The show was considerably better animated and entertaining than I had assumed it would be after reading the premise... but that's it. After the first two episodes, a pattern is built in the story telling and nothing changes. Once the pattern becomes obvious then all suspense is sucked from the show as a whole. Which kills the theme of a battle royale, being that any participant has the chance to win. The show either purposefully or accidentally spoils every major plot point.

Spoiling it's own plot is grounds for a deduction but it doesn't necessarily mean the story is bad, as long as it is still told well. It was not. They killed off the more interesting story lines early on and left the show with the run of the mill antagonist assortment. Once it made it to the final 6/7 participants, it became quite clear whom the win would be handed to. (I am having trouble deciding if it was the last 6 or 7 because one participant was an absolutely non-factor throughout the everything but they technically held a place. SN: As soon as I typed that description, I realized that could be applied to at least 3 of the fighters) The story truly had some great and new ideas/ themes to work with but the writing could not handle the task.

!!Reading beyond this point will give away spoilers though I will still try to remain somewhat vague!!

The show ends on a note that all the participants that were eliminated were at the least sincere in their actions and not just crazed murderers, and in some cases they were considerably kind people. However any feelings that are supposed to be felt during the montage of flashbacks is ruined by how quickly they are dismissed. Every back story, except for two, did not contain any character development and could have been left as minor dialogue or even a monologue during some down time in between the fighting. Instead we are left with a running monologue by a fighter that just keeps repeating itself every two or three lines and introduces no new strategy besides what they mentioned in the first episode. I admit that it was at this point I started to watch the series at 2X speed. Though I was becoming tired of the bland and redundant writing, I did still watch and finish the series.

Which brings me to my final point as the why I am even writing this review and how the show received the score it did. I automatically give any show that I complete a base score of 50/100. The show was clearly decent enough to keep my attention and for that it at least starts at an average score and nothing less. Then when I added how much I loved the character designs and animated movements, the score jumped to 75/100. I honestly think I only finished the show just to keep seeing the fighters... fight. Every episode kept eroding that score until after the final episode it was at 65/100. Yet as I wrote this review and spent more time thinking about it... I probably will not be watching another anime by the original writer unless it is recommended to me by a trusted source.