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Deadman Wonderland #1
Deadman Wonderland, Vol. 1
Framed for the brutal murders of his classmates by the mysterious Red Man, middle-school student Ganta Igarashii finds himself sentenced to death in the bizarre and fatal theme park/prison known as “Deadman Wonderland.” The inmates of this insane penitentiary fight for survival every day to provide entertainment for the masses. Ganta is determined to survive Deadman Wonderland and clear his name, but the price may be his soul…
210 pages, Paperback
First published September 26, 2007
220 people are currently reading
11689 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 621 reviews
November 11, 2023
(2023 update : i have not shared This in Ages, for me this was my least favorite Manga among all the manga i have read, The least intricate writing style too, I ll be reading the reviews as usual again with you all!)
Amazing first volume i didn't know anything about Deadman wonderland before i read this
I love it so far interesting world and interesting story and characters
Not as impressive as first volume of Manga i read before like Berserk and Gantz but its right up there with them
And as usual i am more interested in the villain of the story and the pretty girl that we know nothing about
The Red man, and the girl that we don't know if she is wearing clothes or naked lol
Amazing first volume i didn't know anything about Deadman wonderland before i read this
I love it so far interesting world and interesting story and characters
Not as impressive as first volume of Manga i read before like Berserk and Gantz but its right up there with them
And as usual i am more interested in the villain of the story and the pretty girl that we know nothing about
The Red man, and the girl that we don't know if she is wearing clothes or naked lol
September 28, 2024
Not a good day in 14 year-old Ganta's life when a mysterious man in red massacres his schoolmates, and a glitch allows him to become the sole survivor, only to be charged and imprisoned for the heinous crime! And the prison is run like a dark reality where prisoners have to fight in arena-like conditions for food, money and of course survival!
Sounds interesting right? Jinsei (female) and Kazuma (male) duo who wrote and drew this series have created some great characters and an OK reality, but the artwork and plotting is a bit confusing; I will give it four volumes to decide if I want to read the rest. 5 out of 12, Two Star read.
2024 read
Sounds interesting right? Jinsei (female) and Kazuma (male) duo who wrote and drew this series have created some great characters and an OK reality, but the artwork and plotting is a bit confusing; I will give it four volumes to decide if I want to read the rest. 5 out of 12, Two Star read.
2024 read
October 14, 2016
I love this already :D I think i am addicted to manga xD
April 1, 2022
I'm mildly interested in finding out what's up with the red killer robot(? demon?) and the gems, but not at all enjoying the for-profit spectator prison (although I'm sympathetic to the points I assume the author to be making). The art is fine although not a style I like personally.
March 18, 2016
Category: The First Book You See In a Bookstore
3 I-have-no-idea-how-to-rate-manga Stars
I fell in love with this cover when I walked through the doors of my local bookstore, it drew my eyes instantly and would not release them. I chided myself that “No, you cannot buy another book you’ve never heard of just because it’s pretty” and I forced myself to walk past it to the section where the book was that I actually came for. However, I wandered back and picked it up and perused it a bit, shoved it back on the shelf and scolding myself again.
Well….. I bought it, obviously.
What a wonderful dystopian manga Deadman Wonderland Vol. 1 is. I flipped through it frantically. I wanted to know more, more….. MORE. And I still do. This volume is not a meal, this is a snack – and as tasty as it is I am STILL HUNGRY, DAMMIT!!
Ganta finds himself accused of killing his friends and classmates, although he is innocent, and sent to an unusual prison. Incarceration at Deadman Wonderland is unlike anywhere else; it is a deadly game of cat and mouse.
Together with his unusual “friend” Ganta navigates the new world he has found himself in and every time he turns a corner it just keeps getting more strange. I’m positive that I still have no idea what is going on but bring it ON!!
July 21, 2011
Dystopian manga? Get out.
It's 2023, ten years after an earthquake sunk 70% of Tokyo. Ganta Igarashi, a survivor of the Great Tokyo Earthquake, went on to live a normal life. When a creature Ganta calls Red Man murders all his classmates, he is sentenced to death and placed in Deadman Wonderland.
In Deadman Wonderland, the prisoners are wealthy as they can earn Cast Points. CPs can buy nearly anything, even a sentence reduction. It's like a credit card but if it's stolen, it isn't considered fraud. There was only one instance where they could earn CPs so I'm not sure how they get them. Even with the wealth, they're treated like dogs literally. This is one fucked up world but it's hard not to love it.
Everything is quite mysterious and I didn't understand what half the scenes meant. Some scenes felt like I was dropped there in the middle of the conversation and taken away before the Big Secret was revealed. Gave me a reason to read extra slow and glare at the drawings.
The characters are my favorite part. Ganta is very determined to find out who Red Man is and he doesn't worry on things he can't fix. I call him the Boy Who Death Can't Touch. The others like Shiro and Yoh aren't as easy to understand. I keep thinking everyone is evil.
I found my love for gore while reading this. Sure I said eww to one part but the gore was part of the plot and worldbuilding, not just for the gore-crazed. Being the first volume in the series, it stand well on its own.
It's 2023, ten years after an earthquake sunk 70% of Tokyo. Ganta Igarashi, a survivor of the Great Tokyo Earthquake, went on to live a normal life. When a creature Ganta calls Red Man murders all his classmates, he is sentenced to death and placed in Deadman Wonderland.
In Deadman Wonderland, the prisoners are wealthy as they can earn Cast Points. CPs can buy nearly anything, even a sentence reduction. It's like a credit card but if it's stolen, it isn't considered fraud. There was only one instance where they could earn CPs so I'm not sure how they get them. Even with the wealth, they're treated like dogs literally. This is one fucked up world but it's hard not to love it.
Everything is quite mysterious and I didn't understand what half the scenes meant. Some scenes felt like I was dropped there in the middle of the conversation and taken away before the Big Secret was revealed. Gave me a reason to read extra slow and glare at the drawings.
The characters are my favorite part. Ganta is very determined to find out who Red Man is and he doesn't worry on things he can't fix. I call him the Boy Who Death Can't Touch. The others like Shiro and Yoh aren't as easy to understand. I keep thinking everyone is evil.
