Deadman Wonderland

Before the Spring 2011 season began, most of the talk seemed to revolve around "C" and "Deadman Wonderland". But all that talk died out pretty quickly, and by the time we were a few weeks into the new season, those two shows seem all but forgotten. I've not seen "C", but I can tell you that there's a good reason why "Deadman Wonderland" sunk so fast: bluntly put, it's a bit sh*t. The show is about the main protagonist Ganta's adventures in the world's only privately owned prison, Deadman Wonderland, a place where dark secrets resides and sadistic experiments and gladitorial style bloodsports takes place. Oh,and the "Deadman" in "Deadman Wonderland" refers to the special prisoners who have gained special powers that allow them to use their blood to do weirdass stuff like turn into blades. And of course, the shady dudes entertain themselves by making these special prisoners duel one another. The premises of the show is utterly preposterous. I know almost all anime require the viewer to suspend their disbelief to some extent, but "Deadman Wonderland" asks for way too much. Considering the inhumane things that goes on in Deadman Wonderland (the prison not the anime), it's a miracle that it's allowed to exist at all, privately owned or not. As if to mock the stupidity of the general public that exist in the show, Deadman Wonderland even openly flaunts its cruel treatment of prisoners. It does this through its facade... as a fricking THEME PARK in addition to being a prison, a theme park where the audience gets to see gory spectacles such as convicts running through dangerous gauntlets, with the less fortunate ones getting decapacitated and that kind of stuff. Believe it or not, it even has kids visiting on school trips. Everything the audience sees is real, but they get away with it because they tell the audience that it's NOT real. Cunning, eh? Yeah. Those gullible public... they'd believe anything you tell them, heh. Anyway, even ignoring the dubious practice of allowing school kids to see gory entertainment taking place in a prison (which would have real parents up in arms faster than you can say "Deadman Wonderland"), it's a miracle that they manage to fool anyone with the lame facade. So it's a miracle of titanic proportions then, that only the odd human rights group smells something fishy about Deadman Wonderland and comes along to protest occasionally outside their gates when they're bored. Even after you look beyond the crappy premises, the problems never stop appearing. A lot of them stems from the fact that the characters mostly possess astounding observational skills comparable to the blind, and phenomenal thinking skills comparable to the retarded. The result is that the size of plot holes to size of plot ratio is similar to the size of eyes to size of faces ratio of the moe girls in "Clannad", as well as "twists" that are executed so badly that you can see them coming at least an episode or two in advance. I could go on and on and on about the catastrophic failings of the story, but then this might end up as the longest review ever. Plus, I need to pace myself and save some sarcasm for the remainder of the review, so I better move on now. "Deadman Wonderland" (the anime not the prison) gives off quite a strong "Elfen Lied" vibe with its appetite for mindless violence. A lot of the time the story feels like it's being driven by the need for more violence. In fact it is so graphical that they frequently do things like blur out a serious wound or make the screen annoyingly dark (so dark in fact, that you can't actually tell what's going on a lot of the time), presumably so that they'd be allowed to even broadcast it. This leads to some odd scenes such as rooms that were brightly lit only moments ago suddenly becoming very dark when the blood starts to fly. I was kind of expecting the ending to be like "Elfen Lied" too, but it's not ... because the show doesn't even HAVE an ending. It just kind of finished leaving about three quarters of the plot strands still hanging. Other similarities to "Elfen Lied" can also be found in the rather extreme, psychopathic characters, for whome we're apparently meant to feel sorry for after they show us a 5 minute "tragic" slideshow backstory that's complete horsesh*t. Given the characters in "Deadman Wonderland", you'd think the competition for "worst character" would be fierce - the painfully generic never-give-up type hero Ganta? The oh-so-original sadistic cute girl? The typical evil tyrant assistant warden? But no, the competition was blown away by the presence of one character, one who doesn't even need a hacked together backstory (mainly because they failed to explain it before the series finished) to win the "worst character" crown hands down. I am of course, talking about Shiro. Her character design is actually really cool, and was one of the things that attracted me to this series... and then she spoke, and things quickly went downhill from there. Perhaps the makers of "Deadman Wonderland" were trying to create the most irritating character ever, but I have a feeling that they were actually going for an "endearing little retard" type character, but accidentally ended up with "annoying little sh*t" instead. And how is it that hardly anyone found her presence to be strange as she wanders around the prison almost unopposed?! The only the thing that stops "Deadman Wonderland" from sinking without a trace is the great production values. Some of the bloody action scenes are vaguely exciting to watch, though others are pretty generic. Its horror aspect can also be quite effective... or at least it would have been if the silliness of the plot did not constantly undermine it. Aside from that, there's not much to see here. With its unreasonably senselss violence, unreasonably extreme characters and unreasonably bullsh*t story, the only fascinating thing about "Deadman Wonderland" is how it gets exponentially more stupid the more you think about it - it seems to contain stupidity within stupidity within stupidity. It's not every day you get to see such intricately recursive stupidity, and "Deadman Wonderland" pulls it off effortlessly.

