Deadman Wonderland

Deadman Wonderland, the only privately owned prison which doubles up as a theme park to earn a profit. After being framed for the violent murder of all his classmate Igarashi Ganta is sent to Deadman Wonderland with the death sentence. For the inmates everything is controlled by cast points. Cast points are used to buy food, drink and with enough of them, years of your sentence or candies to delay your execution. They are earned by performing life threatening shows for an audience. But Ganta isn't a normal inmate. He has a special power of blood manipulation; the same power that was used to kill all his classmates. People with this power must battle each other in a last man standing style fight. The winner gets cast points and candy to prolong their life. The loser (if they are left alive) must face a gruesome penalty game where a piece of their anatomy is removed. It gets VERY gory. As Ganta seeks revenge on the 'red man' who killed his classmates he meets Shiro, an unbelievably strong girl but soon remembers her from his childhood. Although she's obviously not human, it's not yet clear what she is! I have said in numerous reviews that I don't like gore and this anime has me constantly squirming; but in general, the supernatural aspect to it means that's it all cool. I just really dislike the penalty games...

But ignoring that, this is almost motivational! Ganta is really weak and gets beat down in all his fights, but then he has one of those dramatic 'I won't give up' kind of pep speech and goes all ninja on their buts! It's the determination of Ganta that's so important, determined to live his life for as long as he can he performs some pretty impossible stunts! He is also really kind and tries to protect people even though he's not that strong. It's so sweet!! As for Shiro.... well, it's difficult. She's still such a mystery, but it seems like she has a split personality of a super bubbly girl that we see at first and this cold-hearted one who seems to be lurking about later on. Although I can't say much about this second side of her, I can talk about how cute she is otherwise!! Super protective over Ganta and completely oblivious to all the danger surrounding her; she's in her own world! When Ganta says that all his friends where killed, Shiro starts sulking without explanation. It was because Shiro is Ganta's friend and she's alive! How sweet?

The most exciting thing in this anime is easily all the different powers (called Branches of Sin) and how they are used. Ganta's is boring, he just shoots blood at people so I'm really glad all the other deadman have different branches of sin! Like Sanji, who cuts his arms to make blades out of the blood. And the animation is effective! The spirally redness that flies about during fight scenes looks super cool! I'd rather not talk about the animation used during the punishment games, but the do cover up the worst part at least!

Something new popped up in this anime as well, bleeped out swear words. This is not the first anime I've seen with foul language, but it's the first one where they've bleeped them out. And there's so many of them! With the violent and grotesque animation, I don't know why they thought censoring out the swear words would make much difference. But anyway, I like the idea of branches of sin and all the corruption behind Deadman Wonderland is very interesting too! However, the series has a lot left in it but only 13 episodes in total. I'm sure they could fit in a whole bunch more fights with out it getting repetitive,  but it looks like there will be a rushed ending or maybe one with out a full explanation. Alas, I'm not at the end yet, so I shan't worry about that too much! As long as I hold my breath through the scenes which are too gory for me, the show is actually quite enjoyable and very unique.