan went into hiding. Even in hiding, they were hunted down for their clan prize, the Twin Herons, a sword guard depicting two mirror image Herons that is apparently worth ten billion yen in modern days. It is to recover this prize, his father, and his clan's pride that is the real reason Shirasagi came to Shishidou Academy and the reason that Hirasashi declared he would gain ten billion yen from the school before her was through there.


 * Kazuki Mizuhara
 * Tomu's first ally and close friend who proves invaluable through several schemes. He is the class representative and first met Tomu when he was assigned to conduct Tomu's orientation. He is short, wears glasses and has a haircut which earns him the nickname "mushroom head". Although he has shown disapproval for some of Tomu's tricks and tactics, such as cutting one of his fingers off in order to seal Yuka's "magic", he has remained a steadfast reliable friend to the point that he has directly helped Tomu execute one of his tricks. He admires one of Tomu's trait of courage.


 * Natsumi Kimura
 * A first-year who develops a crush on Tomu. She wanted to become Tomu's manager but was initially manipulated by Yuka to surprise and beat Tomu in an unofficial match. However, she apologized to Tomu and quickly became a valued partner in Tomu's winning streak. Her uncle is Tatsuhiko, a former billiards pro. She often acts as the announcer for the Gamble Matches.

Antagonists

 * Abidani
 * The sadistic dorm dean who seeks Tomu's expulsion (or death). Abidani is drawn as a devilish character, and hence acts as such, to the point that at one point he swooped down in on one of Tomu's matches in a devilish manner. Furthermore, Abidani has been shown whipping students and enjoying gory acts, such as sawing off Tomu's finger when he bets it in order to continue playing. Abidani employees a number of people to take Tomu up on his claim that he will beat them at whatever game they choose, if they bet double what his last opponent bet. So far he has only sent Tsukiyono Yuka the magician against Tomu. Because of this, Tomu openly questioned if Abidani is a coward for not facing him himself. It is later shown he runs a specific class called the Abidani Seminar, in which the "bad" students are jailed for as long as he wishes and regularly tortures. Most of the students believed this to only be a horrible rumor till Tomu's Gamble Battle against three of its members. Though he openly despises Tomu, believing him to be unworthy to attend Shishidou Academy, he appears to respect him, for his skill in cunning and trickery, along with his willingness to do whatever it takes to win. He has knowledge of Tomu's father's wereabouts, leaving Tomu to believe he has him imprisoned in the Abidani Seminar. It is later shown he even teaches some of his students better ways of being a criminal, so it is currently unknown why he is allowed to be at this school. Despite all of this, he is very dedicated to the rules set before each match, and will enforce the rules, even on the person he hired, if they fail or attempt to cheat. However he will turn a blind eye if the cheating cannot be proven as well as allow if the contestants figure a way around or bend the rules.


 * Mika Shishodou
 * Great-granddaughter of the dean of Shishidou Academy and a true beauty as well. Shirasagi contunally outsmarts her and uses her arrogance and rage at him to trick her into assisting his victory. Mika seeks revenge against Tomu, in order to regain her pride, and is the second force that opposes him outright. She asks her best friend Asahina Rio to challenge him which she accepts, though due to their pride and desire to beat Tomu once again proves to be her downfall, causing them to lose the match. Tomu doesn't consider much of a threat, as he can often manipulate her due to her anger towards him.

Abidani Seminar
The Abidani Seminar is the group of "bad" students that attend Shishidou Academy. So to not affect the schools reputation of producing the best and brightest students they are given to Abidani to send to the secret Abidani Seminar which is located in a cave somewhere on school campus. They are then locked in jails and forced to study nonstop to the point they all look like ghouls. While in this Seminar, Abidani has complete control over the area, and can keep them in the Seminar for years on end, still unknown how he is able to do so without the parents' knowledge. However, despite all of this Abidani enjoys his "bad students" and their personalities, shown to be proud of their bad behavior and even have them fight for a chance to gain their diplomas. After their defeat, they seem to be somewhat more of a stable ground with Tomu and his friends, especially Hanasaki who warned Tomu about the new girl.


