Elfenlied1012 (Level 15)
Hello Anime Vice! It is I, M, here again to bring you my own taste and perspective to all the anime I’ve seen, and if there’s one thing I’m good at its being opinionated. Today’s review is a break from the Deadman Wonderland and a small aside into another anime that myself and a few friends watched, Mirai Nikki known as Future Diary in the states.
The story is basically the highlander meets steins gate for lack of a cleaner comparison. It follows the events of a survival game created by the god of time and space to decide his successor, this survival game being decided by twelve people all given a future Diary, basically whatever their previous diary was but already having ever record they would have put in it for the next 90 days, giving the power to change the future to all 12. Now these unknown 12 must kill one another to become god. The main characters being middle schooler Yuki Amano, the 1st (his diary recording everything around him indiscriminately) and the mysterious 2, Yuno Gasai, his Yandere perfected stalker with the “Love diary” records everything about him in ten minute intervals.
This anime has a bit of a history for me. I remember buying the first manga when it was released out in the states by now debunked Tokyo pop because of an ad in the back of something else. From their I passionately purchased even volume from Amazon when they came out and eventually breaking and reading them as they came out in japan. From the get go it was my second favorite manga ever made hands down, and I have read easily over a hundred seeing as I spent a good portion of my middle school life in a book store with friends. That being said I was insanely skeptical of the future diary anime and kept it away from me for the longest time in disbelief it would ever match up to its predecessor. So I suppose this is where I get into whether or not it did?
Short hand is no it did not match up, but damn was it just an inch behind. In plot and development it follows near exact to the manga, much to its benefit, with minor cut outs to skin it down to 26 episodes. As a series both versions craft a distinctly creepy and uncomfortable world without feeling too forced or shifted from our own, just with a narrative pushed dark cloud that begins to consume the work as things progressively get darker and more bleak and uncomfortable. The atmosphere of Future Diary is that of constant tension mixed with deceptively calm and happy moments meant to muddle your attempts at growing cold to the world as Future Diary presents it. In terms of being dark serious story with some very clever series of turns Future diary is a complete success. This all complimented with a incredible cast where even the shortest lived characters seem surprisingly well done, likeable and at worse interesting.
Its greatest cardinal success is its lead female, Yuno. She set the absolute bar of being that perfect uncontrollable force that Yandere main character is suppose to be. Go to the concept page of Yandere and there is a reason she is its poster girl. Perfectly bordering on a mix of madness and docile pleasantness that makes anyone no matter how much you want to resist let your guard down a little. She is, without being superhuman, one of the most hyper lethal characters I have seen in anything. She has gone beyond a sadist, who takes pleasure in death thus accepts its relevance, to something more alien and frightening, something that simply does not think of death any more then I think of walking. It is simply the shortest path to her, and while many try to present characters as such few are done so well that they actually become incredibly creepy in a way that makes me a 6 foot 3 man of impressive strength afraid.
Future Diary while it looks great and tells a fantastic story it does have some fairly relevant flaws, the sound design while often great does pull one too many of the classic and generic horror movie sounds out in too serious of moments that it rips a little out of the immersion, and while everything and I mean every nearly irrelevant anime thing in the series is explained in fiction well enough some of said explanations are rather cheap. The major issue with the serious however deals with the ending, it’s basically as if the writer thought of about 8 endings and picked all 8 of them. Going right to the point where the book naturally would be sealed and reopening it again to just keep going, and while it’s done well enough it was still done, making the end somewhat of a cluster f@#k. Lastly on the negative side of things where the anime does leave it off is an odd point, it stops halfway in the final chapter of the manga leaving out the explanation of the final event and the closure that its suppose to bring instead giving a mild feeling of not exactly a cliffhanger, but not too far from it. This all being an off putting in comparison to the rest of the series which is meticulously thought out and executed.