I found my love for gore while reading this. Sure I said eww to one part but the gore was part of the plot and worldbuilding, not just for the gore-crazed. Being the first volume in the series, it stand well on its own.
March 25, 2020
3.5/5stars
Definitely interested in trying out the next volume!
Definitely interested in trying out the next volume!
April 23, 2017
First review
It began so interesting and promising. Ganta Igarashi is convicted for a mass murder he hasn't done and given a death sentence. Now in a prison called "Deadman Wonderland", he has to avoid death and keep himself alive. And also, in the "Deadman Wonderland", there are some people who can manipulate their bloods into weapons! Which also Ganta.
The name of manga is wonderful! I liked Ganta so far, also a strange girl named Shiro (which means "white" in japanese). The story seems complex from which I have read so far. Now maybe I can keep my hopes high!
Review of whole manga
4.61 Stars
It was my first dystopian manga!
The ending was perfect! Bittersweet, questionable (did Shiro wake up really?)/ The best ending choice for this manga. The plot, mystery and its reveal, characters and development, the neat and detailed ART... Definitely one of my favorite ones!
There were two-or-three plot twists, which added complexity and excitement to the story. Shiro and Ganta's story was heartbreaking, their friendship was somehow damaged but also beautiful. The ending was best for them. They are finally free...
I also liked side characters, especially great teacher and funny Senji, crazy and mischievous Minatsuki ( she is also pretty), his brother Yoh, Makina the Warden (that kick-ass woman!)/ It was good to see many female characters here in a shounen manga.
The artwork was done by Kazuma Kondou, which was really good and easy to follow. The characters also were drawn detailed and pretty.
Main character Ganta was angry and crybaby first, then developed into more strong character with help of Senji and also tragic experiences he had through. I liked his character, he was friendly, never-giving-up 14 year old boy who also putting himself under so many burdens for his age. Shiro is my favorite character, complex, cheerful and also bitter main girl character.
The villains of this manga was scientists. Yes, I admit that some scientific experiments are morally wrong, but hey, I like that kind of stories too!
So, Jinsei Kataoka is now one of my favorite mangaka. I recommend this manga for those who like action, mystery and horror, also dystopian fans.
"If you can't see what's important, then it's because you're too ashamed to open your eyes." - Ganta Igarashi
"If you're gonna execute me, stop waiting. Until then I live by my own rules!" - Ganta Igarashi
"Weak humans are irresponsible and sneaky. They’d rather put the blame on others and let them suffer." - Toto Sakigami
"I won't go down without a fight. Like hell I'll give up!" - Ganta Igarashi
"My bones may be broken. But I'm not." - Kiyomasa Senji
Human beings don't feel pain with their bodies. The brain is the thing that transmits the pain to the body.-Madoka Shishito
People fear death because they don't "understand" it, and we're afraid of strangers because we don't "know" them. Not being able to understand the one you love... is the worst fear of all.-Mitsuzaki Yosuga
Also Shiro's Woodpecker song :
The always naughty woodpecker.
Today, too, you open holes and ruin the forest.
The angry wood god turned your beak to poison.
Poor woodpecker, your nest has been poisoned.
Your food has been poisoned.
If you touch your friends, they all die.
The sad little woodpecker.
Your tears of poison sparkle brightly...
It began so interesting and promising. Ganta Igarashi is convicted for a mass murder he hasn't done and given a death sentence. Now in a prison called "Deadman Wonderland", he has to avoid death and keep himself alive. And also, in the "Deadman Wonderland", there are some people who can manipulate their bloods into weapons! Which also Ganta.
The name of manga is wonderful! I liked Ganta so far, also a strange girl named Shiro (which means "white" in japanese). The story seems complex from which I have read so far. Now maybe I can keep my hopes high!
Review of whole manga
4.61 Stars
It was my first dystopian manga!
The ending was perfect! Bittersweet, questionable (did Shiro wake up really?)/ The best ending choice for this manga. The plot, mystery and its reveal, characters and development, the neat and detailed ART... Definitely one of my favorite ones!
There were two-or-three plot twists, which added complexity and excitement to the story. Shiro and Ganta's story was heartbreaking, their friendship was somehow damaged but also beautiful. The ending was best for them. They are finally free...
I also liked side characters, especially great teacher and funny Senji, crazy and mischievous Minatsuki ( she is also pretty), his brother Yoh, Makina the Warden (that kick-ass woman!)/ It was good to see many female characters here in a shounen manga.
The artwork was done by Kazuma Kondou, which was really good and easy to follow. The characters also were drawn detailed and pretty.
Main character Ganta was angry and crybaby first, then developed into more strong character with help of Senji and also tragic experiences he had through. I liked his character, he was friendly, never-giving-up 14 year old boy who also putting himself under so many burdens for his age. Shiro is my favorite character, complex, cheerful and also bitter main girl character.
The villains of this manga was scientists. Yes, I admit that some scientific experiments are morally wrong, but hey, I like that kind of stories too!
So, Jinsei Kataoka is now one of my favorite mangaka. I recommend this manga for those who like action, mystery and horror, also dystopian fans.
"If you can't see what's important, then it's because you're too ashamed to open your eyes." - Ganta Igarashi
"If you're gonna execute me, stop waiting. Until then I live by my own rules!" - Ganta Igarashi
"Weak humans are irresponsible and sneaky. They’d rather put the blame on others and let them suffer." - Toto Sakigami
"I won't go down without a fight. Like hell I'll give up!" - Ganta Igarashi
"My bones may be broken. But I'm not." - Kiyomasa Senji
Human beings don't feel pain with their bodies. The brain is the thing that transmits the pain to the body.-Madoka Shishito
People fear death because they don't "understand" it, and we're afraid of strangers because we don't "know" them. Not being able to understand the one you love... is the worst fear of all.-Mitsuzaki Yosuga
Also Shiro's Woodpecker song :
The always naughty woodpecker.
Today, too, you open holes and ruin the forest.
The angry wood god turned your beak to poison.
