Rookie Hunter
Right out the gate, the show starts off with a boy who is presumably running for his life, trying to come up with a way to save himself. He’s scrolling through his phone for help, and finds the name of his friend, Kaname Sudo. Running into a dead end, the boy begins fighting back against an invisible foe, but has a hard time since he cant see them, and ends up dying. Gotta say this is a quite violent beginning to a show, but I love it! The background music was super intense and a perfect tone for what was happening. We love good action music.
Darwin’s Game Begins
We now meet Kaname Sudo, a 17 year old high schooler. Kyoda, a friend, comes up to Kaname, asking if they seen their missing friend Hamada, who we know is now dead. Kaname says Hamada sent a message mentioning Darwin’s Game, a free to play app game. Kyoda discourages him from playing, but Kaname taps the screen anyways. This kid. A snake pops out of the screen to bite him, and he faints. The game has started.
Kaname wakes up in a hospital with a mark on his neck. Kyoda comes and tells him, that he’ll explain the game later on but to not touch it. He taps on the game, thinking its normal, till he sees a popup saying that he’s against another player, named Banda. Banda instantly appears in the car with him, wielding a knife.
Kaname versus Banda
Banda makes his way towards Kaname slowly with the knife, and this poor child cant even realize his life is in danger. He chases Kaname, and the teen almost dies, but Kyoda saves him. The two run off together, but it seems they pissed the panda guy off, because he on they asses now. Kaname wants to call an ambulance, but Kyoda explains that he cant, because they are in Darwin’s game.
Kaname is able to win the round upsetting Banda, who complains about losing to a kid. His body disappears into thin air bit by bit. A black outline of his body is now in his place. Kaname recognizes it as the weird graffiti art that has been appearing around cities. Also Kyoda dies from his wounds.
Kaname versus Shuko
Later, Kaname meets up with Shuko, at an old factory. She asks to see his sigil as a test, since she cant trust someone, who doesn’t know what his own sigil is. Kaname tells her he doesn’t know, and Shuko decides she’s gonna kill Kaname, much to his dismay. He tries to persuade her, he does not want to fight. She tells him she will spare him, but only if he proves there’s no weapon in his bag. He asks her what would happen if he “hypothetically” had minor weapons, to which Shuko decides she will kill him, and a new round begins.
The battle starts, but before Shuko can attack, Kaname blinds her with a high powered flashlight, and runs away. Kaname tries to come up with a strategy. Just when he’s at his end, nearly about to die, he has a revelation. His sigil then activates. Kaname’s hand lights up, and a gun instantly appears. His sigil seems to be able to manifest objects of his choice, that can be used as weapons for survival.
Kaname tries to propose a draw, but Shuko is basically like, girl fuck you. Eventually pinning her down, he holds her at gun point telling her to surrender. Shuko deduces he is strong, and decides to surrender the battle, agreeing to “obey” Kaname. The battle is now finally over, and Kaname faints, due to exhaustion. A day or two later, Kaname wakes up in a bed with a naked Shuko. She asks him to give her babies and the episode ends.
Thoughts
Definitely Future Diary vibes, HOWEVER, I really like that Kaname is not a pansy, like Yukiteru was at the beginning. Sure, he’s afraid, as anyone would be, but also he’s made the resolve early on, to not die. Not just for his friend, but for himself as well . Kaname seems to possess really great critical thinking, and assessment skills. The fact that he can use those skills when his life is in danger, could very well make him a challengeable threat to the other players. Shuko is giving me some yandere undertones, but the meter is like halfway medium if that makes sense. It’s cool that you can sorta have allies in this game, because she definitely might have died, had she not surrendered to Kaname.
How Darwin’s Game Works
I am very interested to learn more about Darwin’s Game, especially how the rules work. I feel like it wasn’t explained very well. All we know is that it’s a killing game. The only way to lose is to die/get killed, or surrender to your opponent. And that theres a way to keep other players from killing you out of battle rounds, but we don’t know exactly how/why yet. It’s not necessarily last man standing, as you can continue to add other people to this game. It’s also some sort of point based game. Points are used as currency, and possibly ranking. When you win against another player you get points. You can use your points to buy weapons as well as information on other players.
I’m assuming exchange of points, are all done through the Darwin’s Game app on each player’s phone or tech devices. I wonder how many points, one needs to be the “winner” overall, and who is behind all of this? Of all the games anyone could have created, why a killing one? Also these sigils are interesting as well. Where did they come from?
Is it Isekai or no?
Another thing I wanna touch on, is the fact that the battle rounds are done in the same dimension, and not neccessarily some different world. I was half expecting Kaname to be actually “sucked” into the game. And maybe whisked off to another world, but thats not the case. I’m still curious about his first battle, why was he unable to call for help for Kyoda’s injuries. Kaname’s phone had a disconnection, until his round was over. Makes me wonder, if there is a game-master lurking in the shadows. Or, if someone has a sigil, that allows them to block players from getting outside help, once a round has started.
I had no idea the episodes would be almost 50 minutes long, but I think with what the plot is, it makes sense. The storyline progressed quite quickly, and there was a lot of dialogue regarding the nature of the game. Funimation is showing that there will be 4 episodes, so I am assuming there will be lots of action at first, and maybe slow down towards the middle. And we will obviously learn more about the game and it’s creator, maybe even some secrets along the way. I kinda just wanna cheat and read the manga, because I never care about spoilers. But I might just find the willpower to tough it out with these next three episodes.
