Review of Darwin's Game

*This review contains minor and vague spoilers* I'm literally only giving this thing a 4 for two reasons: The female characters and the fact I had fun watching this with my best friend. If either of these two things were different this would be a hard 1 and I wouldn't have even made it so far. I've never written a review for an anime before but I think this one deserves it because of just how much it pissed me off. Kaname Sudo is the Kirito of this universe: a self-insert brown-haired brown-eyed high school boy who literally only ends up so far because of thesupport he has from the female characters. Shuka is a godsend, but what makes me so saddened is the fact that she's regarded as the best of the best but she never gets the opportunity to fully spread her wings, or operate in any individualistic sense OUTSIDE of Kaname. It's so unfair to her, and for that reason I can't help but also partially dislike her as a character just because of how dog water her writing is, and the weird fact that the author decides to fanservice a 16 y/o girl but I don't know what I expected from an anime with the story not giving it any favor.

I don't even want to get started on the story. I'm gonna be honest, I don't even know what Darwin's Game is. I think you could sit me in front of a standardized test with a gun to my head and ask me to properly answer questions pertaining to the exact mechanics of Darwin's game and I'd just bite the bullet immediately. Horrible. Also, what substance is given to the characters, thank God it's not wasted on Kaname. Wouldn't wanna have a protagonist with goals and aspirations right? But what backstory is given to these characters is just so bad, and hardly makes any sense. Shuka's fight with Wang didn't even tie in any poetic justice about him being the reason for her parent's deaths, and speaking of Wang, he was so ugly. Ugly and deserved to die. One of the only good things that this anime gave me.

But also speaking of Wang and of clans, the undying loyalty of the Eighth's clan was never?? Expanded upon? Also, no other gangs were mentioned either aside from the Sunrise Ravens. Also I'd like to reiterate again, Kaname has 0 positive qualities going for him, and the plot near the end with his friend from school was just so pointless and the death of his friend did absolutely NOTHING for the plot. He was there and then he wasn't-- just like in Kaname's mind, where he ignores repeated texts from his supposed /friend/ for two months then gets insane power when he sees his flayed corpse in an amazon prime box. Okay dude.

Also can I just say, Kaname taking constant credit for the work of his counterparts (most notably, his female counterparts Shuka and Rein) was just such blatant disregard of these characters. Shuka said herself in the third episode that what she wanted with Kaname was a family, but the Sunset Ravens felt more like a family with a stray dog Kaname in the mix who didn't ever show an ounce of genuine care or affection for his friends. Even when Shuka called on him for help, he doubted her and assumed that she still was anything BUT 100 percent loyal to him. This is not a found family, and it would've been great to see if these relationships were more expanded on, and these characters as well. Instead, the story wastes time focusing on an inept schoolboy who can't do anything himself and I'm forced to watch him make ignorant commentary over stuff he does not understand all the while Rein and Ryuuji are many times smarter than him and already have the game's puzzles solved.

Rein comments in the hotel that she wouldn't have been able to live without Kaname, but it's the complete other way around. This is true for every case.

There were parts I did enjoy though. I liked the power system, how it's partially based on pure luck but that you can hone your skills better and better. I liked some of the character design, and all the characters minus Kaname had pretty interesting baseline motivations. Also, Inukai DEFINITELY helped in bumping my rating to a four as well. IMO, he should've been the protagonist, and I found even his few-scene intervals between all the action to be ten times more enticing than a whole episode with Kaname discovering his powers.

I began this show at 3am and finished it over the course of two days with my friend. We were both wildly disappointed. Even for the side characters and their semi-strong personalities, the main character's uselessness and the poor writing of this series is not worth the watch. This show had potential to be 'so bad it's good', but if you're gonna watch it, don't watch it alone unless you're trying to sleep, and don't go in with any expectation that the plot is going to go anywhere.