Poor woodpecker, your nest has been poisoned.
Your food has been poisoned.
If you touch your friends, they all die.
The sad little woodpecker.
Your tears of poison sparkle brightly...
February 10, 2017
Apparently I have a _need-to-rate-review shelf from like 8 months ago that, like many of these books, I forgot existed. So we're going to blast through them Mad Max style, in no way giving them the attention I am sure they deserve.
First up is the Deadman Wonderland series. The original comments cover Vol 1, so this is about the whole series. I remember it being pretty good. I mean, I finished it, yeah? That got to count for something. 3.5 "I don't remember it sucking and I rated the individual volumes pretty high" stars.
Original review/comments:
===========================
I don't know yet.
I'm going to have to read more and come back to you with a rating. One volume isn't enough to know if the things that bother me are going to be ongoing or just due to needing to get things started. The whole series is just ("just") 13 volumes, so I might blow through them all and return to rate.
Let's talk about first impressions though.
The story is that a being appears outside of a schoolroom, there's an explosion or something, and everyone dies. Except for our MC, who doesn't have a mark on him. In some insane plot nonsense, our MC is declared guilty of mass murder based on nothing except that he is alive, and sentenced to death. It takes all of two pages or so.
Our lead is sentenced to the only privatized prison in Japan, which is also an amusement park of sorts. Just go with it. It's manga. Perhaps needless to say, this is the strangest prison of all time. There are death games, and the guards will stab you for blinking wrong, and if you're on death row, you have to purchase an antidote every three days or the poison they are constantly giving you will kill you. Like I said, strange.
There are a couple of incidents along the way that shows our MC to not be normal in some way. This world has magic or mutants or something. It hasn't been explained yet, but the prison warden is very interested in our MC. Overall, that part is interesting and this first volume just asks lots of questions.
And the above is all fine. It's weird and that's great. Not a fan of the court railroading, but that he is in prison is the story, not how he got here, so whatever. It's fine.
What I'm not a fan of is pretty standard for manga, and that is that our MC is an idiot. He's given a handbook that by the second day, it doesn't seem like he's read at all. His guard, who I think was supposed to tell him things, hasn't told him jack. There are a couple of places where we use uncommon stupidity and laziness for plot. Using his ignorance of things he shouldn't be ignorant of as plot is a very quick way to get on my nerves. Based on this volume, I have to assume 97% of their death row inmates die the first week. Everyone is too incompetent for anything else to be true.
But... that could all be "first week in prison" nonsense. If he makes it up to 'average' prisoner over the next volume or two, I'll write off his awful start. Stay tuned!
First up is the Deadman Wonderland series. The original comments cover Vol 1, so this is about the whole series. I remember it being pretty good. I mean, I finished it, yeah? That got to count for something. 3.5 "I don't remember it sucking and I rated the individual volumes pretty high" stars.
Original review/comments:
===========================
I don't know yet.
I'm going to have to read more and come back to you with a rating. One volume isn't enough to know if the things that bother me are going to be ongoing or just due to needing to get things started. The whole series is just ("just") 13 volumes, so I might blow through them all and return to rate.
Let's talk about first impressions though.
The story is that a being appears outside of a schoolroom, there's an explosion or something, and everyone dies. Except for our MC, who doesn't have a mark on him. In some insane plot nonsense, our MC is declared guilty of mass murder based on nothing except that he is alive, and sentenced to death. It takes all of two pages or so.
Our lead is sentenced to the only privatized prison in Japan, which is also an amusement park of sorts. Just go with it. It's manga. Perhaps needless to say, this is the strangest prison of all time. There are death games, and the guards will stab you for blinking wrong, and if you're on death row, you have to purchase an antidote every three days or the poison they are constantly giving you will kill you. Like I said, strange.
There are a couple of incidents along the way that shows our MC to not be normal in some way. This world has magic or mutants or something. It hasn't been explained yet, but the prison warden is very interested in our MC. Overall, that part is interesting and this first volume just asks lots of questions.
And the above is all fine. It's weird and that's great. Not a fan of the court railroading, but that he is in prison is the story, not how he got here, so whatever. It's fine.
What I'm not a fan of is pretty standard for manga, and that is that our MC is an idiot. He's given a handbook that by the second day, it doesn't seem like he's read at all. His guard, who I think was supposed to tell him things, hasn't told him jack. There are a couple of places where we use uncommon stupidity and laziness for plot. Using his ignorance of things he shouldn't be ignorant of as plot is a very quick way to get on my nerves. Based on this volume, I have to assume 97% of their death row inmates die the first week. Everyone is too incompetent for anything else to be true.
But... that could all be "first week in prison" nonsense. If he makes it up to 'average' prisoner over the next volume or two, I'll write off his awful start. Stay tuned!
July 8, 2021
Insane start!
This is the goriest manga I've read in a while! The story starts out with a mass murder in a middle school and goes from there to be a bit less gory than Death Race. The story is a middle school boy ends up in Deadman Wonderland with a death sentence for a crime he didn't commit. Deadman Wonderland is a prison that doubles as a tourist attraction in Japan.
The characters are just starting out and none of them really feels all that easy to pin down. The MC doesn't really feel fleshed out just yet, but you see him slowly start to come into his own. They deal a bit with the trauma of what he witnessed and his fear of execution. Shiro is a character that I wish we'd know more about. Right now, she just feels like an airhead and a bit like an imaginary friend to the MC.
The obstacle course/race thing was gorier than I expected and I couldn't put it down. It was entertaining as much as it was gory. This certainly isn't the first story I've seen that combines a futuristic prison with public apathy - but in this case, the public isn't aware of the risks the prisoners are facing.
There's a supernatural/magic element to this that we only touch upon in this volume and I'm curious to see what happens next! I saw the trailer for the anime and it looked insane! I'm definitely going to check that out, too!
This is the goriest manga I've read in a while! The story starts out with a mass murder in a middle school and goes from there to be a bit less gory than Death Race. The story is a middle school boy ends up in Deadman Wonderland with a death sentence for a crime he didn't commit. Deadman Wonderland is a prison that doubles as a tourist attraction in Japan.
