King’s Game

If you’ve ever read Michael Grant’s Gone series, or thought, ‘hmm, I really like the premise of a bunch of kids being trapped in an inevitably hopeless situation where they end up dying gruesome deaths for utterly terrible reasons’, then King’s Game is for you.

I think I picked it up for the same reason I picked up School Days, or the same reason people click on a spoiler when they know they shouldn’t: curiosity. I wanted to know why this series was so infamous, especially when the synopsis sounded interesting. I wanted to know what all the fuss was about.
I don’t know why I found this anime entertaining – maybe it’s because I didn’t take it seriously from the get go and so just enjoyed it as a mindless despair/gorefest. Similar to how people ‘enjoy’ something like Higurashi or Another.

The characters were so-so, some of them could have done with more development but when they were developed they were done so decently enough. The art was fine most of the time, although there were points where the animation quality dropped greatly. Music was good. And as for the seiyuus – I think they were great. They actually managed to sound like they were in pain when they were meant to be in pain (at least the majority of them did). There was some fanservice, but not nearly as bad as I expected based on a couple of the reviews I’d read. Apart from the very first scene and another scene about halfway through the series, there was really nothing worth mentioning. And even those scenes weren’t that terrible.

The torture was another story. Like I said, it’s a gorefest. Worse than Elfen Lied or Akame ga Kill!, but not by much. Besides most of the scenes were done in such a ridiculous way it was hard to take them seriously.

Let me be clear, the only (or at least the main) reason that I’m giving it a bad score (in my rating system, anything under 60 is bad) is because the plot holes were so gaping huge they were impossible to ignore. This was objectively a terrible anime in terms of plot – it literally makes no sense if you think about it for more than a second or two. I literally had no idea what was going on at the end. But I still found it okay on the whole.

It was actually very thought-provoking, in a way – it made me wonder what I would do if I was in a similar position. One where I was completely at the mercy of a situation I couldn’t understand, having no idea what would happen next except that it would be inescapable, and painful no matter the outcome. Not to mention that the longer I survived, the more despairing I would be when I inevitably came to die.
I ended up thinking the characters behaved quite realistically. I mean, in their situation, there were really only 3 choices:
• Suffer a total mental breakdown and either commit suicide or lose all sense of reality. Maybe try to take everyone else with you for good measure.
• Try to keep yourself from going over the brink by desperately clinging onto some form of hope - reassuring everyone else helps too.
• Completely lock off your emotions and become a robot – regard the entire situation dispassionately and logically try to find a way out. It doesn’t matter if no one but you survives.
I’m actually not sure which one of these I would be…interesting to think about, if a little gloomy.

So, those are my impressions. The abysmal plotline prevented me from giving it anything higher than a 50/100, but there were interesting parts, and, overall, I didn’t dislike it. So, if you like gore, a big cast of characters, and don’t mind a terrible storyline, you can try giving it a go. You’ll be able to tell what it’s like after the first 3 episodes anyway; it doesn’t progress much.