Review of Darwin's Game
THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!! A long time has passed since shonen writers lost passion for their work. Each shonen story is a ripoff previous because the creators know that their work will be popular if they use a bunch of cliches and tropes that most shonen used before them and got popular that way. This doesn't have to mean that all generic shonen are bad. They are certainly not masterpieces, but skilled writers can make a decent story out of a generic shonen(Hunter x Hunter for example). Darwin's game was not written by a skilled author. STORY The story is about yet another death game! Howoriginal! The main character downloads an app that traps him in Darwin's game, a death game that pits everyone against each other(commonly known as a battle royale). Players get D-points by killing other players. They can exchange D-points for real-life money, which is an interesting concept.
The main problems of this anime are obvious right in the first episode. Everyone in Darwin's game gets an ability called sigil, some type of superpower they should be able to use naturally and instinctively. The protagonist doesn't know how to use it, but somehow has potential to win against the highest-rank players when he just started playing. Of course, this is a common shonen trope that is often unexplained and is just an excuse for plot armor. Speaking of plot armor, whenever someone is trying to shoot the main characters all bullets miraculously miss them.
The romantic subplot between Kaname and Shuka(one of the main characters) was quite poorly crafted because such romantic subplots have been seen a lot of times in anime. Shuka falls in love with Kaname because he has a lot of potential to win the D-game. She, of course, doesn't even notice other guys and cares only about Kaname, constantly talking about him and daydreaming, except when she's fighting.
What saves this anime from being total garbage are creative and suspenseful battles. There is a lot of strategy and characters know how to use their sigils. My favourite sigil was Laplace(based on the Laplace's determinism, having data about a system in one moment means having data about the same system in any other moment.). It can predict the movement of objects around the user of the sigil. One complain is that the fights last a bit too long. I wish there was more character development instead of just players battling.
ART
Darwin's game looks good, but don't most of today's anime look good also? It's pointless to talk about good art and animation when most of today's anime also look good. Sometimes, studios spend a lot of money on animation in order for the audience not to notice the poor writing(Fate/Stay Night UBW being an obvious example).
SOUND
Music is what enchanced my enjoyment of Darwin's game. It's quite unique and adds to the suspense during fight scenes. Nothing more to say, really, you can listen to the OST yourself.
CHARACTERS
As I have stated multiple times, the show is playing safe. Characters are well-known anime tropes. This doesn't have to be a bad thing if the characters are fleshed-out. But, they're not. They are cardboard cutouts. They don't develop, nor do they have any depth. The creator is trying to hide that by making the characters mysterious. It's a cheap trick and as I can see from other reviews, the audience didn't fall for it.
OVERALL
Darwin's game is creative, which makes it kind off whatchable, but is filled with shonen cliches and one-dimensional characters. If you like battle royales you could give this a try, but I suggest skipping it, there are many shows similar to this one, I don't think that yet another one is worth your time.