The characters are just starting out and none of them really feels all that easy to pin down. The MC doesn't really feel fleshed out just yet, but you see him slowly start to come into his own. They deal a bit with the trauma of what he witnessed and his fear of execution. Shiro is a character that I wish we'd know more about. Right now, she just feels like an airhead and a bit like an imaginary friend to the MC.
The obstacle course/race thing was gorier than I expected and I couldn't put it down. It was entertaining as much as it was gory. This certainly isn't the first story I've seen that combines a futuristic prison with public apathy - but in this case, the public isn't aware of the risks the prisoners are facing.
There's a supernatural/magic element to this that we only touch upon in this volume and I'm curious to see what happens next! I saw the trailer for the anime and it looked insane! I'm definitely going to check that out, too!
November 29, 2023
Lavishly gory and unapologetically brutal, Deadman Wonderland tells the story of a kid wrongly blamed for mass murder and how he navigates one of the wildest prisons to ever be brought to page. It's not exactly a page turner, but it's interesting enough and has some elements of mystery that warrant answers.
December 2, 2011
Recipe: Take a third of Battle Royale, a third of Prison Break, and a third of Akira. Stir them in a bawl until the flavor is all gone and add lots of bad storytelling around the plate it is served upon. The result is Deadman Wonderland. Or as I prefer to call it, BrainDeadman COCOland; a completely unrealistic and chaotic show, with lots of gore thrown in to attract the casual viewers with superficial entertainment. Everything is made to be as much exaggerated as possible with violence overblown forced drama in an attempt to make it look special. It can work if you shut off your brain and expect to see nothing more than gore and unexpected plotlines because of the completely chaotic nature. If you are otherwise looking for some consistency, originality, reasoning, and other elite / snobby / culturistic stuff, you are watching the wrong show.
DW is the story of a boy being accused wrongfully to be a mass murderer and being sentenced to prison. Albeit not any prison but an amusement park where the inmates fight in various death games for the entertainment of the populace and where everybody is dressed as a silly plushy animal. There, the boy needs to find a way to survive the games as well as discover the real murderer, who seems to be an inmate in the same prison. He gains psionic powers (queue for the typical hidden dark superpower of every shonen lead) and needs to train in order to survive in prison, avenge the death of his friends, and prove his innocence.
- The premise sounds a lot better than the actual plot; if the show was taking itself seriously we would have an interesting action/survival/mystery story on our hands but instead of that we get a random line of events that are purely coo-coo entertainment.
- Unlike most manga, pacing is not an issue; each chapter provides lots of progress and revelations, and the action is generally interesting, for being too gory or exaggerated. At the same time pacing is not good as many things are going by in a few minutes, which makes all character development to feel rushed and forced.
- Storytelling is terrible. You constantly see people talking or looking at very scary or dramatic events and don’t react for several minutes, even when they are full of anger or terror. You also see how the plot is random, as elements are introduced without any sort of foreshadowing.
Artwork is ok although all the focus in given to gore and even that is occasionally not that great; I have seen far more in other manga.
- The prison/amusement park may feel quite memorable to most but it’s otherwise not something that makes sense in the way it is run; you are again not supposed to think about it much.
- The characters do not look memorable in any way, nor do their special attacks; a thing that makes them very forgettable next to the setting. It makes you care more about the gore than the people experiencing it, which is a sign of lazy storytelling in my book.
The characters are practically all stupid or crazy. It is a matter of personal taste if you get to like them and I just hate them. Being crazy and being an idiot are two different things and having both in the same package does not look good without proper handling.
- For example, Ganta the lead boy, is the average low intelligence, high ideals shonen lead. There is absolutely nothing special about him and could easily be replaced with any other protagonist from any other shonen show. It is not a good thing to be indifferent about the protagonist in a show full of gore and mystery and yet he feels completely out of place with his positive childish attitude. And he is so stupid, he falls for the simplest tricks, yet he performs a comeback with equally retarded straightforward attacks, which again make him look bad and a constant winner only because the scriptwriter feels like it. What is even more inconsistent is how he is unable to grasp the most basic facts yet he learns new supermoves in just a few minutes.
- Then there is his best friend Shiro. She is nothing but a super positive girl with an IQ of a monkey stereotype. Her behavior makes no sense and she is there only to eat bread and help Ganta with her antiques. She is way too genki and stupid for my tastes; I mostly see her as fan service because of that really reveling uniform of hers. You also eventually see that she has no free will of her own; she is just there as a cheap plot devise for the story to unravel anyway the scriptwriter wants. I mean she appears and disappears anytime she feels like it and nobody questions how easily she enters dangerous places or why she is even NEXT to them in the first place.
- The warden is above the law no matter how far fetched his actions are. He is some sort of a generic villain, a power crazy maniac who organizes death games for the people outside the prison and even conducts inhuman experiments in order to harness some weird psionic power centered in a red jewel in the chest of his human guinea pigs. Guess what, Ganta is one of them. He is just there as an untouchable asshole and nothing more; he completely lacks depth or sympathy from the viewer.
- The same thing expands to the rest of the minor characters; they are all stereotypes, crazy and stupid, with hardly enough immersion to care about. I personally don’t give a dime about them or their so-called drama. And guess what, all development the secondary cast receives, is to begin as adversaries to Ganta and as soon as he defeats them, they immediately become his buddies. Don’t have illusions about the cast; despite the occasional insanity and gore, everybody is shonen stock characters all the way.
The thing which eventually ruins the show is that everything is completely random.
- Amusement parks featuring death games for families to go watch while eating popcorn? Sure, why not? Let the kids watch as well; it is very amusing.
- A warden who can do anything he likes and nobody questions him? Why of course, let him blow a school bus in daylight, then get some tickets from him, go to his prison and see people being butchered while eating pop corn.
