My Review of "The Ones Within"!
Hope? Nah. Despair? Nah. Video Games!? YEAAAAAAAAAA-
Story
A bunch of content creators/streamers of video games were randomly kidnapped for a fun (not death) game. In order to make it out, the streamers need to play multiple games within the mastermind’s game in order to attract more viewers to a livestream broadcasting them. Once they reach 100 million viewers, they will be freed. Luckily, there’s no timer, so they have as much time as they want to gain those viewers.
Characters
So uhhh there’s a bunch of protagonists so I’ll just describe a few of them or else this will be multiple paragraphs long. Akatsuki Iride is Makoto Nae- I mean a light-hearted person who’s great at escape games. Karin Sarayashiki is a horror-game lover who doesn’t like being in actual horror games. Kaikoku Onigasaki is a very aggressive (Mondo) fighting gamer. Yuzu Roromori is a clever and mostly friendly gamer obsessed with puzzles.
The Good
To be honest, I really like the OP. I didn’t skip it at any point in the anime. It’s so groovy and it kinda sounded like a Persona song with the vibe it gave off. The animation is also pretty decent. There were a few scenes (Like the numbers floating) that were visually appealing. This can be seen as both good and bad, but this anime feels heavily inspired off of the concept of Danganronpa with the whole Ultimates/Game preferences thing and how some characters literally feel the same (Anya’s like Leon, Akatsuki like Makoto, etc etc.). I personally enjoyed Danganronpa so it was a bit nice to see something similar to that. I mean, it’s the closest I’ve gotten to a Danganronpa-like anime apart from the actual anime.
The Bad
The comedy is also really bland to me. It’s obvious when the anime wants to be funny, but it just feels so forced and boring. When it’s not boring, it’s just uncomfortable or awkward. The characters are also a bit boring and basic. It’s really obvious how each person would act and respond, which does make a lot of things in the anime very predictable and somewhat generic. When they aren’t predictable, the characters make decisions that just don’t make sense. Like there will be a moment where one enemy bullies two of the MCs and they just choose to walk away like what? Killing them or at least hurting them makes sense, but leaving them unscathed as an enemy? That’s just a stupid idea and stupid writing.
The Downright Ugly
Just like I said in the good, this anime feels like it’s trying too hard to be Danganronpa without being Danganronpa. The only things they really changed about it is that nobody’s killing each other and instead of ultimates, it’s game expertise. They even have a mastermind hidden through an animal (although this time it’s just a mask). However, the problem is that they take away what made Danganronpa interesting. There’s none of the death punishments, a lack of interesting mysteries, and a couple of bland characters that lack complex dynamics. Its simplicity ruins the quality of the anime when something with a story/concept like this requires more complexity to be interesting.
Is It Worth The Watch?
No. Just go watch Danganronpa instead. Danganronpa does what this anime tried to do but way better. This anime is a major step down from the death game subgenre as it fails to really establish the seriousness of a regular death game anime. The bad comedy doesn’t help the anime either, so the answer is no. This anime is not worth watching.
Thank you for taking the time to read my review. I hope this helped you with your decision on whether to watch this anime or not! If you already have watched it, I hope that you can agree with me with some of the points I made. If you enjoyed this review, I would greatly appreciate a follow too! ^^