Sometimes, anime characters are put into such unfortunate circumstances that you can't help but shake your head in pity. Now, this isn't the type of misfortune where you go "Barnacles, I procrastinated and didn't do my boating essay," or "Such misfortune! A certain Sister bites me all the time!" The misfortune I'm talking about is when Heaven itself seems to abandon you, when it seems all the forces in the world are trying to guarantee no salvation for you. The subject of this particular tragic treatment is Ganta Igarashi, who starts as a completely normal middle school boy with all of the nice, usual things.Family, friends, and a sense of security. Sadly for him, this was not going to last. On the very first episode of Deadman Wonderland, a mysterious figure, which Ganta dubs the "Red Man," appears and butchers Ganta's entire class, leaving him the sole survivor. Framed for the massacre of his class, Ganta is incarcerated in the social experiment prison, Deadman Wonderland. Deadman Wonderland isn't your everyday kind of prison. For starters, there is an amusement park built right on top of the prison, with the usual cute and fuzzy mascots roaming around. Here, the prisoners are used to operate the attractions and entertain the audience, with sadistic attractions such as the Dog Race and most importantly, the Carnival of Corpses. Since Ganta is housed on death row, there isn't much hope for him in this place. Tagging along with him and constantly saving his life though, is a mysterious girl named Shiro, who claims to be Ganta's childhood friend, and possesses near super human feats of strength and agility. Her presence is a mixed blessing for Ganta; she's rather clueless and childish, but doesn't hesitate to save Ganta. Deadman Wonderland follows Ganta's experiences in this bizarre world. Deadman Wonderland certainly has an interesting concept. Modern day gladiators, supernatural powers, and plenty of violence. What's not to love? The problem with Deadman Wonderland is that it's trying to fit too many things into a very short 12 episode anime. Halfway, an important concept and fighting ability called "The Branches of Sin" is introduced. It essentially gives a mastery over using one's own blood in a variety of offensive and defensive ways. Somewhere along the way, a rebel group is introduced, an old geezer who never really gets an explanation, a very feminine looking boy, and Undertakers are also introduced. There simply isn't enough time in 12 episodes to flesh out these things to make it flow with its other concepts, resulting in little character interaction and development. Even at the end of the series, there are lots of unanswered questions. Let me elaborate. There is a staggering revelation near the middle of the series, a revelation that could very well shatter what little logic is present in Ganta's situation. What would happen if Ganta found out about this certain secret? Would he go insane? Would he crawl up and die? Or would he take vengeance? I don't have a clue, and you're guess is as good as mine. The series introduces this extremely interesting revelation and yet does nothing with it. Given time, this could help make Deadman Wonderland a much better show. And yet, this won't happen, because of Deadman Wonderland's lack of time to flesh out events. It's disappointing, but something in the future could elaborate on this and give a new dimension to the show. As for characters, I've read a lot of complaints about Ganta's weak attitude. I really can't blame him though, since he's just a middle school student who suddenly finds himself on death row. I think it's be unrealistic to think that he'd suddenly toughen himself and willingly face the dangers of Deadman Wonderland so quickly. The entire story takes place in less than 2 weeks I believe, after all. There are a few interesting characters that appear, such as the Crow, Kiyomasa Senji, who is my personal favorite character of this show. He becomes somewhat of a friend to Ganta, though he is unwilling to share the former's optimism of escape. While on characters, I have to applaud this show for introducing some truly hate worthy characters. I'm looking at you, Promoter Tamaki, man who plays with life like a toy. You too, Genkaku Azuma, you sacrilegious mediocre guitar player. And you too, Hibana Daida, unladylike gorilla who wields Zabimaru. Enough ranting though. Aside from characters, the art in this show is pretty decent. Plenty of dark colors and tones in the prison, while bright colors are usually in the form of sadistic, cute mascots with a gun hidden in them or something of the sort. There isn't much diversity in setting, since it takes place in a somewhat futuristic prison after all. That means lots of corridors, cells, stone, steel and things of that sort. Fight scenes were pretty interesting, though animation quality takes a dip sometimes. Moving onto sound, the background music was just that, background music. I didn't notice any real noteworthy melodies and such, but the music was appreciated where it was. The opening is "One Reason" by Fade. It's a typical rock song with, surprise, English lyrics. It's very