- A prison where the inmates are allowed to leave their cells and go anywhere they like? Why of course. What is that you say? Everybody is wearing explosive collars in their necks that blow up if they do something bad? Sure, that was very helpful when dozens of prisoners rebelled. Candy drugs that are supposed to addict the inmates to them as means of control? Yes, again very helpful for the dozens of rebels. Special armored prison guards that negate the inmates’ superpowers? Very helpful, until they learn how easily they can negate the negation. Psychotic inmates being used as prison control squads? Ingenious; especially for killing your own prison guards. And why are there rebel teams in the first place anyway? Nice prison security you have there warden. How about a drug or some machine that keep them at bay INTERNALLY?
- Where are the relatives of the hundreds of people that are constantly being killed making some sort of protest? Oh that’s right, they are eating popcorn and watch their loved ones being killed in an amusement park.
- Why isn’t anyone questioning Shiro for her weird appearance, how she pops out of nowhere or most of the time not even noticing her passing by them?
I can keep asking whys and the answer never comes because the show is BrainDeadman; everything is running on Idiot’s Plot.
Not even the action is that great to deem the show worthy of watching just for that. The battles and the games are more silly than exciting; they have very little choreography and very basic strategy. They follow the typical shonen fuss of the hero losing badly, getting up full of resolve and performing a move that gives him the upper hand, followed by some lame morality monologue around friendship and justice. And for some reason he is never hacked to pieces with attacks that turn other minor characters to beef jerky. As for the people he is fighting, they too are idiots for not finishing the duel with their ultimate attack right away and just waste time in gloating. When later on they use those very same ultimate attacks to save Ganta and claim they always were so powerful. Plain ass-pulling if you ask me.
After the fuzz from the initial shock of you being thrown in a setting where people go to watch inmates being dissected in an amusement park goes away, chances are you are left with nothing else to care about. It is nothing but retarded violence, forced drama and random script, around people you don’t give a damn about. DW is a very superficial and chaotic show that doesn’t have any redeeming qualities. Even the gore scenes are ruined by a lot of silly humor and shonen archetypes that water down the feeling of dread. For all the above reasons, this manga is not recommended at all.
DW is the story of a boy being accused wrongfully to be a mass murderer and being sentenced to prison. Albeit not any prison but an amusement park where the inmates fight in various death games for the entertainment of the populace and where everybody is dressed as a silly plushy animal. There, the boy needs to find a way to survive the games as well as discover the real murderer, who seems to be an inmate in the same prison. He gains psionic powers (queue for the typical hidden dark superpower of every shonen lead) and needs to train in order to survive in prison, avenge the death of his friends, and prove his innocence.
- The premise sounds a lot better than the actual plot; if the show was taking itself seriously we would have an interesting action/survival/mystery story on our hands but instead of that we get a random line of events that are purely coo-coo entertainment.
- Unlike most manga, pacing is not an issue; each chapter provides lots of progress and revelations, and the action is generally interesting, for being too gory or exaggerated. At the same time pacing is not good as many things are going by in a few minutes, which makes all character development to feel rushed and forced.
- Storytelling is terrible. You constantly see people talking or looking at very scary or dramatic events and don’t react for several minutes, even when they are full of anger or terror. You also see how the plot is random, as elements are introduced without any sort of foreshadowing.
Artwork is ok although all the focus in given to gore and even that is occasionally not that great; I have seen far more in other manga.
- The prison/amusement park may feel quite memorable to most but it’s otherwise not something that makes sense in the way it is run; you are again not supposed to think about it much.
- The characters do not look memorable in any way, nor do their special attacks; a thing that makes them very forgettable next to the setting. It makes you care more about the gore than the people experiencing it, which is a sign of lazy storytelling in my book.
The characters are practically all stupid or crazy. It is a matter of personal taste if you get to like them and I just hate them. Being crazy and being an idiot are two different things and having both in the same package does not look good without proper handling.
- For example, Ganta the lead boy, is the average low intelligence, high ideals shonen lead. There is absolutely nothing special about him and could easily be replaced with any other protagonist from any other shonen show. It is not a good thing to be indifferent about the protagonist in a show full of gore and mystery and yet he feels completely out of place with his positive childish attitude. And he is so stupid, he falls for the simplest tricks, yet he performs a comeback with equally retarded straightforward attacks, which again make him look bad and a constant winner only because the scriptwriter feels like it. What is even more inconsistent is how he is unable to grasp the most basic facts yet he learns new supermoves in just a few minutes.
- Then there is his best friend Shiro. She is nothing but a super positive girl with an IQ of a monkey stereotype. Her behavior makes no sense and she is there only to eat bread and help Ganta with her antiques. She is way too genki and stupid for my tastes; I mostly see her as fan service because of that really reveling uniform of hers. You also eventually see that she has no free will of her own; she is just there as a cheap plot devise for the story to unravel anyway the scriptwriter wants. I mean she appears and disappears anytime she feels like it and nobody questions how easily she enters dangerous places or why she is even NEXT to them in the first place.
- The warden is above the law no matter how far fetched his actions are. He is some sort of a generic villain, a power crazy maniac who organizes death games for the people outside the prison and even conducts inhuman experiments in order to harness some weird psionic power centered in a red jewel in the chest of his human guinea pigs. Guess what, Ganta is one of them. He is just there as an untouchable asshole and nothing more; he completely lacks depth or sympathy from the viewer.
- The same thing expands to the rest of the minor characters; they are all stereotypes, crazy and stupid, with hardly enough immersion to care about. I personally don’t give a dime about them or their so-called drama. And guess what, all development the secondary cast receives, is to begin as adversaries to Ganta and as soon as he defeats them, they immediately become his buddies. Don’t have illusions about the cast; despite the occasional insanity and gore, everybody is shonen stock characters all the way.
The thing which eventually ruins the show is that everything is completely random.
- Amusement parks featuring death games for families to go watch while eating popcorn? Sure, why not? Let the kids watch as well; it is very amusing.
- A warden who can do anything he likes and nobody questions him? Why of course, let him blow a school bus in daylight, then get some tickets from him, go to his prison and see people being butchered while eating pop corn.
