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#1
03-20-2010
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Deadman Wonderland
I was curious on how many fans Deadman wonderland had and what they thought about also I have no one to talk about it with in my 'real' life so... yh... discuss.
spoilers are fine, just put a warning at the top of your comment 
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#2
03-21-2010
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It's a rather dark series but nevertheless quite enjoyable, Ganta (the lead protagonist) has that horrible Ikari Shinji (from Neon Genesis Evangelion fame) whiny 'why is this happening' type attitude that is just obnoxious to me, thankfully he gets better during the chapters progression.
 The only other nitpick is the releases are as bad as souleater which feel too few and farbetween 
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#3
01-23-2013
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I was really really disappointed with this show.
I think from how dead this thread is, others were as well. I believe that the problem for DMWL is three-fold: 1=The show's premise was insanely stupid. The whole prison-theme-park thing just did not work and the quality of the stories within the show was not high enough to warrent the suspension of disbelief needed to get pass this issue. I mean a theme-park of death could work and in fact, even has done so in the past; however, the prison aspect of the show added little to nothing and took away a lot. It seems the writers agreed with this and so completely dropped one part of the two-trier setting. The problem is that they dropped the theme-park aspect and went for the prison route. The prison as a setting was dull, drab and listless. 2=The Characters were ether annoying, boring or just plain dislikable. None of them had any mystery or intrigue to them. As has been stated previously, Ganta is Shinji, enough said. Shirou is just one of those female characters which anime writers seem to love, but everyone else finds really annoying due to the fact she is basically retarded in the technical sense of the word. The Red-man villain is dropped as a concept, presumably he had a role to play later, but as it is, he adds nothing. The Warden is meant to be scarily insane, but really just comes off as like a spoilt kid and is no way scary or devious. Yo just becomes another big brother. His sister is meant to be all twisted and set up to be, is she, isn't evil, but as we not even the time to get to know, nor a reason to like her, she just comes off as jarring and unlikable. I could go on, but I think my point is made. 3=It falls for all the same troupes that all modern anime does. Unneeded pantie shots aside, the cutee cutee parts of this mixed with the unrequired gore are jarring and instead of creating a tone, just leave the watcher feeling like someone is shaking them very hard. This part of the show, suffers very much from the same problem that another, supposedly mystery based, show suffers from. It's style and tone is all over the place. It tries to be everything and ends up as nothing.
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#4
01-23-2013
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I missed a few episodes of the show, but I have a feeling it doesn't really matter. I had no idea what was going on toward the end. It seems like the show wanted to tell two or three different stories and never decided on which ones. Nothing gets resolved, plot points are added and never brought up again, and the ending is incredibly unsatisfying. The show suffers from having too many characters and too few episodes.
What the fuck did I just watch/10.
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#5
01-23-2013
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Will in some ways I agree fareds critisisms are legit, I still quite liked the show and would like to refute some of his points.
First, the "theme park of death" uses the prisoners as entertainers and workers for their punishment, I'm not sure if you watched it recently but both elements were important and inseperable. Granted, it is pretty extreme and very pessimistic, it is meant to be. I just found it interesting how they took the concept of the private sector taking control of crime and punishment and them using it for private profit, but then taking it too far and actually making it a battle royale for survival. In this it is a critisism of those who believe in the absolute privitisation of law and welfare, showing what, albiet in an extreme scenario, could be. The theme park of death is not the basis of the story, its the factor centred around the prison, not the other way around. And I dont se how the Red-man was dropped as a concept. The series isnt meant to be complete (And I will get to that in my own issues), if you research into the Manga the wretched egg plotline is indicated at at several times in the plot, as in the anime, ut comes into play much later in the story. I can agree with the main character being boring and Shirou being a a typical seinen character, but not because of her "retarded" aspects. If you bothered to follow that was more of a guise to hide her intent and identity. What the problem is with her character is that she is a cliché magical seinen girl who gives power to the mai character. She is C2 in red and grey but with the childish elements of Nyuu from Elfen Lied. As for the pantie shots... there werent too many of them except for when the sister was trying to act innocent. For the gore, Im a sucker for gore and there just arnt enough shows out there who handle this degree of violence that well. I liked the vicious brutallity this show had. It had tone, and the jarring brutallity is its tone. But it does have atmosphere at times as well. Now, what makes me not like this show as much as I should? It starts off very well, its not pleasent in any sense but it shouldnt be. I wish they spent more time in the surface prison, but I liked the death matches below as well. It starts to fall apart at the point of the rebellion, though maybe its just fatigue from watching through this show through in one sitting. It feels weaker than it should and goes on for too long, and the superpriest is as silly a villain you could get and just feels out of place. But the thing which makes me not want to recommend the show is the ending. Remember when I said it wasnt a complete piece? Well... So in short, I liked it up until the last four episodes which might have been my own fatigue, but the ending was the biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard to make a second season after adding in a climax for the season. That is what this brings this down.
