Series Review: Deadman Wonderland

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

Spring 2011 Anime May...ish Review Part 3: AnoHana, Enma-kun and Summary Score

Ok, wow. I've never heard Tomatsu Haruka like that before.

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi we Mada Shiranai

So what I've feared finally came; the gang starts to second guess Jinta's ability to see Menma, and thinking that's it's his own bullshit all the while. Aside for the fact the Menma's so coporeal, it also bugs me that the gang trust Jinta (somewhat) so easily and had made so much effort because Jinta claims to be able to see Menma. Well, now that Menma proves to be able to communicate with the gang after all (you only realised now?), we'll be able to see the story pick up the pace. But hey, it's nice to see that whatever Menma's wish is, it's already somewhat fulfilled now that the gang has been meeting up for a while now.

Dororon~ Enma-kun Meramera

It was only until around 4 episodes that I realised that I'm watching a fanservice show. It doesn't seem like any kind of plot is going to take place, and most likely the monster-of-the-week and its various ways of exploiting the female characters fomula would carry on until the end of the series. Well, at least it wasn't completely boring; the presentation can very incredibly lazy at times, but the unique style (old-school...) of the show and creative fanservice allows it to be a good way to pass time time <.<

Summary Ranking & Score

1. Hanasaku Iroha - A+
2. Anohana - A+
3. Ao no Exorcist - B-
4. Tiger & Bunny - C+
5. C - C (not trying to be funny, but...)
6. Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko - C-
7. Enma-kun - C-
8. Deadman Wonderland - D

Spring 2011 Anime May Review Part 1: Deadman Wonderland, Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko, [C]

I figured this monthly review could be a regular thing for me as well, since episodic reviews ain't really my thing but I would like to at least write something for the shows I'm watching anyway. But what should I call it? "Retrospective look" (Random Curiosity)? "Roundup" (Cart Driver)? "Summary" (Starcrossed)? Bah... "Review" will suffice.

Deadman Wonderland

I've mentioned in a previous post that the poor production values are screwing up the potential of the show. It wasn't quite as obvious if you've never read the manga, but if you do you'll see the many shortcuts they've taken to adapt this. The latest episode felt extremely rushed and didn't conclude the Minatsuki arc as well as it should. You probably won't think of Minatsuki as a pretty girl if you haven't seen the manga illustrations of her too. The over-the-top story won't have been so obviously ridiculous if they've executed it right. Yeah, I'm blaming everything on the studio's poor direction because I'm so thoroughly disappointed.

Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko

I think I got it figured out. Denpa girls sells because they're weird unique, and "unique" also defines the relationship they had with the main protagonist. I mean they had a good excuse for harem setting we ended up with right now. It doesn't matter if they had a story now, because the show now is all about "Weird girls doing weird things", similar to the logic of "cute girls doing cute things".

...is probably what they'd like to think. I find that the concept itself is a hard-sell, but the direction isn't anything unique. It wasn't even Shinbo-unique (although the presentation definitely is). Denpa Onna has became a weekly mindless entertainment, but that also means that it would never register itself as one of the better series out there.

[C]

I think we can all tell where the story is heading as early as three episodes into the series: Kimimaro, the only guy the in financial district with a conscious, would proceed to take out everything in the financial district, as well as everything in the real world build on Midas money. That's like half the world as we know it. Even if entire countries starts to disappear, I figured it would be implied as a good ending since that would put people's future back in the hands of the owner, which is how it all suppose to be in the first place. I'm not doing a lot of guess work here; it's practically what the OP tries to imply with Kimimaro attacking Mikuni.

The concept is unique, but the story is nothing original. [C] didn't go much beyond putting the protagonist in an entirely new and unknown environment, giving him new powers, and the protagonist would slowly learn to be responsible for his newly acquired powers. That's a formula half the anime series out there runs on. And since the entire story's practically laid out for us to see, I find it hard to look forward to the next episodes.


I must say that I do enjoy [C], I enjoy seeing Mashu's character, her growing relationship with Kimimaro, and some of the battles are pretty exciting (particularly Mikuni vs Kuchiki) but the series didn't add much to the shounen fighting genre other than replacing magic and swords with money. I would have dropped the series if series is not pretty much ending already.

What the hell? This isn't the Minatsuki I had in mind (Deadman Wonderland Ep6)

Umm no, I'm not talking about Minatsuki's true personality. As of now I've completed the available 45 chapter of manga awesomeness, so I had a pretty good idea what the rest of the story's gonna be like.

I do appreciate that the anime stuck faithfully to the manga, up to almost every scene, sequence and even dialogue. But these studios also gotta learn that manga and anime had a very different method of storytelling, and this episode shows that how sticking too faithfully to the manga isn't such a good idea.

Go read the these two chapters of the manga and you'll probably see what I mean. The anime had killed off 90% of the fight and Minatsuki's awesomeness.

First off, she had a SHITTY VA. Her voice work was so amateurish, forced, and fake-high-pitched that it hurt my ears.

Then it was the animation quality. The first pic right on TOP of this post is high-quality and detailed, but it didn't carry over to the animation. Sure all the blood hair were waving around, but this pan up of Minatsuki was choppy and had shoddy detailing (see the hair).

Then it was the expression of the scene. See how the "lighting" effect and black background in the manga helps depict her mentality? In the anime, she's just making a face for no good reason. And moving her tongue around while she talks. In the incredibly annoying voice.

And what's with her expression this round? She's a sadistic phycho, and the manga has done well expressing that. But Minatsuki is not a lunatic. She doesn't make crazy mouth movements just because of her temperament.

The "lighting" effects here again. And here in the manga, that frame can just be figuratively expressing her thoughts at the moment. The problem is when you actually sees her turn around and make a face just because, it looks really, really awkward.

I suppose they don't have the budget to animate this awesome scene, so we're making do with yet another lunatic laugh.

Another thing about manga depiction of a scene is that there's no sense of time. That's why you don't feel the flashbacks and all the talk dragging on and on the fight in the Narutoonepiecebleach manga, and how it becomes so painfully obvious in the anime. You see here that all the talk Ganta do was on just one page, but in the anime, you see him talk while walking slowly up to Minatsuki and it's painfully obvious to the anime audience that she could have done him in twice and eat a hot dog while he's obviously coming in for the kill.

The headbutt is a surprise because the manga kept it to one page. The anime totally killed the surprise here.

I think I should be the director of DMW instead.