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Jan 29, 2022
Honestly, I don’t entirely know what to say. I think I picked up this manga after searching for some fucked up visual novels and some guy in a comment section said “bruh u think this is fucked up you should read DEAD TUBE!” So I did.
I went in mostly just expecting it to be a massive collage of blood and tits and to be fair IT IS EXACTLY THAT! I read the first few chapters and got basically exactly what I thought I was getting. I actually quit reading it initially after like the beach episode, because it was just kinda boring gore and edge
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for the sake of it in my eyes. I decided to go back and give it another try after that and found something surprising. At chapter 6, the story actually starts to get pretty interesting. The main twist as to why the protag knows his friends were going to betray him actually had a pretty interesting reason for it. It made sense, I didn’t expect it, and it contextualized just how little his friends thought of him or knew what he was capable of. The story got more interesting as time went on and characters started to be introduced and developed. It’s not the best written. I don’t know whether the protagonist is supposed to be moving toward the dark side or if he’s just troubled or what the fuck any character is supposed to be doing at really any given time. Honestly, I’m just giving this a 6 because I’m fairly certain this is just a guilty pleasure read for me and I’d feel bad rating it anything higher.
I don’t know. Give it a try. You may like it, you may not. I recommend at least reading up to the horror movie arc and if it doesn’t grip you by then, then it’s probably not for you.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jan 28, 2022
The World Ends With You is a game I first played when I was 14 and as I’ve returned to it over the years and thought about the game, it has rapidly shot up to being one of my favorite games of all time. It’s story is amazingly well written and has so many little details that really make you realize just how much thought was really put into the story. The soundtrack is absolutely godly, composed mostly of j-pop, rock, hip hop, and every other genre that was popular in the mid 2000s. It makes the entire game pop and gives it a vibe
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all to itself. The gameplay is a fun and interesting action rpg that basically anyone can have a blast with. My main point is play the game. It’s sequel’s pretty good too. However, I also tell you this to better contextualize my thoughts with the anime. I went into this show not expecting much. I knew that this show didn’t really have near the time it would take to properly convey the game's story, so I went in expecting an anime that hits the basic beats of the original story, but also adds in some cool fight scenes. Somehow, I was still left disappointed.
My main gripe is with the story and how it’s told, so let’s save that for last. First, I want to talk about the music. It’s still pretty great. The show was composed by the same man who composed the games, Takeharu Ishimoto, and the soundtrack is still great. There are a lot of absolute bangers in the soundtrack. My favorite is probably walls. My only main grip is the lack of songs from the games. There are only a few songs from the games present. I think they play “It’s so Wonderful” and another instrumental track I can’t remember the name of in the background a few times, but that’s mostly it for music from the games. The only 2 other songs from the games are “Twister” which is used as the opening for the anime and “Calling” used for fighting montages in two different episodes. The funny thing is that those two were probably not supposed to be there at all! The band ALI was supposed to give the anime it’s intro, called “Teenage City Riot”. I don’t know if this was a fan edit or leaked footage, but the opening fight sequence of the first episode, which used calling for said fight sequence, also fits very well with that track over it, which makes sense since that was the opening for the episode and animes do that sometime, where they play the episodes theme in the background of the intro episode. The only other 2 pieces of music from the original I can remember were probably only there as last minute replacements! This means that certain scenes lack the oomph they had in the original, as they are missing their iconic scoring. This is probably most egregious in the fight scene with Minamimoto, where they don’t play the song “Transformation”, a song so synonymous with the character that the first scene where he’s introduced in the sequel, they play the song. This might just be nitpicking from an autisticly devoted fanboy, but I feel like the lack of music from the original robs this anime of the original experience.
My next point is with the animation and art, which I actually think is pretty good. A lot of people complained about the usage of CG in the fight scenes, but I actually don’t have a problem with this. I think the usage of CG fits the artstyle of the anime mostly well and I think it allows for some very interesting camera angles and battle choreography. The usage of pins from the game and seeing them put into action outside of a gameplay perspective is very interesting. I expected the fight scenes in the anime to be one of my favorite parts and I was right. At the very least the show is cool to look at.
