Review: Deadman Wonderland (Anime)

“I will be your deadman, with nothing but this blood on my hands”

First of all, I love the OP. It was performed by a Japanese band, Fade, but with perfectly good English. Though it reminds me of Coldrain.



Studio: Manglobe
Original Author: Kondou Kazuma, Kataoka Jinsei

The story sets in a prison called “Deadman Wonderland”. What a contradicting name. You might think that the prisoners are referred to as deadmen, and they had to work as circus performers to visitors, hence ‘wonderland’. At least they’ve got a job. But their job can be pretty gruesome especially when they had to go through a violent contest in front of the audience, who had no idea that the violence is real. And when you win in one of these contests you’ll get the candy which keeps you from dying after a few days. Because each prisoner has to wear a collar, which would poison him if he runs out of candy. So they gotta work hard to get them.

This is indeed a really fun way to torture criminals, imho.

Anyway, I watched this a year ago, so I have forgotten most of my feelings towards this anime. But I remember how cool it is to use your blood and construct them into weapons. Before I forgot to mention, DW has a secret facility that’s doing experiments on chosen humans who have the ability to control their blood. These are the real “deadmans”. Funny thing is, each individual has their own set of attack patterns. Anyway, they seem to have appeared right after the earthquake which occurred somewhere in Japan (duh, where else?). And the fight between the Deadmans, is a gambling entertainment for the rich people. Losers would have to sacrifice a part of their body, and the body parts lost still hold the properties of the original Deadman.

This is my favourite Deadman, Senji Kiyomasa. The BRO of the group. Ex-police officer who's awkward with women XD

The story centers around Ganta, an innocent kid in his preteens who suddenly had to witness his classmates being slaughtered. Then a horrifying guy whom he called the “Red Man” sort of inserted something into him, and it caused him to have super powers also. Then he fainted, and the next thing he knew is that he was sent to court and to jail. Jail is where he meets the mysterious albino girl, Shiro, who claims to be his childhood friend. So why is his childhood friend doing in some kind of jail too?

Since it’s only a 12 episode anime, a few modifications needed to be done. Hence the court scene didn’t make much sense, and the ending was like… oh you know what happens to animes adapted from an on-going manga.

So for those who hasn’t seen this, I recommend you to just read the manga… at least you get to the point from where these Deadmans really originated. Unless you want to hear more Hanazawa Kana, then go ahead with the anime.