- A prison where the inmates are allowed to leave their cells and go anywhere they like? Why of course. What is that you say? Everybody is wearing explosive collars in their necks that blow up if they do something bad? Sure, that was very helpful when dozens of prisoners rebelled. Candy drugs that are supposed to addict the inmates to them as means of control? Yes, again very helpful for the dozens of rebels. Special armored prison guards that negate the inmates’ superpowers? Very helpful, until they learn how easily they can negate the negation. Psychotic inmates being used as prison control squads? Ingenious; especially for killing your own prison guards. And why are there rebel teams in the first place anyway? Nice prison security you have there warden. How about a drug or some machine that keep them at bay INTERNALLY?
- Where are the relatives of the hundreds of people that are constantly being killed making some sort of protest? Oh that’s right, they are eating popcorn and watch their loved ones being killed in an amusement park.
- Why isn’t anyone questioning Shiro for her weird appearance, how she pops out of nowhere or most of the time not even noticing her passing by them?
I can keep asking whys and the answer never comes because the show is BrainDeadman; everything is running on Idiot’s Plot.
Not even the action is that great to deem the show worthy of watching just for that. The battles and the games are more silly than exciting; they have very little choreography and very basic strategy. They follow the typical shonen fuss of the hero losing badly, getting up full of resolve and performing a move that gives him the upper hand, followed by some lame morality monologue around friendship and justice. And for some reason he is never hacked to pieces with attacks that turn other minor characters to beef jerky. As for the people he is fighting, they too are idiots for not finishing the duel with their ultimate attack right away and just waste time in gloating. When later on they use those very same ultimate attacks to save Ganta and claim they always were so powerful. Plain ass-pulling if you ask me.
After the fuzz from the initial shock of you being thrown in a setting where people go to watch inmates being dissected in an amusement park goes away, chances are you are left with nothing else to care about. It is nothing but retarded violence, forced drama and random script, around people you don’t give a damn about. DW is a very superficial and chaotic show that doesn’t have any redeeming qualities. Even the gore scenes are ruined by a lot of silly humor and shonen archetypes that water down the feeling of dread. For all the above reasons, this manga is not recommended at all.
March 8, 2015
Bizarre and twisted with lots of gory action. Ganta's entire classroom is brutally massacred in from of him by a mysterious "Red Man" and next thing he knows he is in prison for apparently murdering them. But this is no ordinary prison. It is a televised deathmatch, prison and amusement park all in one! Sounds crazy right? Well it doesn't stop there...
This is one very messed up read. In a place with madmen with special abilities, competitions for survival and expensive candy that you will die if you don't take every three days, Ganta is in a most grotesque place. One I would not handle to be in! The one thing that bothers me most is that Ganta is only 13 or 14 years old. So young for all the crap he is about to face!!
I am oddly interested in this series as it seems to partially sate some twisted part of my imagination. However I feel I must warn readers that this is very violent for a manga! If you like unique weirdness and horrific comics like The Walking Dead then you might very well enjoy this series. However I do advise having an interest in both the bizarre and heavy, deadly violence or this might but you off.
An intriguing beginning but I see this as having a very specific following.
*I received a digital copy of this manga for free in exchange for a fair, honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are strictly my own.*
This is one very messed up read. In a place with madmen with special abilities, competitions for survival and expensive candy that you will die if you don't take every three days, Ganta is in a most grotesque place. One I would not handle to be in! The one thing that bothers me most is that Ganta is only 13 or 14 years old. So young for all the crap he is about to face!!
I am oddly interested in this series as it seems to partially sate some twisted part of my imagination. However I feel I must warn readers that this is very violent for a manga! If you like unique weirdness and horrific comics like The Walking Dead then you might very well enjoy this series. However I do advise having an interest in both the bizarre and heavy, deadly violence or this might but you off.
An intriguing beginning but I see this as having a very specific following.
*I received a digital copy of this manga for free in exchange for a fair, honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are strictly my own.*
February 10, 2010
I’m not a giant fan of the ultra violent manga since they tend to be long on gore and scantily dressed women and short on plot so I came into this with some preconceived notions. Happily, Deadman Wonderland blew those notions away. Yes, there was gore and violence but there was plot. Said plot, however, is a bit different and takes a nice dollop of suspension of disbelief.
It opens with Ganta Igarashi, a teenaged boy, and his classmates whining about the lame school trip that’s planned to Deadman Wonderland, which is a privately run prison if said prison was owned by Disney and run by an insane sadist (not that the tourists are aware of this). It’s the year 2023 and is ten years after a major earthquake destroyed Tokyo. Worries about a lame vacation end suddenly when the ‘red man’ appears in the classroom. Whether it’s actually a man in armor or a robot, you’re not entirely sure, but he lays waste to Ganta’s class, leaving only Ganta alive. He does shoot Ganta in the chest with something that looks like a large crystal, embedding it.
Ganta, however, survives unmarked and here’s where the suspension of disbelief comes in. He’s rushed through a trial, with no evidence offered up and quickly sentenced to death at the Deadman Wonderland prison. His induction into the prison isn’t easy as Ganta ends up on Chief Prison Guard Makina’s bad side, who, in spite of her tough appearance is one of the few pieces of fan service with her Nazi-like uniform, mini-skirt, G-cups and stiletto heels. She is, however, happy to carve up any prisoner who she thinks deserves it, which is pretty much all of them.
As Ganta tries to get his bearings, still pretty much in shock over his fate, moaning that he wants to die, he’s visited by a very odd girl, an albino in a body stocking who wears, for reasons unknown, boxing gloves. She plans to help him achieve that goal but realizes quickly he didn’t mean it. She introduces herself as Shiro and becomes his friend, proving to be highly protective of him. Shiro is a bit of a mystery, somewhat child-like, referring to herself in third person and moving around the prison with strange ease.
Ganta meets Azami, a young lady who teaches him the ropes, like needing CPs, prison cash, to get anything, including food, and bullies who’ll take everything from him and everyone around him. He’s befriended by Yo, the young man Makina carved on in the beginning.
