King's Game

I don't think the writers ever had much experience with real people. "Mass hysteria" aside, in a group that size, there will be a lot of them trying to make sense of the situation instead of throwing logic to the wind. How can you not connect "her personality just did a complete 180" to "ooh she might be crazy, I probably shouldn't jump to conclusions and start punching this guy". How is that not a red flag? Also you literally just saw your classmate spontaneously bleed to death. At that point you've got to be thinking "ok, there's definitely something sinister about this and I should probably listen to what that guy has to say". No rational human being would act like this in that situation. The moment someone dies, **** gets real and it's time to take the situation seriously and calmly. What is this some kind of "Japanese women are scary" trope? Possibly. I want to just say it's bad writing and leave it at that. I would've given it a higher rating if it was a stupid premise but running a plot with such potential into the ground in just two episodes is just a sin. It wasted studio money, wasted the time of anyone who watched it, and contributed a negative loss to society writing such simple-minded characters as if they're trying to say "this is how real people are". I'll give it one more chance. If it impresses me, I'll take this review down. If not, then this is staying to warn people not to waste their time.

King's Game exists for a sole purpose - to display the gory deaths of the one-dimensional fodder serving as characters. The synopsis of the show intrigued me, but the execution is...well, it's atrocious. Characters behave and react in the most bizarre ways. Dead characters are left, well, dead in public places and forgotten. Seriously? What about the police? Seems like a mangled corpse might cause a bit of a stir, but then again we're dealing with King's Game logic here. There are a ton of glaring plot holes and the series can't decide whether it's focusing on past events (the first game Nobuaki participated in) or the current events (the current, ongoing game) as well if the stupid characters weren't enough. My breaking point finally came when a particular character catches on fire. This character does not react whatsoever. Let me repeat: the character is BURNING ALIVE. The character in question isn't even slightly alarmed or in pain. Nope. Just continues talking in a monotone voice with hair drifting upwards super saiyan style. This is the single stupidest scene I have ever witnessed in an anime and that is saying something. I was going to watch this until the end just to see how convoluted it becomes (and, trust me, it will), but I just can't do it. Don't waste your time. I'm not going to waste any more of mine.

Seriously. This anime was awful. Not just "ok that anime was kinda lame, so I stopped halfway through" awful.... Instead it was the sort of awful where you watch the first episode, realize it is train wreck of trains that were both carrying numerous other smaller trains for specialized use in the private sector. You set yourself a challenge, you already know what is going to happen after the first episode. Realistically there is no "plot" that you will miss, so it is just you sitting there going "why am I still watching this". Then suddenly, like episode 3, you ask yourself the same question stand up and point at your monitor and state loudly to your computer; "I blame the internet for this! I will not watch this utter pile of 'oh look that kids arm twisted itself off' porn anymore! I will come back to the last episode, skip around in it till I get the gist, and then hope that the last 5 min is in crayon because the production firm shut down and they were allowed one person with a crayon to write 'we are very sorry for having made this anime, we never should have done it, and we hope we only wasted a small amount of time on it.' over and over again" Sadly it did not end that way and may actually be scheduled for a sequel. At which point you realize you have been waiting for sequels for dozens of other utterly amazing animes, but this fetid pile has someone willing to say ' ok off to a bad start let's call it a mulligan and start strong on season two.' at which point you quietly sob yourself to sleep as you have finally learned there is no justice, or logic left in this world. Oh, right, this anime sucks, don't watch it. /review

Fortunately, I read a manga that leads into a well written king's game and explained all the backstory for that version. The animation, however, looks like the director got power-hungry or something and tried to take the concept of the show into their own hands. While the manga was quite cohesive and explained character backgrounds without dragging on the story due to its method of exposition, the anime adaptation has no cohesion, no backstory, and no connection to the prequel manga. This also means that the way the King's Game started makes little to no sense. Someone clearly tried to show that they think to themselves: "I am better at writing stories". However, they were only capable of rewriting a good story into something sloppy, awkward, and needlessly edgy.

I usually never take the time to write reviews, but I feel the need to let people know they absolutely DO NOT need to waste their time with this bucket of turds. The first episode will deceive you, you'll think "oh hey, this sounds like a cool premise", and perhaps on Bizarro Earth it ended up being the best anime ever...but here, it is bar-none the worst anime I've ever seen, and I've watched A LOT of anime. Numerous plot holes, the MYSTERY solved on the last episode makes absolutely no sense. Countless contradictions. Annoying characters that make illogical decisions. The only reason you should watch this anime is if you want to know that you've already watched the worst anime you'll ever see in your life, so things can only get better from there.