Deadman Wonderland

Coming right off of the un-fulfilling conclusion of the anime, I never really had any high hopes for the manga of Deadman Wonderland. I thought it was going to be another "action and gore trip" just like many of the other manga inspired anime’s I had seen in the past. (I'm looking at you Tokyo Ghoul) So you can imagine my surprise when I actually started to read it. It really blew me away with just how much the story could go as far as it did, while still at the same time retaining its ultra-grim and dark tones as the show lead it on to be(hell it was probably even darker than the anime) The manga brought so many twists and turns that I really ended up caring about many of the characters and their overall fates by the conclusion. It has that Berserk (another amazing manga) type feel, where literally anything can happen at any moment, making many parts (especially near the end) a real treat to read. Now many viewers maybe a little wary of reading this manga because of its "extreme violence" and "anything can happen" subject matter. If I’m being honest, yes, it can be very gruesome at times (Yes even more then the show). But for those who can stomach such things and press on, you will find that this is definitely a manga that is worth reading. So yes, I definitely recommend this manga for anyone who likes dark and crazy storylines, and a must read for anyone who liked the show. I give it an 8/10.

Deadman Wonderland has over the top characters with absurd motivations and a lot of blood, but still fails to make the plot remotely interesting. This is more of a battle shounen than a seinen or a psychological story. So expect many of those tropes. I don't have anything against shounen, but when you add dark backstories for the sake of being dark and when the fighting mechanics revolve around bleeding, it comes off as edgy. *** The review contains some vague spoilers *** I found more bad things than good in this manga. Let me write about all the good first - The premise is interesting. The protagonist(Ganta) is framed very early in the story and is forced to go to a special prison called as Deadman wonderland. There he discovers that people with unique powers who can manipulate their own blood exist and they are pitted against each other in a battle royale. This raises many questions and hooks the reader early on. A girl named Shiro is introduced soon after Ganta enters the DW. She is always cheerful and has the freedom to wander anywhere she wants within the prison. She gives the impression that there is something about her that is more than what it appears to be. This adds to the mystery. The plot ties to an event called as the Great Tokyo Earthquake which happened ten years prior to the events of the story. As the story progresses, the events leading to this disaster slowly unfolds in the form of flashbacks. These events are somewhat predictable, but still manage to be interesting. There are some ethical questions tackled briefly even though they are never completely explored. Unfortunately, that is all the good I can find. So what is wrong with this manga? Let me elaborate - Clichés after clichés. I don't hate clichés unless they are overused. But that is exactly what happens here. Every situation feels forced. The actual plot gets sidelined untill about midway through the manga in favor of unnecessary battles that do not have many long lasting consequences. It keeps introducing new characters in said battles. But none of them get any character development except Minatsuki (it is "he is nice, I will be nice too" kind of development. So it is not saying much). When you look back after finishing the series, you will find that 90% of these characters didn't have any real impact on the story other than prolonging it. The supposedly surprising developments can be predicted several chapters in advance. There are two main villains in this story. But both are comically evil characters and feel like copies of each other. Their motivations are slightly different, but they act exactly the same way. The manga fails in its very premise because the way all the deadmen lose blood and keep fighting without suffering any consequences is illogical. Funny thing is that some characters state the problems of losing too much blood at the start of the series. But it is quickly forgotten to get us to the badass action scenes. Ganta's ability is the most unoriginal and boring among the entire cast. Add to that and make him whiny for more than half of the story and you get an unlikable MC. The plot feels like an NGE ripoff at the begining. We have whiny mc, a mysterious friend who is more than what she seems, and a tragedy that has happened several years back with long lasting effects on society. Adding to that, Ganta has memory loss and doesn't remember his past. (But keeps getting flashbacks at very convenient moments). It gets a decent explanation near the very end of the manga, but the initial half undeniably gives bad vibes about the whole story. The explanation that we get is very similar to another popular manga that I won't mention due to spoilers. It is so similar that you can predict exactly what happened if you know the name of that other manga. There is some pseudo-science involved in the plot, but it has been taken too far to an extent that it is no longer believable. To give an example, there is an ability where a character can make others think that they suffered an injury and then it happens in reality because "their brain got convinced of that injury". I am talking about characters getting holes in their chest or thrown into walls just because their brain got convinced that it actually happened. The art looks good, but not the fight scenes. It is hard to follow any fight scene. You can see rubble flying around and explosions, but how characters moved during the fights is very obscure and you are kept guessing. It is a major setback considering that we are talking about an action series. Tl;dr - I don't recommend this manga unless you don't mind all the clichés and are very much interested in the premise. If you have watched the anime version and are here to finish the story, you will get what you wanted - even though it has the same pitfalls the anime has.