appropriate for the dark tones of the show, and it's a pretty decent song. However, the ending song is a completely different story. It's an interesting song called "Shiny Shiny" by Nirgilis. It has a pretty upbeat pop style to it, an interesting contrast to the heavy rock and violence of the show. There are also some melancholic sounds in the song, another contrast to the happy. However, hearing this after the blood has been spilled in a particular episode, gives an interesting feel close to pity. The ending basically shows pictures of the lives of many of the characters before they experienced the hell of Deadman Wonderland. Innocent things like being with friends, embracing loved ones, and appreciating childhood. Deadman Wonderland isn't for everyone. There's tons of blood, gore, and some rather disturbing scenes (ahem, Penalty Game). The first episode is remarkably similar in levels of gore to Elfen Lied, so if you can handle things like that, be my guest and enjoy the attractions at Deadman Wonderland. This show should be viewed with enjoying the interesting atmosphere and action as much as possible. It's about a boy with all of the misfortune in the world, living in a twisted environment, trying his best to understand what it truly means to be a "Deadman." In Deadman Wonderland, we do our very best to kick the loser while they're down. So sit back, and enjoy watching our prisoners suffer, minds shatter, and play the part of fool, all while I watch.

Strange things can happen to a person when they're in prison so the general rules of thumb are to keep a low profile, stay out of the way of other people, and avoid dropping the soap in the shower. For the inmates of Japan's only privately owned prison (which for some reason is run as a theme park and is built on Ground Zero of the Great Tokyo Earthquake), the ablutive antics of their fellow "guests" are the least of their worries, especially when the warden takes the term "punishment game" to a whole new level. The stage is set. The "Running Man" style collarsare on. The next event is a lethal variation of Takeshi's Castle. Welcome to Deadman Wonderland. Based on the manga by Kataoka Jinsei (story), and Kondou Kazuma (art), the story begins with middle school student Igarashi Ganta, a fairly normal teenager with a reasonably mundane life - going to school, hanging out with friends, etc. All of that changes when his entire class are slaughtered while still in school, and as the only survivor he is found guilty of mass murder and sentenced to death. He is sent to Deadman Wonderland to wait out the time before his execution, but the powers that be in the prison have their eyes on Ganta so he must now navigate a labyrinth of conspiracies, greed, betrayal, murder, revolution, gladiatorial combat, and enough blood to make a clan of vampires drool. Which immediately brings up the first problem with this series. At its heart Deadman Wonderland is nothing more than a bloodier version of the common or garden shounen tale, but bolted onto the framework concept is a plot that has been worked over far too many times, so much so that it's highly predictable and almost barren of any original thought. Far too much importance has been placed on making the content "cool" in an effort to appeal to viewers who just want violence, blood and explosions, and with the added yet pointless melodramatic scenes designed to elicit audience sympathy, the storyline never really picks up enough narrative pace to maintain the viewer's interest. There are also a few critical errors that anyone with a basic understanding of investigative techniques would immediately spot and question, but we'll get to that in a bit. Now this may confuse some people because Deadman Wonderland does have a lot going on in each episode, so an explanation is probably in order. This anime uses an event driven plot rather than a character driven one, and because of that the protagonist and his fellow inmates are simply along for the ride. They become nothing more than reactionary elements in the storyline, and in an effort to compensate for that the author and his adaptation colleagues have thrown as many different ideas at the series as they could. In truth, the only thing holding the entire narrative together so that it could be considered a story instead of a collection of random events, is Ganta, which gives an idea of the scale of the problem. That said, Ganta isn't really terrible, but the nature of the plot ensures that his characterisation remains linear and one dimensional, and while it may appear to some that he matures as an individual, this is actually a forced measure that serves only one purpose - to make his win against the next big bad opponent a bit more believable. Unfortunately, Deadman Wonderland isn't really about developing the characters in any meaningful way, and this is borne out by the fact that the supporting cast only get a few paltry flashbacks even though some of them have a lasting effect on the storyline. The oddity is that probably the most intriguing character is Ganta's childhood friend Shiro, a resident of Deadman Wonderland who isn't a prisoner. She is an anomaly