With Ganta having survived the first apparent attempt on his life in this strange prison, life only becomes more unusual.
What They Say:
A major construction accident and Tamaki’s musings have only intensified warden Makina suspicion of Ganta. Meanwhile, Ganta gets treated for the injuries he suffered in the accident, and meets Takami Yoh again in the infirmary. Yoh tells Ganta about the upcoming “Dog Race Show,” prompting Ganta and a hungry Shiro to enter…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The opening episode of Deadman Wonderland was a rather interesting piece, disjointed as it was in revealing how the machinations of events worked out to get Ganta into this special privately owned prison. It obviously made no sense based on the events and what was known, and the opening of this episode highlights a bit more about it as the man over the warden indicates that there will be no further attempts on Ganta’s life if the first fails. And he hopes it will fail, as it did, since it would lead to far more interesting things, which is what we did get out of the first episode at the end with the girl that appeared and the three convicts that died.
With this episode, there’s some exposition to explain a couple of little things, but it’s largely designed in order to get us to the next action moment. Ganta’s not really had any downtime just yet to figure things out, and nothing was really explained to him, but Yoh fills him in on how the prisoners here survive by getting casts, which are basically points earned by doing performance related things with the circus above them. The bigger the event, the more impressive the stunt depending on what it is, the more casts you earn. And they can be used for smokes, lots of really good food and even alcohol. Yoh tempts him further by saying they can even buy off some of the time on a sentence. With Ganta and Shiro having no casts yet since they’re both new, he gets drawn easily into the Dog Race that’s about to happen as there’s a lot of casts on the line, but some very powerful opponents as well.
The actual race is like an animated version of Running Man to a large degree, mixed with the bizarreness of many Japanese game shows and the entire death thing. Ganta and Shiro both make out pretty well in it as it plays out, though there’s plenty of panic on Ganta’s part while Shior looks like she’s loving the insanity of it the situation, especially wince it’s all so kiddified to appeal to the mass audience that’s watching it. There’s the obvious scene involving a follow-up with the threats made prior to the start of the race with the big bad that’s feared by the other prisoners, but like we’ve seen at the end of the previous episode, Ganta’s been pushed too far and things are ready to explode. This uncertainty about events and what he’s capable of, combined with Shiro, really adds a surreal feeling to the show as you can’t be sure what will happen. And that’s a big part of this series right now, which makes it pretty interesting.
In Summary:
Deadman Wonderland definitely has that wonderland feeling down as it pushes Ganta through some strange situations with a lack of knowledge, though at least some of it can be gleaned from the book he was given. The whole concept isn’t bad and it’s one that we’ve seen in other forms before, but with the slightly different twist here and what seems to be a larger storyline. It’s easy to connect this to the Running Man movie and it’s not unwarranted, but I like what they’re doing here, but they’re still keeping a lot of information off the table at this point to let the viewer feel as disconnected and unsure about things as Ganta is. That can work, at least for a little while and when there’s such strong production values, but they have to start teasing things out within the next episode or two before you start to feel like you’re being taken along too far. The few bits we do get are certainly intriguing though and leave me wanting to know more.
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
Grade: B
Simulcast By: Crunchyroll