So now we get to the story. Now considering that this was my favorite part of the original game, it makes sense that this is the part of the anime that I would have the most problems with. Now, I realize that expecting a 12 episode anime to accurately retell the plot to an entire jrpg down to every detail is ridiculous, but this anime takes it to a whole new level. The basic plot follows a 15 year old boy named Neku Sakuraba as he attempts to survive a death game (or I guess a post-mortem game) for 3 weeks and tries to return himself to life. The overall story is the same as the game, but the anime just misses so many small details from the game that makes the game so much better. The biggest example I can think of is Neku’s characterization in the early days of the first week. In the game he is a complete asshole, acting as rude as possible to Shiki and even actively sabotaging any attempt she makes to collaborate with other teams in the game. The anime basically removes anything that makes him look like too much of an asshole. One scene has him ask Shiki what she knows about the situation, but starts off with “Hey, you” which causes Shiki to correct him by saying her name. Was that supposed to establish him as a bad guy? In the game, actively refused to call her by her name and referred to her only as “Stalker”. This scene just makes him look like he forgot her name, which is totally understandable considering that he got caught in a fight for his life and passed out only to wake up with a whole day having passed. He was probably a bit too tied up in the situation to remember a girl's name. Another grievous example comes when Neku force chokes Shiki at the end of the second day. In the game, a reaper tells him that Shiki is a spy for the reapers and that, if Neku kills her, then he can escape the game. Neku then attempts to murder her without any real hesitation. This scene is pivotal in establishing Neku’s character at the start of the game and how little he really values any human life other than his own and how he’s a missive self obsessed dickhead, which makes his later character development far more meaningful in how it echoes back to who he was at the start of the game. In the anime, he just gets possessed and then tries to kill her. Then he’s fine once the noise leaves him. This completely scrubs away him learning about valuing other people's lives and just goes to show how the show butchers his character development. The last scene I’ll bring up is Neku’s pep talk to Shiki. In the game, Neku tells Shiki that she needs to appreciate herself more and, rather than compare herself to her friend and talk about how she's not as good as her, take pride in who she is and what makes her unique, because Shibuya has room for all kinds of people. In the anime, this scene is essentially just boiled down to “Be Yourself.” Be yourself? Uh… Yeah bellend! That’s what she’s fucking complaining about.
I know all of the examples I use are from the first week, but that’s because I feel like it’s the best example of how these changes unintentionally ruin the character’s later development and in a story where the main character’s development throughout the entire story is the main focus, that’s kind of a big deal.
Overall, The World Ends With You: The Animation is a show that I can only recommend to people who’ve already played the first game and either need a refresher or just want to see some cool fight scenes with the characters and pins. If you’ve never played the game before, play it. You can get it on switch or buy it physically or emulate it on DS. If you either can’t or don’t want to play the game for whatever reason. Then look up a let’s play or cutscene compilation on Youtube, because the animation just doesn’t live up the original at all in my opinion and is probably my least favorite video game to anime adaptation I’ve ever seen. There are probably worse in terms of animation, story butchery, and in other ways, but this one holds a special place in my heart for how I can see a world in which it could have been great, but the lengths with which they go to fit the story in 12 episodes completely and utterly ruins it.
Also, Beat doesn't speak like what a 40 year old, white, Christian mother thinks people who listen to hip hop speak like in the show, so it's automatically garbage.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Jan 28, 2022
This manga might just be the worst I have ever read. If it is not the worst, then it is by far the most entertainingly bad. This spin off of the Danganronpa series of video games is obscure in the fandom and doesn't seem to get talked about very much. Which is a shame, because this shit is funny as fuck.