Everything being said Future Diary the anime is an up there on my all time favorites. No surprise that I argue so heavily that it should be dubbed and put on Toonami. Future Diary is something that is just perfectly representation of the dark side madness made for our own twisted entertainment. That all said it is the inferior of the series and though just barely held back from a 5 I give it the still just a positive and very rare 4.5 murmur end skits out of 5 (which are by the way funnier than any single episode of Yuru Yuri has ever been)
Well vice this is M and I'm off. I’ll leave you with the yuki song, enjoy the madness vice and check out Future Diaries its worth your time. Oh and Hopefully we'll have another podcast recorded this week.
Well Hello again, it is I M, here again to give you all another taste of the circus that is Deadman Wonderland. Today’s subject is of course volume five of the Deadman wonderland series. In an attempt to keep things short I’ll get right to our main attraction.
Volume five follows the further actions of Scar Chain, the Deadman resistance movement, against the undertakers, now with the Owl captured, their plan in shambles and the only famed members being Ganta the woodpecker, and the Fowl, Scar chain intends to kick it into overdrive and go for one last make or break with one last operation and decide the fate of all its members. This culminating in a large scale final battle between all of Scar Chain and the Undertakers.
Right off the bat Volume five starts and ends the most action heavy entry into the Deadman Wonderland. In fact I honestly can’t think of a single chapter where blood was not spilled from someone even if just a training Montague. This action heavy focus isn’t that much of a detriment seeing as it is suppose to be the close of an arch. For what it’s worth it’s fairly brutal and interesting enough to look at and the characters you like still are around and act as you’d expect. Perhaps my half hearted praise is showing that my next little paragraph might be a bit bigger huh?
Truth be told, most of the positive in this volume comes from the good will earned by previous entries and the simple acknowledgement that the production values of the volume are high, but in terms of plot and execution the volume is a complete flop. The Arch itself is essential blood benders (Deadmen) vs Bleach characters (undertakers)set in Arkhem asylum and while that might be appealing to some, but in the somewhat serious/disturbing nature of Deadman wonderland it seems completely out of place and time, this of course might just be a symptom of my bigger distaste for series like Bleach. (I have a feeling I’m going to regret saying that on a public forum)
Beyond my issues with the arch itself there are bigger problems with execution of said story arch. It’s like a punch line without a set up. The entire volume is an attempt to having a stunning climax that was only barely established a volume ago. It feels unearned and as such I, as a reader, lack any sort of investment aside from caring about the fate of Shiro and Ganta. This disinterest coupled with the confusing and rather poorly handled final battle leave me unimpressed and let down by this entry into the Deadman world.
Well it’s not a big secret that I don’t find volume 5 all that great, it’s serviceable and okay, but definitely a low point for the series as a whole. Well mostly I’m happy to be finished with the Undertakers as a whole and from the little bits that I hear the next arch sounds a lot more my tastes, that all said this volume ends with a mediocre and final 3 super monks out of 5 now let’s never hear the world super monk again, later vice.
Well hello again, it is I, M, and today’s an early day for me, but the adventure must continue, with that in mind I introduce my next chapter in the vision quest into the world of Deadman wonderland with my review of Deadman wonderland Volume 4 the next entry into the Deadman series. So how does Deadman Wonderland keep up?
Well this time Deadman wonderland takes another shift, with the carnival corpse on hold for a weak as inspectors arrive at wonderland. Scar chain, a resistance movement by the Deadmen run by “The Owl”, and “The Fowl” aim to reveal to the world the atrocities of Deadman wonderland to the Japanese government and the world, eventually leading to a mass prison break. For this plan to successes they need the help of our main character upstart Ganta, who won fame after his take down of Crow. However the promoter’s elite enforcers, the undertakers, have a few plans of their own and will do anything to enforce the promoters rule.
