Review of Darwin's Game

Not sure why I decided to write this (it's my first review here), but oh well :p I'll try to be short and to the point, as I don't think most people care for long reviews: This anime is NOT a masterpiece. It's also not garbage. It's pretty good popcorn entertainment, and should be consumed/watched as such. The animations and art are pretty good, the battles engaging with the way the different powers (here called "sigils", one per player of this killer game) interact and are used in every confrontation. It follows the tradition/example of jojo's stands: one specific ability per character, none of them useless if youcan apply them in the right/smart way

Of course not all of those abilities are suited for fighting. Seeing Auras (whatever that means...the anime never really made it clear beyond making the user capable of seeing an invisible enemy..) or understanding if someone else is lying or not are certainly not as good as advanced pyrokinesis, but I like to remember something said in One Piece: there are no weak powers/devil fruits, only weak users. In this case maybe weak is not the right term though. It's more like there are no "useless" powers. After all even support abilities are important, as any MMO player should know.

The characters are, in all honesty, pretty one dimensional, and this was probably unavoidable for an anime this short, just 11 episodes. Still, EVEN if most characters are not examined in much depth, their motivation ARE at least understandable, and they feel realistic enough to me.

If you want a masterpiece, go watch something else. The last few years have been filled with them, from jojo to demon slayer to the promised neverland, and many less known ones of any genre.

If you want to simply spend one or two afternoons watching a nice but not exceptional show, this is good enough.

CONCLUSION: I'd give it an High 7 or Low 8, depending on one's preferences and mental approach to it. I'll be nice it and go with an 8, but it's admittedly not an entirely deserved one. It's more like I'm rounding up a 7.5