To his horror, Ganta learns his death sentence is already being carried out by his collar, which is slowly injecting him with poison. He needs to eat ‘candy’ every three days or die and this antidote costs a lot of CPs. To earn them, he has to enter the various spectacles that are put on for the tourists. Deadman Wonderland, after all, is an amusement park, so to speak, designed to get people back into Tokyo. They think the games are just that, games with gory special effects. However, as Ganta learns, these games are brutally, fatally real and that’s just the start of all the things that are going wrong at Deadman Wonderland. Ganta, himself, has been changed by the Red Man’s attack in a fundamental way, giving him something unexpected. As this rockets to the end of the first volume, the reader knows a lot more of what’s going on than Ganta does and it adds for a lot of tension. All in all, I was impressed with this first volume.
March 28, 2014
Off to a fantastic start. This is creepy, unsettling, horrific Japanese dystopia at its finest. Add in a paranormal element and everything you could want is here. Deadman Wonderland is a most unique world; an amusement park built on top of a privatized prison, the park is run by the inmates and the death row inmates are especially heinously controlled and made to participate is events (games) which result in life or death. A little like "Hunger Games" only more violent. While futuristic and dystopian the story easily crosses over into horror. Numerous cast members are introduced in this first volume but the focus is on the main two characters, Ganta wrongfully imprisoned on death row for a massacre he did not commit and Shiro, a strange girl with white hair who befriends him. Awesome new series! I love this kind of stuff!
September 24, 2017
quite enjoyable!!! I've already seen some of the anime so this was a faster and easier read than usual manga ! I like the prison system I find it so interesting ! The characters are really cool as well.
October 13, 2017
Well, this has definitely got an interesting premise and I can't wait to see where it goes. I already love the characters and the setting, so I'm sure I'll continue to love it as it becomes more fleshed out.
August 26, 2016
Oh boy. This story is Violent with a capital V. Lots of mysteries and lots of evil. I predict a truck-load of twists in the coming volumes.
August 31, 2017
I like it so far, with the gory and killing and blood and all. There's still a million of questions inside my head, though. I shall continue.
July 8, 2016
Wow, this was really, and I mean REALLY, gory and ultra-violent.
On to volume 2...
On to volume 2...
November 4, 2020
The first volume was intresting and I look forward to read more!
Deadman wonderland volume 1 by Jinsei Kataoka get a 7.8/10 stars.
Deadman wonderland volume 1 by Jinsei Kataoka get a 7.8/10 stars.
December 21, 2020
Pero que injustoooooooooooooosssssss... A mi no me engañan, "soy tu abogado" pffffffff si claro claro, pobre criaturita del señor enviado a un lugar tan horrendo como ese siendo inocente. Pero claroooo como lo atacó ese bicho de rojo ahora está marcado, que cáscaras de huevo más grande las del tipo de lentes... ( '-') tengo una espinillita allí que me dice que la niña de cabello blanco es sospechosa ahahahaha pero bueno, ya veré como sigue esto.
December 7, 2015
That was awesome!
Rtc.
Edited 12/7/2015
Ooh, where do I even begin with this one? The way its pacing was wonderfully fast? The epic gorefest? The characters?
Well, even though this was only like, five chapters, I loved every second of it.
First, the premise- I have only one word. Awesome. There was an earthquake that tore through Tokyo, now there's a prison that also functions as an amusement park, if prisoners don't eat 'candy' they get poisoned, prisoners called 'Deadmen' can manipulate their blood into weapons, they have to face off and if they lose they can lose body parts or even their lives, a mysterious 'Red Man' killed all the MC's classmates and he got blamed, etc...
The world itself was well-developed and felt pretty realistic. (You know, other than the whole candy-and-blood-weapons thing.) Seeing as the world played a huge role in the story, the excellent world-building enhanced it.
And the characters! Ganta, the MC, seemed a little weaksauce at times, but I think that just added to his appeal. He wasn't completely overpowered, but he was determined, and I liked that.
Shiro...Shiro was wonderful. No other word for her.
The story was quite interesting. It advanced very quickly and I was never bored. It was a nice mix of action/gore and info/dialogue.
Anyway, 4.7/5 stars, and I will read the rest of the series. Eventually.
Rtc.
Edited 12/7/2015
Ooh, where do I even begin with this one? The way its pacing was wonderfully fast? The epic gorefest? The characters?
Well, even though this was only like, five chapters, I loved every second of it.
First, the premise- I have only one word. Awesome. There was an earthquake that tore through Tokyo, now there's a prison that also functions as an amusement park, if prisoners don't eat 'candy' they get poisoned, prisoners called 'Deadmen' can manipulate their blood into weapons, they have to face off and if they lose they can lose body parts or even their lives, a mysterious 'Red Man' killed all the MC's classmates and he got blamed, etc...
The world itself was well-developed and felt pretty realistic. (You know, other than the whole candy-and-blood-weapons thing.) Seeing as the world played a huge role in the story, the excellent world-building enhanced it.
And the characters! Ganta, the MC, seemed a little weaksauce at times, but I think that just added to his appeal. He wasn't completely overpowered, but he was determined, and I liked that.
Shiro...Shiro was wonderful. No other word for her.
The story was quite interesting. It advanced very quickly and I was never bored. It was a nice mix of action/gore and info/dialogue.
Anyway, 4.7/5 stars, and I will read the rest of the series. Eventually.
August 14, 2019
Good beginning. I haven't read this before, nor have I seen the anime, so, I have no idea what is in store. I kinda like that.
Nothing all that mind-blowing. It's a dystopian story that isn't shy about the violence. The art is fine...there are some nice two-page spreads throughout this volume that were a lot of fun.
I'll definitely be continuing with vol. 2. I wanna know what the dealio with this red man is all about.
Nothing all that mind-blowing. It's a dystopian story that isn't shy about the violence. The art is fine...there are some nice two-page spreads throughout this volume that were a lot of fun.
I'll definitely be continuing with vol. 2. I wanna know what the dealio with this red man is all about.
May 22, 2015
I WISH I could give this 6 stars! The story was easy to follow & was just as easy to feel bad for Ganta, the main character. The artwork was stellar, and so clean & well done. Thus far this is, by far & away, my favorite manga I've ever read! Everyone should read this!