My main complaint about Deadman, that it lacks a focus as a single narrative, seems to pop up again as the show again changes its direction, however this time it’s done well and not so ham fistedly, seeming more like natural progression over simply being a random left turn. The fights remain interesting enough, and the new Deadmen seem rather interesting and a bit more believable then the fat man with a big mouth introduced in volume 2. The story and writing quality remains about the same as do the visual quality, and that in no way is an insult.
The negatives are all summed up in one word, Undertakers. The undertakers to me seem to me more like Bleach and Naruto characters that were rejected last minute and given a dark back story. Not that their not well thought out its just really silly. While all the Deadmen are super human they tend to look and dress human, Ganta, Crow, Owl, Fowl, and even Hummingbird, all seem fairly real people with abilities and unpleasant pasts, the undertakers however simply make no sense, they aren’t super human in any way, yet a little girl can hold up a broad sword eight times her weight, and a monk armed with guitar guns? The plot does not even try to explain them and their presence rips one out of the experience, making the reader unable to treat Deadman Wonderland seriously.
This mini-review has gone on a bit long, yes, but I felt it necessary to explain exactly why this is so far the worst volume of Deadman wonderland I’ve poured over, it’s good, but the addition of the undertakers makes it suffer greatly and be nothing above simply good. This volume earns a functional is nothing special 3.5 kindergarten killers out of 5. Hopefully the undertakers will lose their relevance in favor or better enemies, something I hope to see very soon, but for now the carnival has to keep going, enjoy Vice.
Well hello and welcome again, I M have returned with another installment of my grand quest to review all of Deadman wonderland there is to explore, and this quest stops for no man, podcast finished and uploaded my quest returns and I set my sights on Volume 3. Now let’s rip this up and see what’s inside this next volume.
Dead man wonderland volume three continues the series of carnival displays in the forms of fights to the death this time with the Hummingbird, a seemingly sweet and innocent little girl with a tendency for the ferocious. It also goes into some other stuff with shiro and her past, and a bit more awkwardly out of nowhere story beats at the end however for the most part this volume focuses on the fight between woodpecker and the hummingbird.
From the get go my main complain with deadman has been its inability to stay to one thing for too long before like a schizophrenic child after a mouse. It always seems to lose focus and forget what it was even about before it was too long which made volume three particularly nice that it took its time with the carnival corpse even if it does end with a plot shift alluded to it still remained focused on the dealings at hand. Also giving your best characters (Crow and Shiro) quiet a lot of screen time helps definitely.
The negatives are mostly the same, the hummingbird is to say it conservatively, silly, when it comes to the attempt and being mature, often lewd and cursey to try to make her seem edgy, but that could all be the translation, but I’m not buying it, the main attraction of this event isn’t that pleasing but that surprisingly isn’t that much of a negative when everything else manages t keep it together.
All in all the candy is still sweet in volume three of deadman, but I can definitely see where things could get much better or worse, however that’s yet to surface. Dead man continues to be an enjoyable 4 blood whips out of 5 but unless it starts picking up deadman is going to start to sink, but for now they can celebrate. That’s all for today’s carnival folks, hope you enjoy the ride just as much as me.
Well hello, welcome anime vice to our lovely community podcast, Finally after some many fatal issues we bring you a new M-cast complete with all the shenanigans. Join me, M, and three other idiots (Pyro blue, Homer Slobotnick, and Patches the Clown) as we discuss everything from Katawa shoujo to fatal frame to steins gate and everywhere in between. So sit back and enjoy and remember today's addition is not a spoiler cast so anyone of appropriate age can enjoy oh and sorry again about the cursing.
Leave us with your questions and comments most of all hope you like it we had great time making this and sorry we were so late.
Oh and opening credits
The massive Spaniard - M
The fantastic beard man - Pyro blue
The lazy doctor - Homer Slobotnick
and lastly camera man Patches the clown
PS. Incorrect statements include, beta outnumber us 14,000 to 1 not 14 to 1 and were always hostile, and fatal frame is made by tecmo not namco.