 * Hiruko Nana
 * Described as the "Lolita Computer". She looks just like Megumi Akino and because of this, was used as a spy by Abidani to spy on Tomu's team, and sabotage it from the inside by poisoning Yuko. She specializes in disguises and mental arithmetic, along with Abidani describing her as "a little demon who uses her lovely form and her clear mind as weapons to bewilder men", which she used for her business in cosplay dating, learning everything from personality to small quirks for her clients. No one even knew she attending the school since she focused completely on her business then attend classes. After she wins she hopes to take Natsumi with her after graduating and use her as a bargaining token to increase her prostitution business focused towards Lolicons. She likes to dress in a Loli-Gothic fashion. However it is revealed she has no confidence in her ability when the numbers exceed five digits, which is why she relied on taunting and poising Yuka. Despite her cruel personality, she has shown to be terrified at the thought of returning to the Abidani Seminar.


 * Yoizame Yoshio
 * Known as "Hell's Elite". He is described of having being a sadist since he was born. He was born in America and looking to create a criminal enterprise back home went to Shishidou academy for the sole reason to attend the Abidani Seminar. Because of this he is the only student at Shishidou that actually respects Abidani, seeing him as his true teacher. He is very skilled at Dice Stacking, able to stack 5 dice where they all matched along the sides as well as flip a sixth die to land on top of the tower. He has a noticeable habit of licking the blade of his Balisong.


 * Hanasaki Mayo
 * The third, final and leader of Team Abidani Seminar. She has somewhat of a vampire-like appearance of light blue hair and skin. She is a gardener and joined the garden club, however she grew plants that were both illegal and poisonous. She wears long gloves to hide her burned hands, which she got when she was abused by her drunk father who died of a heart attack when she was twelve, though Tomu suspects she slipped some poison into his beer to cause that. After losing against Tomu, she tries to kill herself by drinking a vial a poison she kept between her breasts. However, Tomu kissed her to remove the poison from her mouth and later fell for him. Before meeting Tomu, she fully accepted that her experiments in her poisonous plants have shorten her lifespan and wished to die, however with Tomu, she later accepts medical treatment.

Other characters

 * Aoto
 * Shirasagi's first opponent and a 3rd year. He is in charge of the 3rd. year's Public Moral's committee. He is also one of Mika's "Bodyguards". Tomu challenges him to a game, which he then cheats at, and is still defeated. As punishment, Abidani whips him along with Kaizuka. Later, both are seen jailed by Abidani in the secret prison known as Abidani's Seminar.


 * Kaizuka
 * The dorm leader, who is also the captain of the ping-pong team due to his visual acuity or the ability to see things in a slowed down sense of time. He thinks this ability will give him an unbeatable advantage in a coin toss, but Tomu outsmarts him through mental tricks, drawing Abidani's attention. He is whipped by Abidani alongside Aoto and subsequently jailed.


 * Rio
 * Mika's best friend (Or perhaps more than a friend, as they are usually portrayed hanging out in an overally affectionate manner), billiards junior world champion and the daughter of a former luxury hotel owner who was bankrupted by a con she believes orchestrated by Shirasagi's father. This rage prompts her to challenge Tomu to billiards, a game of skill, thinking she can't lose. With Gokijima's help, Tomu wins, although he does run into a few problems along the way. After her defeat, Abidani has her sports scholarship revoked and she moves to Taiwan to study billiards. Tomu appears to feel some remorse, as he sends her a note vowing to avenge her family --- whilst swearing his father is innocent --- and sending up a bunch of balloons shaped like billiards balls, thus leading to believe she now has feelings for him too.


 * Emily Dawn
 * Not much is known about this character, as she is revealed at the end of chapter 50. She is an American dressed as a cowgirl shooting a revolver at a target. She has apparent ties to Abidani, as she is told by an associate that Tomu has beaten the Abidani Seminar. She then makes arrangements to go to Japan to see Tomu for herself.