who appears to have a childlike personality, but her very presence in the storyline, together with her looks, is enough to set alarm bells ringing for anyone who knows the trope about mysterious white haired characters. Given that this is an adaptation of a manga there's automatically a severe limitation placed on design, but Manglobe have done their best with what has been given to them, and the results are actually pretty good. The animation is smooth and there are some nice visual effects scattered throughout the series, the character movements are fluid and have a natural feel, and the action set pieces have a visceral edge to them that the manga lacks. There are a few issues though, but these lie in the smaller details as there are some design influences from other works (Ganta's likeness to Renton Thurston from Eureka 7, which is also a work by the Kataoka and Kondou). In addition to this, there's a tendency to fall back on certain stereotypes (the rather obvious musclebound oaf who likes nothing more than fighting strong opponents), which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can get tedious to see certain character archetypes all the time. Thankfully these niggles aren't really enough to prevent viewers from enjoying the series, especially if one is able to move past the rather slapdash storyline. Seriously, would it kill anyone to use some real world stereotypes, maybe something like the bad tempered little guy who doesn't know how to fight properly but makes up for it in sheer ferocity? Deadman Wonderland has a rather eclectic variety of background music on offer that ranges from dramatic heavy metal blended with techno, to a few simple notes played on a piano. The quality of the audio, both the music and the effects, is surprisingly good, and the choreography shows that some thought has gone into the implementation and timing of each track. The opening theme is a heavy metal piece called One Reason by DWB (featuring Fade), that has been set to a well designed sequence that utilises a three colour base, in this case red, white and black. The end credits feature a slow moving ferris wheel accompanied by images of many of the characters from their lives before they became inmates of Deadman Wonderland, all set to the tune of Shiny Shiny by NIRGILIS. To be perfectly honest, this anime doesn't really test the abilities of Paku Romi (Ganta), Hanazawa Kana (Shiro), or any of the other cast members to any great degree, but part of that is due to a relatively lackadaisical script. The dialogue lacks a degree of intuitiveness that can make conversations seem forced, and while the cast are capable seiyuu in their own right, they seem to struggle with several scenes in an effort to get the emotion across to the viewer. It's never a good thing when an actor or actress tries too hard, and this fact is borne out during a number of conversations in the series. But then, that's pretty much the story of Deadman Wonderland - it tries too hard. On the surface this appears to be a rather slick production with some high quality audio and visuals, but no amount of beautification can hide a plot that is more focused on currying favour with audiences than it is with actually telling a story. The narrative can often seem like a train wreck (i.e. bits flying off everywhere, people screaming and running for cover, etc), as many of the plot elements have simply been attached without any real thought given to integrating them into the story proper, and this is why many events can feel like they're nothing more than fillers. In addition to this, the idea of weaponizing blood isn't actually new as Wei Zhijun from Darker Than Black can blow things up using his blood, while Saya from Blood + must use hers to kill Chiropterans. That said, one has to remember that the story itself is incomplete as this is only an adaptation of the manga up to a point, and this is one of the reasons why there are inherent issues that have yet to be resolved. Unfortunately that excuse cannot cover certain flaws that really do stand out, the chief among them being Ganta's conviction. The series makes a point of showing a confession by him and this is given as proof of his guilt, but what happened to all the witness statements? What about the forensic evidence like the direction in which the windows exploded, or the angle of the attacks on the classroom? While the viewer clearly knows that Ganta is innocent, the apparent ease of his conviction is dependent on his confession, but nothing is mentioned about the physical evidence from the scene of the crime. Deadman Wonderland looks and sounds great, and if all you're after is a series that has lots of violence, blood, weird characters and a storyline that requires you disengage your brain, then this may be for you. The series may have it's problems, but the concept is interesting even if the implementation leaves a lot to be desired, and it does retain a degree of entertainment value for its action set pieces. In essence though, Deadman Wonderland is nothing more than a potato that has been painted by Michaelangelo - it looks stunning, but it's still just a potato.

