Review of Deadman Wonderland: The Red Knife Wielder
The majority of the fandom were left out disappointed in the main show, “Deadman Wonderland”, and never got tired of wanting to have a sequel that fixes the issues with the show, but instead, we got this OVA animation that for the bad or good was mildly entertaining to an unexpected degree. I went semi-full angry-mode ranting on the parent show before for how much issues it had. However, Deadman Wonderland: Akai Knife Tsukai managed to fix a fraction of those. - Story (7/10): When reviewing the main show I mentioned how the character cast was poor and with no huge variety except for this character calledSenji, well, Deadman Wonderland: Akai Knife Tsukai is an OVA centered on the fan-favorite ssslice master Crow.
2 Years after the mysterious explosion that took the world by storm, Senji a brutal policeman working hard to sanitize his town from mobsters while retaining a title for himself as the knives guy. We got to see a lot of background of Senji that explains more of his current mixed up personality of being vicious at times, and sort of soft at others.
- Art (7.5/10):
This OVA doesn't fall short on what treat we got with the main story as it also does its liquid animations very well. But I really feel like the minimal amount of cool fights we got to see didn't give much opportunity for the animators to shine. Other than Senji and the main antagonist, all other characters however major or minor their roles were looked very poor and indistinguishable in design, cursed with the filler/side background-characters kind of face that makes it harder to remember.
- Sound (7.3/10):
I'm super glad they kept the original opening and ending theme songs from the main show, they bring a lot of nostalgia and feels having heard them all over again. I liked the voice acting way more on this one to be honest, probably because Ganta was absent, and I didn't have to deal with his cringy tone of voice. And you know, Senji is a cool guy with a fitting voice on all situations, screaming, blushing...etc.
- Character (7/10):
I'm giving this OVA the edge over the main show just because it's centered about an actual good character, a character that doesn't wine and doesn't act stupidly. They handled the transition between Senji's angry and good treats very well that it made up for an amazing minor character development.
- Enjoyment (7.5/10):
This was surprisingly more entertaining than the main series, having Senji as the protagonist had a different feel on the franchise, a whole mature look on the world of Deadman Wonderland other than a middle schooler's, it made it way easier to grasp the politics of the world and how the upper class acts and stands for the Deadmen.
- Overall (7.3/10):
As great as this one-shot OVA is, it could never stand on its own feet if it weren't for the main show that first introduces a lot of concepts that are necessary to keep up with Senji's backstory. But that aside, this one is one of those rare OVA that are generally better than their parent stories in executing and progression.