The resistance sort of wants Ganta, which makes sense considering how wishy-washy he can be.
What They Say:
The resistance prepares to breakout during inspection week, and Ganta discovers what freedom means.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the resistance now exposed to Ganta and a few others, things are starting to take an interesting tone though it has an unusual feeling to all of it. The fact that the underground exists as it does and spends some of its time just hanging out in a bar comes across as an odd push to it. When you’re in this kind of position, fighting back against something with this kind of laid back attitude doesn’t click well. They just act all too open in a way when you consider what could be thrown at them at any time. When they start to show more of what’s in the plans, it goes back to something reminiscent of Star Wars with the troops being rallied as Ganta starts to get a clue about what’s going on with the anti-Deadman brigade and even an explanation of why he had such a hard time in his last fight until Shiro showed up and saved the day.
The attitudes of some are enough to push Ganta away, especially with the way Nagi berates and mocks him for things and talks about how ineffective Ganta is for their movement. All of this is going on as the Wonderland itself is getting ready for its annual inspection, which means they need to really lock the place down. This is a difficult task for the captain that’s made even worse by the fact that the Warden wants to turn the whole thing into his own personal Wonderland so he can do whatever weird and sick things come to his mind. While he never seemed terribly stable from the start, he’s becoming more unhinged as things progress and a lot of it seems to be spurred on by the things that Ganta has been doing with Shiro.
Background fills up a good part of the show as it progresses as well as we get a look at some of Nagi’s past that has put him in the position he’s in, but also a bit of a history lesson for how Japan changed with Tokyo being lost and Saitama becoming the new capital. It’s a ll glossed over, but it hints at some very big things that tie into the larger storyline with a look at how Deadman Wonderland was focused. Context is everything and each episode starts to give us more and more of it, but putting it together as a whole has it still feeling incomplete. But it is enough to get Ganta to realize that this is where he needs to be in order to figure out where to go from here with his life. And with Shiro who continues to wear boxing gloves for seemingly the entire episode, which is cute to be sure, but just comes across as taking the joke too far.
In Summary:
Deadman Wonderland is light on the action for this episode and it’s useful to help flesh out more of what’s been going on. The resistance organization that’s been introduced still has little going for it other than gumption and intent. The formation of their plan is ill advised at best, but likely it will be enough to spur things on to give it some big moments and they’ll make it through, at least some of them, but pluck alone. Though they have powers to them, it’s done in such a way that you wonder why they truly haven’t acted before and what has kept them in secret for so long. Deadman Wonderland still has a lot going for it, but the more it starts to expose the details of the story and the connections and motivations of the characters, the more you wonder about these things as it pokes some growing holes in the overall plot.
Grade: B-
Simulcast By: Crunchyroll
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.