There was a trend back in the Good Old Days of anime (as in you only thought they were Good because you weren't Old enough to know any better) of hyper violent OVAs. Deadman Wonderland feels like a tread back to those days. It has the over-exaggerated violence, the ridiculous amounts of blood, the awkwardly crowbarred in sexiness and, most noticeably of all, it’s utterly shit. Time has changed a few little aspects though. The OVA market of old has turned into the late night 12 episode anime series of today. This means it has more space to tell a coherent and fulfilling story, a capabilitywhich Deadman Wonderland approaches by totally ignoring it. 12 episodes are enough to tell a neat story with a beginning, middle and end. It gets the beginning right, tossing our protagonist into a scenario in which society have become so totally ignorant of the prison sector, so that even when hell is being created right in front of their eyes, they think it’s an elaborate piece of CGI. However, upon reaching the 'middle' segment, Deadman Wonderland tosses that whole story aside and becomes about super powers. Instead of developing the characters introduced in the beginning, it decides to quadruple the size of the cast, each and every single one having a hastily constructed backstory introduced right in the middle of a fight to the death that ends up having either little or no relevance to the actual battle happening in the present day. Neither does Deadman Wonderland get the 'end' part right either. This is partly due to the fact this is an ongoing manga, but plenty of other adaptations of ongoing manga have managed to construct some sort of conclusion in their respective stories. Usually this is in the form of the main character growing and learning something (see Arakawa, Spice and Wolf or Genshiken), which Deadman Wonderland tries to do, but royally cocks up because the main character has fuck all personality. Yes, this is something else that comes with modernity. Instead of the macho men that spout 'witty' quips like they're in an American first person shooter game (that is, when they ever talk at all), Deadman Wonderland sports a bland spineless teenage boy as its main character. To be fair to Ganta, he does actually do something other than make reaction noises while other characters monologue exposition at him, as is the trend in certain other modern day anime. He reacts to situations by either whining, crying or sobbing. It really isn't much of a personality, as any bland male would react to the cartoonish level of hell that exists in that prison in a similar fashion, and he really has nothing beyond that. There is chance for him to grow into a hero, and Deadman Wonderland tried to do that. Other characters would spout lines as to how much he's grown a spine and standing up for himself, but I failed to see that myself. He started off as a crybaby who could shoot off magical blood bullets when he felt threatened. By the end, he was a crybaby who shot off magical blood bullets when he felt threatened, except this time he could shoot off his magical blood bullets even faster than before. That's not character development! That's like saying a character has developed because he is now slightly better at picking his nose. Another thing the late night 12 episode anime has changed from the hyper violent OVAs of old is, now that they're on TV, they need to be censored. I can't really criticise Deadman Wonderland for this though, which is a shame because it's a really easy target. The gun that shot black balls of censorship through people’s chests was one of the most unintentionally hilarious things I've seen all year. But if you were to watch the dvd release, the censorship would (presumably) be removed. It would be like criticising it for the screen being upside down because you watched it while standing on your head. It's not the anime's fault you watched it that way. But the fact that it needed the level of censorship it has tells us how much blood and gore there is. Often the gore has no point other than to show how sadistic the anime is. It's really just repulsive and juvenile, like a child who tries to show everyone what a big man he is by killing the class rabbit. Deadman Wonderland is like a modern day MD Geist. It's aggressively stupid and only appeals to those teenagers and manchildren who think sheer bloody mindedness is what is required to make something cool. People might defend this by saying a hyper violent anime is preferable to the insipid harem moe nonsense of the modern era, which is a load of cowpat. They are both as brainless as each other, just appealing to different sorts of immature mindsets. If you gave me a choice between Deadman Wonderland or, say, Fortune Arterial, I'd instead choose repeatedly slamming my fingers in a car door.

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