Deadman Wonderland is one of my highest anticipated series of that season, for its concept and relation to one of my favorite series, Eureka Seven. My initial impressions of the series was pretty good... until I gave manga a quick look. I quickly got hooked and read through all the available chapters, and at the end of it, I can only look at the anime series with disgust. Why? Because the manga is so full of awesome, it made the anime series look like turd. Or it might possibly be because the production quality dropped sharply after the first couple of episodes.
Now, I really don't understand how Manglobe, producers of Samurai Champloo and Ergo Proxy, could have fucked this up so badly. Somehow they had the brilliant idea to translate scene-to-scene from the source material (manga). You don't even have to be a film/arts student to know that every medium tells a story in a very different way. I've blogged about that before. That entire episode looks retarded.
That was just one scene, but the amateurish directing had ruined almost all of the suspense and tension in latter episodes, and it all became so boring. I know I'm not giving credit for the storyline itself, but Deadman Wonderland drives its story that way; the insanity and tension are the fundamental selling point of the series, and it's entirely ruined for me. There was nothing that I could praise the series for but the music, which hardly factors into the overall enjoyment of the series. I didn't give it a score of one only because the story still had some value to it, and the music and VA cast does redeemed it a little.
From now on I can only speak of this series with rage.
Plot/Concept: Very Good
Story Style: Fail
Audio: Good
Visual: Bad
Value: 3
