Tomodachi Game

High school student Yuuichi Katagiri cherishes his close circle of friends, composed of four classmates: Yutori Kokorogi, Shiho Sawaragi, Makoto Shibe, and Tenji Mikasa. However, when the funds for the upcoming school trip are stolen, the incident causes Shiho and Makoto—who had been tasked with collecting the money—to distance themselves from the rest of their class.

Soon after, Yuuichi and his friends are deceived into meeting up and knocked unconscious by unknown assailants. After waking, the group find themselves confined in a white room with controversial figure Manabu-kun, who reveals that one of the five has gathered them together to clear their personal debt of twenty million yen. To pay off the amount, they must participate in a variety of psychological games that will test the true nature of their friendship and humanity.

Distressed and isolated from the outside world, Yuuichi and his friends need to cooperate to complete the games. But as their concealed feelings and problematic pasts begin to surface, their seemingly unbreakable bond may soon shatter into irreparable pieces.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Katagiri, Yuuichi Main

Kobayashi, Chiaki Japanese

Sawaragi, Shiho Main

Miyamoto, Yume Japanese

Mikasa, Tenji Main

Hamano, Daiki Japanese

Kokorogi, Yutori Main

Amano, Satomi Japanese

Shibe, Makoto Main

Ono, Tomohiro Japanese

Shinomiya, Kei Supporting

Ono, Kensho Japanese

Mizuse, Maria Supporting

Ueda, Reina Japanese

Tsukino Supporting

Itou, Shizuka Japanese

Manabu-kun Supporting

Takayama, Minami Japanese

Onigawara, Hyakutarou Supporting

Taniyama, Kishou Japanese

Kurosu, Nobuhiko Producer

Komatsu, Reina Producer

Koguchi, Wani Producer

Hidaka, Isao Producer

Reviews

Feb 17, 2025

EllieCats

Recommended

Not quite a killing game, but psychological enough that it even got me questioning the characters.

Story: Someone in the main group has a debt that's got to be repaid. Who is it and why? What lengths do they have to go to? This story has many layers to it that you've got to make sure you're paying attention.

Characters: There is a lot of character development in this as well as different sides to the MCs that you may not have expected. What you think of a character the first time you see them is probably not how they actually are! The backstories are pretty good ... too, but not that detailed.

Style: About the same as any other anime of the time. Nicely detailed and coloured, but still enough for the psychological feels. The music is good too.

Recommendation: Well, if you want the full Tomodachi Game story you ain't gonna get it with the anime. I'd recommend it for those willing to read the manga afterwards. It was a good watch and I was super disappointed that there isn't another season. All in all though, worth watching if you like high-stakes game stories.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jul 30, 2024

hexashadow13

Mixed Feelings

tl;dr: An anime with ups and downs when it comes to it’s games and an overarching plot that while interesting hasn’t quite delivered so far.

This anime is about high stakes games that test friendships. An individual can enter themselves and their friend group into the Tomodachi Game, where they can play various games that give them the chance to pay off their existing debt, gain far more debt, or offload the debt to one of their friends. But because this involves such high sums of money, it inevitably results in friendships being put through a trial by fire and often not surviving the ordeal. The ... protagonist, Yuuichi, and four of his friends are pulled into such a game, and though he thought they were close friends, it turns out he knew them far less than he thought. Though I suppose that’s only fair, as they knew him even less and he turned out to be more extreme than any of them could have imagined.

This is a standard high stakes game story. It’s not a death game but the money involved is high enough that everyone is taking it very seriously, to the point that outside the games murders do seem to have taken place. Over the course of the anime, four games are played. There are two short games that take up a single episode each at the beginning and end of the season, but the majority of the anime is composed of two long games that take up five episodes each. The first game was essentially a throw away game that served as an introduction to things but didn’t have all that much to it.

The second game is where things really got moving. And unfortunately it was pretty bad. It’s not really possible to fully discuss my issues with it without going into spoilers, but to put it simply it didn’t really work. It tried to show Yuuichi using the mechanics of the game to his advantage, but most of the ‘tricks’ so to speak didn’t actually do anything and what actually mattered was completely glossed over. It also doesn’t help that the pacing here was too slow. This game put a heavy emphasis on creating a game with a good amount of complexity that could be exploited, but in the end it kind of fell apart and felt badly designed and written.

The third game and fourth games were a major step up thankfully. The games themselves in these were incredibly simple to the point that it was a given that everyone involved fully understood everything about them and thus no trick centered around the rules themselves could be surprising. As such, the focus was on Yuuichi manipulating others through mind games and social tricks within the confines of the rules. This is written significantly better than the logical tricks in the second game, and as a result the anime overall makes much more sense and in general makes the games much more fun to watch. Though I do still feel the pacing on the third game was slower than it should have been.

There is an overarching plot centered around character’s pasts and their prior connections to the Tomodachi Game. As far as this season gets, it only feels like one character’s past has been properly shown, though I suppose even that could just be a misdirect. Everyone else is still a mystery, including the protagonist Yuuichi. We’ve gotten a lot of tidbits that suggest a lot about him, though not enough to have a good picture of who he really is yet. Still, what we do see of him is enough to make him likable. He’s crazy as hell but definitely seems to be good at heart… probably.

With the rest it’s a lot harder to find them likable or to get invested in them because it doesn’t really feel like you’re seeing enough of who they truly are. There does seem to be some character and relationship development, but as with everything else, it’s hard to tell at this point how much of it was real. This season ends at a cliffhanger far from any proper conclusion and thus most everything is left entirely up in the air. I suppose that’s a bit of an unsatisfying ending, but an unavoidable one.

The art and animation were okay. There were issues at times but nothing too glaring. The character designs were decent, but overall I think they were too simple. The OP and ED were solid enough in terms of the song and visuals. The soundtrack was fine.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Dec 1, 2024

Dark_Yagami

Not Recommended

A fun series of social strategy games, that’s unnecessarily cringe for the edgelord protagonist and unreliable character motivations of everyone around him.

The character motivations of everyone who is not the protagonist, are whatever is required to juke the audience and move the plot along. Sometimes that includes 180 degree turns of character personalities. This betrays the sense that these are real people and friends of the protagonist, which ultimately undermines the tension of their precarious situations, because who cares about characters that don’t seem human, right?
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Lots of time spent on characters marveling at what a genius the protagonist is and how much that turns them on sexually.

The animation is sub-par.

That being said, the games themselves are creative (when they aren’t torture porn), the design and comedy of the creepy mascot was fun and memorable. I enjoyed working through the logic of some of the games. That earns it 3 stars.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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