Deadman Wonderland

Deadman Wonderland is a manga series turned anime with thirteen volumes along with the same amount of episodes. It aired from April to July back in 2011 and is known for its intricate storyline and action/horror genre.

Plot

Ten years after what is known as Japan's most treacherous incident, day-to-day student, Igarashi Ganta attends Nagano Middle School with close friends and a fair bulk of classmates. The normalcy in his life changes for the worst when a creature covered in blood upon his armor massacres Ganta's class and leaves him alive. Not believing his story, Ganta's claims against "The Red Man" fall upon deaf ears and he is sentenced to death at Deadman Wonderland, a theme-park prison built after the Great Tokyo Earthquake, for slaughtering his innocent classmates.

While wasting away behind the walls of Deadman Wonderland, Ganta struggles to find the origin and story behind "The Red Man" in hopes of clearing his name. Throughout his stay at Deadman, Ganta begins to uncover secrets about the many inmates behind these walls along with his own manipulative powers.

Carnival Corpse

Carnival Corpse (or Carnival of Corpses) is an arena secretly run by Deadman Wonderland. This is where wealthy promoters pay to watch death-matches between inmates while also placing bets on who they want to win. Prisoners (or Deadmen) that lose to their opponent and still survive are then placed in a penalty game where they spin a slot-machine. Whatever the slot lands upon is what a doctor will surgically remove (body part) for scientific research. The winner of Carnival Corpse receives cast points that can be used to buy luxuries or life-saving candies that keep a Deadman from dying due to all the poisonous injections they are given.

Overall

With only thirteen episodes, Deadman Wonderland is promising with its sinister plot and unraveling storyline. I fairly enjoyed the bulk of this anime though I do think it became repetitive or, at times, predictable. Some of the characters really did annoy me but thankfully, Ganta's character had undergone severe development which is key in every story.

When first opening up with the anime, the audience is thrown headfirst into this new world created by Jinsei Kataoka and while adapting to it is relatively easy, you can get lost due to the extreme depth of certain events. One example would be the manipulation Ganta faced when being interrogated in a kangaroo courtroom and labeled as the one who had slaughtered his classmates. The reasoning behind this still bothers me at times since logically, you wouldn't think of any child (especially a middle schooler) being able to plot out such heinous things and actually get through the bulk of it (concerning style of killing). But throughout the anime and closer towards the ends, the inmates within Deadman Wonderland contrasted against my assumptions as evil and power had no age limit.

I'm not a fan of bubbly, cheerful or naïve characters in serious anime's much like this, so having Shiro take on this role as a white-haired deity befriending Ganta was really something. She was probably the reason why I hadn't zoomed through this anime or been completely attached to it. To me, it frankly didn't make sense as to their past connecting themselves to one another. I feel like the only good thing about Shiro staying around Ganta was for her to remind him of a friend he had made back when life was happy-go-lucky and to give him reason to go forth with his quest.

Kiyomasa Senji was a character I fell head over heels for. Talk about 2D eye-candy, but also a prideful man that was once a police officer before falling bouts of corruption and imprisoned for ignorant use of power. When he's first introduced, there are a thousand thoughts that ran through my head. I didn't know if he was evil or a threat, but when coming into contact with Ganta in the later episodes, he was a seemingly righteous man that only did what he had to do to survive within the prison. And he was definitely on my sympathy list after being punished for a loss within Carnival Corpse.

All in all, Deadman Wonderland holds a very interesting plot. Even the opening theme song is brilliant and something I'd never skip through. With enough action, a sense of adventure and plot twists to keep you squirming, Deadman Wonderland is perfect for fans of science fiction and horror.