The resistance puts their plans into motion to try and get out of the hell that they’re in.
What They Say:
The jailbreak assault…a plan to finally break free from the madness of Deadman Wonderland. Scar Chain has split into two groups, and both quickly find things going awry. Rokuro and Nagi encounter a young girl with a huge backpack in the control room, while Ganta and Karako’s group find themselves racing to escape a Necro Macro.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the way the resistance has come together, it’s kind of distrusting nature definitely works against it but it’s also kept them relatively safe for awhile. With the recent events now pushing them together a bit more with Ganta becoming a part of it, they’re now trying to make their move as a once a year opportunity has arrived with an inspect by outside inspectors which will give them a small window in which to try and break free. What they’re racing against is not just each other but also the forces that will attempt to stop them, which includes the Undertakers. And they’re the ones that will move in quickly and be quite brutal in a way that your average guard wouldn’t be.
Nagi’s encounter with an amusing little girl named Hibana who is quite deadly leads to the first real fight of the episode and she’s got some powers to her that help to minimize and dissipate Nagi’s abilities. Of course, they go a bit over the top with the size of her weapon, even if her skills allow her to handle it with ease, but it’s a lot of fun watching how she uses it against Nagi and works him over as his Branches of Sin are made ineffective for the most part. Being the crafty guy that he his though, there’s always something he has in mind and can try and do to survive the situation. Like a lot of other parts of this series, it’s pleasantly violent, bloody and over the top as we see her flay him alive with splotches of skin and muscle splattering on the ground around him. There is something to be said for the cute girls that are brutally violent, but this kid just comes across as too blatant in a way to be appealing.
The flip side of the episode, which is essentially the last quarter of the episode, focuses on Ganta and the crew he’s with as they start to make good on their escape. While there’s a lot of jubilation over what Nagi has accomplished which is letting them get away, it turns incredibly violent and bloody quickly as the group they’re up against, the Necro Macro, are unaffected by Branches of Sin as well but in a different way. Ganta’s mission is plain though in that he has to get the chip outside so that they can succeed, but the odds are heavily stacked against them. Everything was put in place to draw this out, but there are uncertainties as well and Ganta really is the biggest one of them all that they’re pinning their hopes on. Watching the struggle to get away is intense, convoluted and ultimately quite engaging.
In Summary:
While Hibana and her issues ultimately left me cool to her at best, there’s a lot to like with the sequence as it unfolds, even as it goes into the more grisly aspect with what she does to Nagi. The show has made it clear it wants to be this kind of violent but it’s lost its impact along the way to some degree after all that it’s done, but it feels weaker here because Hibana is not compelling enough to make it work. Nagi helps make up for it though with his determination and plan, which in turn lets us focus a bit more on Ganta as he struggles to accomplish the mission with the chip in getting it outside. With the death that’s all around him, each situation seems to lead to more of them falling in the face of staggering odds, but Ganta never gives up. It’s one of the few positives to him at this point, especially now that he’s taking a more proactive approach to his life.
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.