First Manga I ever read, and now I'm starting to read manga, because Deadman Wonderland's anime was very incomplete, even though I loved the concept, and so I had the read the manga to get the answers I needed. And you should do the same. So, a unique prison in Japan called Deadman Wonderland was built after an incident which involved an Earthquake. In this establishment, prisoners are in death row, getting slowly poisoned for 3 days and end up dying. However they can participate in circus like and entertaining events to an ignorant public from the outside world, thinking they are just "pretending" deaths. IgarashiGanta, accused from mass murder of his classmates ends up there and meets Shiro and other characters that may help him on getting stronger, escape from the prison, claim his innocence, get revenge from the "Red Man" (the one who killed his classmates) and later with a group of characters, revealing to the public what is really going on. Some of the prisoners have special powers called "Branches of Sin". Those who have these powers are called Deadman. The story is quite good, I really enjoyed the slow process trough chapters and explaining what could happen inside DW. When I ended up discovering more and more and unraveling more mysteries, the story gets even more interesting and I ended up reading a lot until I got to the final chapter. When a story sometimes "gets you" by surprise and ends up making your reaction being something like "Wooooooow!", then it probably is a good story. I don't have deep arguments when it comes to manga art, since this is the first manga I have seriously read, but I quite like it, and in my opinion, it is well done, I easily understood what was going on in action scenes. I also loved the circus-like design from the prison, the bloody moments and the characters which are well made, speaking of which, Crow makes me remember of Bleach's Zaraki (xD). Anyhow, about the characters, Shiro ends up to be more interesting than Ganta, in my opinion, because Ganta is that typical protagonist guy who wants to get stronger for a reason, and in reality, he is a weak guy. He ends up just getting very lucky for his "Branch of Sin" having something different, that's all, because he has no battle experience. It's somehow understandable that he tries to save and protect everyone (typical atitude of a protagonist too) and sometimes he ends up making decisions that brings bad consequences, but sometimes it gets a little tiring. Shiro ends up being more interesting because, despite of the sweet girl personality, quite early in the manga, you quickly understand she has "another mask", and finding out what's going on with her is just amazing. As the other characters, they are quite unique within the manga, and you end up learning about their pasts and the reason they ended up in jail and the way they somehow deal with their past thoughts. Gotta love each one's personality and traits. As I went further into the story, their importance gets even higher and I ended up loving them even more. To sum it up, if you are one of those DW fans who got frustrated with the anime version, then read this manga, it is way better. If you are one those guys who love action, blood and also some mystery, read it too. The anime is asking for a 2nd season but since the answer is right here, at the manga chapters, I don't consider it necessary anymore. As you can see, most people made positive reviews about this manga, so it's probably worth it for you.

To start things off, I'd like to inform anyone coming in off of the anime adaptation to disregard that. It was not a good adaptation, and ended prematurely while leaving out a lot of plot points. The manga is leaps and bounds better, and certainly worth most people's time. In the world of fiction, having a piece of work involving humans with supernatural powers is definitely not rare. In fact, the market is saturated with such things. This in and of itself is not inherently a bad thing. It's all a matter of how the concept is used, and if the work can achieve something itspredecessors couldn't. Does Deadman Wonderland bring anything new to the table? In my opinion, not really. What it does offer is a very compelling and interesting rehash of things we have seen before. To me, at least, this is also not a bad thing. Let me explain. I'd like to talk about the setting first. A prison that doubles as an amusement park. That is something that I personally haven't seen in fiction before, though I'm sure it has been done at some point. Still, it is a pretty interesting setting. There are some issues with it that I can't talk about too much because of spoilers, but suffice to say the manga doesn't play up its setting as much as I would have liked. And what of the characters within this setting? The quality and genericness of these characters vary. I found the main character generic, and the fact that he was 14 seemed a little unneeded. He could have been an adult, or at least an older teen, and the story wouldn't have changed much, except making some things more believable. The manga has a lot of gore and even touches on elements of rape a couple times, so the argument that he is 14 in order to appeal to the intended audience is invalid. Most of the other characters were interesting, and I liked that almost every major character (and even some minor ones) rather they were "good" or "bad" got a backstory segment, giving each one a tad of development, even if that development was a little shallow. The overarching plot had a few pacing issues, but generally it is easy to follow if you pay attention. The pace is quick enough that the reader probably won't find themselves bored at any point. Also, I'm glad to say that most questions are answered by the end of the manga, and the ending wraps things up nicely without feeling too rushed. I found the plot pretty interesting, if not predictable in some places. There are a few good twists that I didn't expect here and there. The last thing I would like to talk about is the art. The character designs were definitely designed to be "cool", and the powers of most of the characters are drawn very nicely. Plenty of gore too. The backgrounds can be simple at times, but never ugly. Overall, I don't remember ever seeing a panel or page and thinking it looked bad. I'd recommend this manga to people who like the "super powers" concept, or just like action in general. Although there's a little bit of romance, comedy, and quite a bit of drama, this manga is definitely an action manga at heart. Worth a chance if you are looking for a good manga that does a lot of things right, even if it's not anything new.