Tomu supporters

 * Yuka Tsukiyono
 * A magician from a family of magicians, she is contracted by Abidani to defeat Tomu, for her unparalleled sleight of hand tricks, which makes her think that she can't be beaten at any card game. She is Tomu's third challenger and bets against Tomu on a game of Black Jack. It is revealed that she wants to defeat Tomu because gamblers use similar tricks to magicians and that, due to her older brother's death, she feels magic is the only way to be close to him and is almost sacred. However, her ego gets the best of her in the belief her skill surpassed his, and despite Abidani's warnings, practically flaunted her cheating ways and gave Tomu too many chances. Tomu sacrifices a finger so that she can't shuffle the cards because the blood stain would not match up. At the end of the match Tomu's act of stopping Yuka from sacrificing her finger, as they are a magician's life, reminds her of her late brother and as such seems to have developed feelings for Tomu, and doesn't hesitate to flirt with him at any possible chance. She later becomes a member of Tomu's three man team against the Abidani Seminar Students for the Dice Game, revealing she also knows many cheating ways with dice. She also practices knitting as a way to strengthen her fingers.


 * Tatsuhiko
 * Natsumi's uncle and a former billiards champion. He refuses to teach Tomu, because he feels gambling is wrong. He is soon bested by Gokijima, a hustler, who has no qualms teaching Tomu, for the right price. After some persuasion from Natsumi, he helps in on of Tomu's tricks by chasing Gokijima away from Tomu and Rio's match which plays a large part in Tomu's victory.


 * Kaoru Gokijima
 * A rather obese and disgusting hustler who is manipulated by Tomu into helping Tomu win and receiving nothing. He is lecherous, greedy and shameless, but he is good at what he does, and he does appear again after Tomu's defeat of Rio. However, after his utter humiliation, he has been losing horribly. After being rescued by Tomu from Abidani and discovering the mass amount of money at stake in Tomu's war on Shishidou, he decides to support him.


 * Megumi Akino
 * First appeared in Chapter 32, she becomes the third member of Tomu's three man team for the Abidani Seminar Dice Challenge. She is known for being skilled at knitting, winning many Craft Contests. She shows up to join near the end of the month, wanting to do so earlier but was only recently able to gather the courage to do so. It is later revealed that she is also a mathematician, able to do 5 digit calculations in her head instantly, which Tomu sees as a great asset as they won't know the rules to the game till the start of the match. Her reason for joining is because she wishes to use the money won in the match (3,000,000 yen) to be able to study abroad as a knitting designer, as her parents wouldn't pay for it as they wish for her to attend medical school to continue the family practice. Natsumi gets easily jealous of her because she believes she has feelings for Tomu as well. It is later revealed she is currently being held in Abidani's reflection room and was replaced by the look alike Hiruko Nana from the Abidani Seminar, so it is currently unknown how much or if any of this profile is true.


 * Yumeichirou Shirasagi
 * Tomu's father, an unparalleled con artist and notorious swindler who taught Tomu all he knew. However, Tomu claims that his father isn't the type to swindle the innocent. It is later revealed that Yumeichirou has somehow been captured by Abidani and is being held at the academy. Later, Abidani reveals Shirasagi being held prisoner.


 * In chapter 53, Tomu reveals that his father had in fact come to the academy to reclaim the Shirasagi clans treasure, the Twin Herons, in a gamble with the school's founder. He apparently lost the gamble and that is when he was taken prisoner.

1. Truth and Lies

 * VS: Aoto
 * Bet: 100 yen
 * Chapter Length: 1
 * Rules: The opponent hides the coin somewhere in the room and writes down 10 separate locations, 9 of those cards being Lies and one being the Truth location. The player has 1 minute to deduce which is the right card and find the coin before the time is up.
 * Changes: Made into 20 cards
 * Status: Despite Aoto not writing a Truth Card, Tomu found the coin and won the match.

2. Two Up

 * Vs: Kaizuka
 * Bet: 300,000 yen
 * Chapter Length: 1
 * Rules: One tosses a coin in the air and calls Heads or Tails when it comes down.
 * Changes: Made into five rounds while not revealing ones decision until the end of the match. The use of player cards were used: Number Card face down for Tails and a Court Card for Heads.
 * Status: With a sleight of hand trick Tomu was able to get around Kaizuka's superior vision and win the match.

3. Two-Card Monte

 * VS: Natsumi Kimura
 * Bet: A date with Tomu
 * Chapter Length: 1
 * Rules: Find the queen between the two cards
 * Status: Tomu loss due to the intervention of Yuka Tsukiyono, this making his first lost yet this was not an official Gamble Match.

