Deadman Wonderland - Review

My first anime review of 2012 and it’s something that’s been on the backburner for quite a while. Deadman Wonderland is on the meh side of okay, despite being one of the few anime’s I’ve actually managed to finish since returning to the bustling university lifestyle. I chalk that up to the crisp animation more than the storyline, which I’ve had the most problems with.

Primarily Deadman Wonderland makes no sense. The story is inconsistent, its chief aim is to take the protagonist Ganta, a fourteen year old high school student out of the comfortable life his lead so far and screw around with him as much as possible. For instance, we are initially plummeted into a horrendous mass murder in which Ganta is the number one suspect. How do the authorities reach such a conclusion? He was the only living survivor. Yup, that’s it. I mean they don’t even wait for him to regain consciousness and give his sole survivor eye-witness account before putting him in handcuffs and charging him. Sloppy police work or part of a larger conspiracy? We don’t know because it’s never addressed. Nor is the fact that the warden of the super prison is moonlighting as Ganta’s lawyer; now surely that’s a conflict of interest? Or maybe the warden is in on the conspiracy? Nope, never addressed. Once Ganta is in the prison and this plot point has done its job, off it goes, never to be seen or heard from again.

Instead we’re introduced to Deadman Wonderland a prison/theme park/battle royale game. Complete with poisoners collars that kill off the prison population unless they eat the antidote (candy) every three days. Admittedly this is an interesting twist, because it gives the prisoners a reason to partake in dangerous sports, it’s quite literally a matter of life or death. But does the prison have a never ending supply of generically ‘bad’ criminals who are expendable? Surely this raises eyebrows? Nope, since the spectators think its fake, no one seems to question the body count. Convenient since it won’t be addressed again.

Half way through, the story takes its final leap into disbelief when Ganta discovers a secret prison underneath his own. One where people (like him) with special blood killing powers are pitted against each other semi-mortal kombat style, all the while shadowy agents watch. This just raises even more questions than it answers. Why do they have these powers? Why were they caught if they could clearly use they own blood as a weapon? Perhaps more importantly, can’t we think of better things to do with them rather than cage fight? Nope, not gonna answer these either.

Undeniably the latter half is the most exciting and feels the most organic, in that this is where the plot wanted Ganta originally. But it could have moved along much better and cleaner, instead of being wishy-washy. Unfortunately the series is only 12 episodes long and I have a feeling that many of the unanswered questions would have been brought up later in the show. Too bad there isn’t a season two in sight.

Rating: 6/10