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#6
01-23-2013
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Rebuttal (I will be concise as I am tired.)
Private sector in law enforcement: -This has been done millions of times and in all cases. It especially sucks here because: 1=it was trite and over the top, meaning what should be a serious concept comes off as just stupid. 2=It was not developed or expanded upon. They talk about it a lot, but never actually get integrated into the plot in a way so as to make us feel it is important. Furthermore, as we have both said, the writers dropped the theme-park aspect way too quickly and the underground prison was not interesting at all. Prisons can be very good places for a story, but here the prison lacked any defining characteristics and one of the main things a prison can do is give a claustrophobic air which is great for character studies. However, in this case the prison was not restrictive or oppressive so did not even utilise the prison setting it went with well. 3=The battles were just dull because: A=They all followed the same pattern of, Ganta sucks, Ganta sucks, Ganta sucks, Ganta suddenly becomes super poweful without reason (they say it is because of his emotions, but he would have to actually emote for that, and even if it was possible for him to emote, which i doubt it is, his reasons for emoting are all one thing so his sudden changes in personality seemed to be writers because saying, he is power... because...) B=They is nothing defining about them, they are just boring one on one battles with characters who are given really over the top and yet still really genetic back stories. Characters we feel nothing for I might add. C=The audience are just a group of annoying, cute pictures with no defining characteristic ether, and who just serve as a distraction. The only interesting private show battle was at the theme-park, which, well was made completely superfluous by the next episode anyway. =Red-man 1=I already stated that he seems to be there for later episodes which not fore-coming due to the failure of the show. 2=He is meant to be the main villain, but after episode 3 he barely shows up and when he does show up, he does not do anything at all. Even if he is meant to be utilised later on, he still clearly needs placing in the plot now so as to make us care about when he does finally become important. Moreover, this is the anime, even if it follows the Manga, it still has to stand up on its own, I should not have to read other source material just to know what the hell the basic plot is. That is core of the show, if that is not there, nothing is. =Shirou; I presume you are referring to the one scene she spends with that old man, which I took to mean she had a duel-personality or something. Again, brought up and never referenced again, sorry, as a viewer that means all she is to me as a viewer is a retard because that is all I am shown basically. Again, do not say it is incomplete, even if this is only halfway, the are key plot-points which are not in anyway developed, expanded upon or explained in the whole first half of the show. That is just bad writing. Even at this point, I have should some grounding on who people are, what they are doing and why I should care. 2=Even if it is an act, that does not excuse her from being annoying. She is an annoying character, enough said. I do not find her cute or endearing, just annoying. =Pantie shots, 1=I said: "Pantie shots aside..." -This means was not including them... 2=The reason I noted them is because they are a well known pet-pee of mine due to them being pointless fan service. This meant that I felt the need to show even if I annoyed my pet-pee this was still a really flawed aspect of the show. =Gore 1=I have no problem with gore. 2=I have no problem with cutesy. I am not much of a fan, but I do not have a problem with it. 3=However, when you ram them together, a great show they do not make. Even if this was them trying something new and creative idea (it was not, many anime have tried this and failed, but even if it was), that does not make it a good one. 4=The tone of this show was all over the place, in one single scene they tried to be funny, cute, deep, emotionally, dark and caring all at once. This means I am just nullifies my emotions as I cannot feel all those emotions at once. 5=There is not atmosphere in my opinion, there is no sense where I think, god what will, happen, will they live...etc, why? Simple, because: A=I do not care about any characters in the show. B=You know exactly who will die and who will live within minutes of meeting them. C=Though the show makes an effort to ensure there is lots of death, I do not even know who 90% of those dying are; nor do I actually care. Oh no, genetic bartender who I cannot even remember the name of, nooo, please no genetic bartender...yer...real tragic. D=Everything was so rushed. IE The traitor aspect, another wasted concept. It could have worked were not for the fact that you knew within seconds of meeting the traitor, that he was the traitor. He may as well have a sign on his head saying "I am going to betray you all." E=When I know is going to happen with every character, that kills all atmosphere. When I know what is going to happen and still have no idea what is going on, that just leaves me not caring. I think that is what disappointed me the most, the fact this show so clearly wants to be different and its own jonrar defining anime, but is clearly written by those with no ideas or concepts of their own; so they just say very all chiche and stereotyped anime troupe from under the sun and throw into one show in the hope that something good comes out. However, that will always just leave you with the mess we have before us.