October 6, 2018
It wasn’t bad and it wasn’t good; the art is rather pretty and I like Shiro’s design.
I doubt I’ll continue reading the manga but I might give the anime adaptation a shot.
For the record, privatized prisons should not exist irl and the fact that they do exist makes me angry.
I doubt I’ll continue reading the manga but I might give the anime adaptation a shot.
For the record, privatized prisons should not exist irl and the fact that they do exist makes me angry.
November 30, 2016
Interesting story. A bit mindless, but relaxing with a coffee.
May 16, 2019
4/5 stars
January 26, 2012
Slight spoilers ahead.
The story starts with a devastating earthquake hitting Japan, leaving most of Tokyo underwater. Ten years later, 14-year-old Igarashi Ganta is joking around with his friends in class when a mysterious “Red Man” appears and kills everyone in Ganta’s class--except him. Ganta passes out in the classroom, but later regains consciousness to find out that he is the sole suspect in his classmates’ murders, which he is convicted of and sentenced to death.
Ganta is sent to Deadman Wonderland, a privately owned prison that uses its inmates to entertain the public. It’s purpose is to gain money to rebuild Tokyo. Supposedly. Ganta is placed in a collar (that he later learns emits poison that can only be counteracted by “candy”) and finds himself thrust in this bizarre prison life where inmates are mutilated and killed for the enjoyment of others. The public, however, believes that these “games” are staged.
This volume basically chronicles Ganta’s “introduction” into the system. There isn’t a lot of time spent on his life, his trial, or his classmates’ death. The readers are pretty much thrust into the beginning of his new life at Deadman Wonderland. You learn a little about the rules in his new home. Even though there is a “rule book,” you only learn pieces of the “rules” as Ganta learns the rules (of course he hasn’t read the rule book, silly) instead of having everything spelled out for the readers.
At first, I thought I would only give this three stars. I was enjoying the story, for sure, but I wasn’t bowled over. Around the middle of the story, though, I was trying to hurry through so I could find out what happened next. The pace picked up considerably as more characters and variables were introduced and as Ganta struggled with finding some way to make his prison stay bearable, which he at first decides will be done by following the rules of the prison--until he finds out there are too many conflicting rules in that place.
Two of the characters introduced in the story fascinated me--Shiro and Yō.
I really enjoyed Shiro. Shiro is very childlike and loyal. She’s quick and dexterous, seeming to view the prison as a playground more than a punishment. I love how protective she is of Ganta, even going as far as trying to ensure that he won the game they were in together. They seem to have a history together that Ganta can’t quite remember which dates back to the Tokyo earthquake. Ganta has blocked out the event, but Shiro remembers.
Then, there’s Yō. When we first meet Yō, he seems mostly innocent. He appears very friendly and somewhat shy, but as the story progresses, we’re given hints that something sinister is going on behind Yō’s mask. Even later in the story, we find out that the man overseeing the facility is using Yō to spy on Ganta and giving him large sums of the prison currency in exchange for information. I’m looking forward to finding out more about Yō and his motivations.
There’s a supernatural/sci-fi element that is hinted at throughout the story, also, but never fully explored, but I’m guessing, given the way this ended, that we’re about to find out so much about that part of the story and this “branches of sin” thing. Will definitely be reading the next volume soon. And I hope they start answering some of the questions I have like where are Ganta’s parents? Did they die in the earthquake? Great read overall, though
The story starts with a devastating earthquake hitting Japan, leaving most of Tokyo underwater. Ten years later, 14-year-old Igarashi Ganta is joking around with his friends in class when a mysterious “Red Man” appears and kills everyone in Ganta’s class--except him. Ganta passes out in the classroom, but later regains consciousness to find out that he is the sole suspect in his classmates’ murders, which he is convicted of and sentenced to death.
Ganta is sent to Deadman Wonderland, a privately owned prison that uses its inmates to entertain the public. It’s purpose is to gain money to rebuild Tokyo. Supposedly. Ganta is placed in a collar (that he later learns emits poison that can only be counteracted by “candy”) and finds himself thrust in this bizarre prison life where inmates are mutilated and killed for the enjoyment of others. The public, however, believes that these “games” are staged.
This volume basically chronicles Ganta’s “introduction” into the system. There isn’t a lot of time spent on his life, his trial, or his classmates’ death. The readers are pretty much thrust into the beginning of his new life at Deadman Wonderland. You learn a little about the rules in his new home. Even though there is a “rule book,” you only learn pieces of the “rules” as Ganta learns the rules (of course he hasn’t read the rule book, silly) instead of having everything spelled out for the readers.
At first, I thought I would only give this three stars. I was enjoying the story, for sure, but I wasn’t bowled over. Around the middle of the story, though, I was trying to hurry through so I could find out what happened next. The pace picked up considerably as more characters and variables were introduced and as Ganta struggled with finding some way to make his prison stay bearable, which he at first decides will be done by following the rules of the prison--until he finds out there are too many conflicting rules in that place.
Two of the characters introduced in the story fascinated me--Shiro and Yō.
I really enjoyed Shiro. Shiro is very childlike and loyal. She’s quick and dexterous, seeming to view the prison as a playground more than a punishment. I love how protective she is of Ganta, even going as far as trying to ensure that he won the game they were in together. They seem to have a history together that Ganta can’t quite remember which dates back to the Tokyo earthquake. Ganta has blocked out the event, but Shiro remembers.
Then, there’s Yō. When we first meet Yō, he seems mostly innocent. He appears very friendly and somewhat shy, but as the story progresses, we’re given hints that something sinister is going on behind Yō’s mask. Even later in the story, we find out that the man overseeing the facility is using Yō to spy on Ganta and giving him large sums of the prison currency in exchange for information. I’m looking forward to finding out more about Yō and his motivations.
There’s a supernatural/sci-fi element that is hinted at throughout the story, also, but never fully explored, but I’m guessing, given the way this ended, that we’re about to find out so much about that part of the story and this “branches of sin” thing. Will definitely be reading the next volume soon. And I hope they start answering some of the questions I have like where are Ganta’s parents? Did they die in the earthquake? Great read overall, though
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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