4. Black Jack

 * VS: Yuka Tsukiyono
 * Bet: 600,000 yen, increased to 2.4 million
 * Chapter Length: 6
 * Rules: Try to make the player cards add up as close as possible to 21
 * Status: Despite Yuka's clear cheating, after Tomu sacrificed a finger used his blood to mark the cards, in the end winning the match.

5. Billiards

 * VS: Rio
 * Bet: 4.8 million yen and the whereabouts of Yumeichirou Shirasagi
 * Chapter Length: 9
 * Rules: Split up into three separate Billiards games, one needed to win all three to win
 * Three or More: Win three matches
 * Break 9: Get the 9 Ball in on the break
 * Run Out: Get all of the balls in in order from 1-9 without giving the opponent a chance to play.
 * Status: With the use of sleight of hand tricks and lessons from a known billiards hustler, Tomu was able to win despite only practicing for 10 days.

6. Dice game

 * VS: Abidani Seminar
 * Hiruko "Lolita Computer" Nana
 * Yoizame "Hell's Elite" Yoshio
 * Hanasaki Mayo
 * Bet: 9.8 million yen and diplomas for the three members of the Abidani Seminar.
 * Chapter length:
 * Game 1: 3
 * Game 2: 2
 * Game 3: 7
 * Total: 12
 * Rules: Three different games with a two out of three win.
 * Strip prime numbers: One uses all the dice to add, subtract, divide, multiply or even line up to make a prime number. The prime numbers get higher than the previous one and the loser of each match loses and article of clothing. The match is between Hiruko and Natsumi.
 * Dice Stacking: A single round of dice stacking involving five dice. Each participant receives points equal to the number of dice successfully stacked multiplied by the number displayed on the top face of the die on top of the tower, and the one with the most number of points wins. Also, the difference between the two scores the loser will be cut (i.e. 30 to 20, loser is cut 10 times). The match is between Yoizame and Mizuhara.
 * Judgment Fire: The two throw two dice into the bow in the center of the table, the two numbers are added up and moves a large iron bowls filled with heated coal closer to the opponent while higher to the player, which is heated to temperatures around 1200 degrees. Each player starts with 100 points (which holds the pots 10 meters above), where the loser is the one who loses all their points. The person must roll a double for it to count, and if one roles a double the player asks the opponent a chance to roll a third die called a Judgment role, where if it lands on the same as the double the points is 2x (i.e. 5-5 and roles a 5 =15x2=30) is inflicted on the player, however if the player gets any other number the opponent is Judged and they lose points 3x the total number (i.e. 5-5 and roles a 4 =14x3=42). The last rule is if someone rolls a 6-6, and the Judgement Roll is a 6, the iron pot is released on the player, causing an automatic win.
 * Status: Completed. Tomu's team was destroyed by the acts of Hiruko pretending to be his teammate and poisoning Yuka with laxatives. Natsumi has taken the place of Tomu's team member and is currently gambling against Hiruko. She nearly lost all of her clothing but was able to figure out that Hikaru is unable to calculate above five digits and has made her comeback. However ultimately lost with one piece of clothing remaining on Hikaru. It is also unknown why Hiruko wasn't disqualified for her actions. The second game between Yoizame and Mizuhara has just begun, though Yoizumi scored 36 with a skill of his, Mizuhara was able to win with 40 by having two dice on top. The last match has just started between Tomu and Mayo in a place off limits to the school called Sector D where they are to play a death match. As the game begins, it appears as though Mayo has control of the dice and continues to win each round, but all the while Tomu gathers information. It is later revealed that the dice have a special metal alloy in them that melts with heat, while Mayo has a special ability to control her bodies heat. She uses this to control the dice, until Tomu is about to lose, at which point he proposes new rules for the game. He does this knowing that both Mayo and Abidani are using a code using the dice numbers to predict the rolls. Tomu uses this knowledge to his advantage to win the game. However, Mayo attempts to force Tomu to get hit by his pot when she latches onto him and claims that she will die with him, taking him as her "graduation present". The two don't die, however, and end up in a hidden greenhouse Mayo set up underneath the arena, Mayo having pushed Tomu through a vent. While down in the greenhouse, Tomu finds out that his father is, in fact, at Shishidou Academy. The two are eventually pulled back through the vent and Tomu is declared the winner.