Deadman Wonderland Anime REVIEW

There comes a time in every teenage boy's life where you wonder, “what would happen if some dude barged in here, killed all my classmates and then blamed me for it?”. Well, okay. So not every teenager thinks that. But Ganta Irigashi did. Rather it actually happened. 

That is where Deadman Wonderland starts. On a normal day, some time in the future, you meet Ganta and his two childhood friends. They are all excited about the upcoming class trip to the Theme Park-turned-Prison “Deadman Wonderland” when something bizarre happens. A cloaked, masked man attacks the classroom, killing all of Ganta's friends and classmates, but leaving him alive with a mere red diamond embedded into his chest. Ganta becomes the suspect in the massacre and is soon sentenced to Death Row in Japan's only privately run prison, Deadman Wonderland.

Ganta wants revenge for his friends. He wants out of Deadman Wonderland; the place where you must compete against other inmates in front of civilians in order to win in jail-currency and “Candy”. The “Candy” being an antidote to curb the effects of each prisoner's poison-injecting collars.

All seems lost for Ganta until he meets his long-lost childhood friend, Shiro. Shiro has a mysterious feel to her. She is no ordinary prisoner. She has no collar, and participates in competitions only to protect Ganta from harm.

Shiro is too damn cute!

Add bizzare powers, a secret underground sector of the prison for “Special Inmates”, and random attacks from the Red Man while in prison and you are about up to Epsode Three of Deadman Wonderland.

What are these powers?!

The Anime adaptation of the manga of the same title is very well done. Japanese voice acting fits the characters well and the animation is simply beautiful. The fight scenes are absolutely amazing and as blood soaked as in the Manga.

The anime covers 20 chapters of the Manga in about 12 episodes, all 22 minutes in length. While it is very true to the manga counterpart, the producers left out a couple of characters and story content for the Anime adaptation. The entire series ends very early in the Manga, leaving a lot to the viewer's imagination as to what happens next. It is still unknown whether or not a second season will be released, but many fans have their fingers crossed.

I loved the Manga and the Anime. I must have watched and read the entire series twice. It is definitely a must read for those of us out there who love tragedy, awesome fight scenes and loads of blood.

As of May, the anime has jumped overseas as part of Adult Swim's Toonami block, airing every Saturday at 12:30AM with an english dubbing (personally, I prefer the japanese voices. The american voice for Shiro is too high pitched and annoying)