First off, the main characters are Misaki Asano, a new recruit to a special crimes unit, and Takumi Hijirihara, the older officer who does most of the actual work. This seems like the set-up to a standard buddy cop effort, but the spin is that
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Hijirihara is a serial killer who targets other serial killers and also gives them scores based on their crimes (See that's why it's called Killer Killer, because he's a KILLER who kills other KILLERS). This is an admittedly interesting set-up that is promptly wasted by skipping over any actual investigative work that you would expect from a cop show. This is especially odd considering that the entire main gameplay of the Danganronpa series is investigating crime scenes and trying to determine who dunnit. It’s not like they even have Hijirihara notice some small normally imperceptible clue because of his experience as a serial killer. Anytime they ask why Hijirihara knows who the killer is, he just says “nah bruh i’m a serial killer so i know that u killed him lol”.
They shove in random cameos of characters from Danganronpa 3, because that anime was airing at the time and they wanted to advertise it, but they don’t really do anything of too much note. This manga doesn’t really contribute much to the series’ overall canon and I think that’s why it’s so obscure.
It takes this manga until chapter 7, a little under half it’s run, to get to introducing what I would consider it’s main antagonist, Shuji Fujigawa. The big twist of this manga is that there are apparently 2 people using the moniker Killer Killer. Basically, Fujigawa was Hijirihara’s mate in middle school, but one day Mukuro Ikusaba broke into their school and murdered a fuck ton of kids. This event caused both of them to take up the identity of Killer Killer, Hijirihara because he loved the bloodshed he witnessed and wanted to share his love with others and Fujigawa because he was disgusted by the bloodshed and wanted to spare people from the despair of seeing people die. Again, I find this dichotomy to be interesting, but then the writer promptly drives it off a fucking cliff.
So next, Hijirihara, Asano, and Fujigawa go to a Future Foundation Facility and find that, for SOME REASON, the Future Foundation was cloning an army of MUKURO IKUSABA! This is probably the dumbest thing in this entire manga. The idea that FUTURE FOUNDATION, an organization devoted to spreading Hope throughout the entire world, would clone an army of easily one the most dangerous adversaries they’ve ever faced is inconceivably stupid. Yes, we see in Danganronpa 3 that the Future Foundation and its members will go to shady lengths for the sake of spreading hope throughout the world, but there is no reason why they would ever clone an army Mukuro Ikusaba and even if they did have a reason, no one would ever think it worth the risk that such an undertaking would have.
So Hijirihara kills the entire Ikusaba army and Fujigawa grabs Asano and threatens to kill her. He does this A. because he wants his bro to stop murdering people and B. because he’s gay and wants Hijirihara’s fat dick and is angry that he seems to want Asano over him. Future Foundation members manage to stop him, but he gets away and leaves a device on Asano’s neck. This device is a bomb. So Fujigawa’s plan is that he wants people to stop feeling despair and people can’t feel despair if they’re dead, so he placed a detonator around Asano’s throat and if people don’t kill Asano and get the device off of her throat, then bombs he somehow placed all over the world will detonate and everyone will die!
Hijirihara and Asano go to kick Fujigawa’s ass and they kill him, but not before he cries about how he just wanted to suck Hijirihara’s ahoge. But the bomb is still on Asano’s neck right? Yeah. So to fix that, Hijirihara CUTS OFF ASANO’S HEAD, LAUNCHES IT INTO THE FUCKING AIR, YANKS THE DETONATOR OFF HER NECK SO IT THINKS SHE’S DEAD, AND THEN HER HEAD FALLS ON HER SHOULDERS AND REATACHES LIKE IT’S NO BIG DEAL!
Everything’s back to normal, but despite what happened before, Asano seems to be having a hard time keeping her head on her shoulders because Hijirihara disappeared. Then, she finds Hijirihara chilling in his old spot, they confess their love, then they promise to kill themselves together (Oh yeah, Hijirihara promised that he’d kill her, I didn’t mention that because it wasn’t important until now.) Wikis and stuff say that it is left up to interpretation as to whether or not they actually killed themselves, but I can’t think of a single reason why not.
This manga is awful and you should read it. The writing is terrible, but in a really fun sort of way. It’s only 15 chapters long, so it’s not that long of a read. So I recommend giving it a shot if you’re into funny bad stories. Although make sure you read the translated version of the tankoubon, because it’s got these cool full-color illustration pages and a better translation. Overall this manga gets the most emphatic 1 out of 10 I can give it!
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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