The mafia has won.
The theme split was:
- All Scum come to accept that defeat is an inevitable and healthy part of life. Yumemi Yumemite accepting this and Midari Ikishima not accepting this was the most deceptive part of the theme split and why I felt comfortable revealing it, I will justify this later. Midari enjoys losing out of masochistic impulse, not out of genuine humility and definitely thinks people who win are corrupt cowards usually unless they put their life on the line without cheating.
- All Town not only respect Yumeko Jabami in a genuine sense but they conform (not necessarily respect) the system in the school, even the rebel Midari who was personally responsible for the forced marriage arrangements going on with some losers who couldn't pay their debts (Kirari masterminded it and was also Town). In short, the Town conforms the most to society, though Meari is rebellious as her character develops she still maintains an ultimately conservative playstyle and ethos throughout. Yumeko conforms on the outside (how she dresses and acts) but inside is a complete anarchist, Yumemi Yumemite and Runa Yomozuki don't conform much at all, they love to stand out in multiple ways, Runa is the only Council member who loathes both cheating as well as ever risking too much at any given time (she is never even seen to gamble in the series' two seasons) and dresses very peculiar. Yumeko Jabami doesn't respect herself and Yumemi only fears Yumeko, she doesn't genuinely respect her at all she thinks Yumeko is merely lucky and crazy but accepts her defeat to Yumeko regardless. This was an interesting fused theme-split, you could even break this apart into two layers but a theme 'around Yumeko and who respects her' sounds unfair to make its own thing.
- The third split is nearly unnoticeable. The Town all play with an agenda at all times. They never play a gamble without an agenda behind it at any point int he two seasons though Kirari comes close. Yumeko has an agenda at all times but also plays for the thrill itself. Yumemi and Runa may have agendas in part but both adore gambling itself. Yumemi intentionally lost sections of her serial-gamble contest vs Yumeko just because she thought it would be more spectacular.
The roles were balanced such that if 1-2 members of any team were both bad, that team would almost 100% come to be defeated while the other 2 stand a chance.
That is true for almost all 7-player setups but this was very well balanced in my opinion.
There was no role in the game that had no capacity to lose if they or their teammate screwed up significantly, there was also no role in the game that had no capacity to win if they played proficiently, especially as I noticed you guys didn't know the theme so I revealed a layer of the theme to help.
The images had this in common: All Town faced forward with their body and head (but Midari looked up). All held in their hands something to do with stakes/gambling as well as something significant in the storyline that nearly hurts them and shows a human side to them. Also, all the town were sombre or unhappy in expression.
The thirdparty had a couple of things in common and quite a few things to lead to the thirdparty describing their image in a way that despite being similar enough could lead Town to suspect them.
The Mafia were even directly baited and misled by me in part because the clue I gave them to counteract the theme-split suggested that their torsos facing left of the image and their happy expressions didn't really matter. On the other hand, my clue did help them realise that Runa carrying a lollypop and having cards swirling around her probably implied that I had mixed some things around, I'll reveal the hint and specifics in my next post.