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#7
01-23-2013
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Quote:
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#8
01-23-2013
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Well fair enough for most of those fared, different viws and such. However you say the Red Man never shows up past episode 3 but nope, he is there most of the time. Shirou is the red man.
I never had to read up th basic plot, I got it every step of the way. The only reason I looked up about the later plot was because I was curious about the pathetic excuse for a season finalé they pulled. And you say Cuteness and gore dont go well together, but then Higurashi has both and that is my favorite show by a long shot. However I guess since they paced it more it was less rammed and more stark contrast. I dont seem to remember too much cutesiness myself, maybe I just blot out bad parts of things and remember the good, unless the bad for me is so bad it destroys any reason.
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#9
01-23-2013
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The show had promise.
I thought the theme park was a unique idea and was hoping it would introduce some extremely interesting stories with it. As killshot already elaborated this anime failed when the creator attempted to do too many things at once. He should have let his show build up like any mainstream anime/manga today. He had a solid opening. The red man comes and WRECKS his classroom. Ganta gains a mysterious power. And as soon as Ganta get's his power the editor just races to the finish line. I watched it though because it was semi interesting. I rarely watch an anime for the storyline anymore unless it's onepiece. It's strictly for new cool moves and amazing fights.
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#10
01-24-2013
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@Grim: That is the thing though, is it not? Shirou being the Red-man is just anothing thing which really did not work. The fact they look nothing alike (him being about triple her size and all) means that the one time we see her in Red-man suit and know it is her; it looks about 5 sizes too big for her. However, that plothole aside; there is another issue. The fact the plot again does not utilise, expand upon or develop this point in any meaningful way.
Now let us presume that the writers did actually intend to finish the show; if we take this position, then we can assume they wished for a whole Ganta's feelings of betrayal thing and Shinrou fighting against her other self for him. (I am still guessing she is insane with two people in her head, the show never makes this very clear; I therefore realise that she could just be a bitch.) However, assuming that is what they wanted, for this to work we need Red-man and Shinrou in the show together, not just Shinrou. This way we can see both Ganta's hate for the Red-man grow as well as his emotional attachment to Shirou. This therefore makes the sudden and invitertiable realistation of them being the 'same' person all the more powerful because we can see and feel how these duel relationships suddenly crushing together will cause pain and conflict for Ganta's as he sees these emotions being attached to the same person. As it is, we do not know or care about the Red-man and Ganta himself seems pretty unconcerned with the issue as well; well, besides the odd, "I hate the Red-man" comment Last edited by Fat1Fared; 01-24-2013 at 08:04 AM.
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#11
01-24-2013
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Fair enough really. Ultimately though I think we can both agree, whether you like the show or not, that the ending cannot fill the hole in the ship. I see year point but still like the show up until the ending, and that point of idiocy can, and will, never be excused no matter how good the second season is. The plot holes and plot jumps can be fixed with a second season, but that retarded choice can never be excused.
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