Review of Darwin's Game

Winter 2020. One thing that is not lacking this season is the mystery element, which has been embodied in quite an amount of anime. Darwin’s Game is no exception. Its first few minutes in the first episode has nicely captured the essence of mystery and awesomeness that attracted many to the series. But, to what extent? Darwin’s Game has done a great job in laying out what to expect from the life-or-death survival game with the intro of ‘skills’. They reveal just enough information about the game to hook you and then take you to the male protagonist that is just as clueless as you. Then,the possibilities are expanded once the ground rules are cleared. The potential with its premise are explored with the idea of clan-creating, currency-exchanging, events-joining and a lot more features in store. Eventually, the MC and his team are all in this together, to survive this dreadful free game by any means.

But other than that, there’s not a lot to say about it. If you watch close enough, you’ll realize that Darwin’s Game is merely a hype machine. Almost every ending is set for the next episode, the ambience it created and the cliffhanger it inserted all serve the purpose of building the anticipation. Events triggered by events like domino, new characters are introduced and then eliminated, it’s a never-ending battle royale out there. By cycling the formula of twists, blood and tears, the story can go on and on. Depending on the type of audience, you’ll either grow to hate this or love it.

On the other hand, the art is done by studio Nexus, which also handled Granbelm. Some fighting scenes are made to be quite simplistic while the real showdowns has decent animation to keep up with. The opening "CHAIN" by ASCA is thrilling and entertaining while the ending "Alive" by Mashiro Ayano is just fitting when blended in at the right time. Characters-wise, both animation and songs are nice.

Overall, Darwin’s Game is best enjoyed as it is. Up till now, it’s really hard to decide whether the rest of the journey would be worthwhile or not, and the reason is simple. Based on how the story has expanded so far, we won’t be seeing the end of this that soon. So, that leaves you with two choices – read the manga or wait indefinitely for the next season.

Now, you decide whether to play the Darwin’s Game or not.