Deadman Wonderland – And We’re Back

Kids, respect your elders.

It’s been a long wait since the last chapter of Deadman Wonderland, so I thought I would give a quick little recap for those who have forgotten what’s going on.

Meet Hagire. He’s a dick. He wants to fully unlock the powers of the Wretched Egg because…I don’t know, science? The other Deadmen have gone back to what remains of the prison in an attempt to stop him, because the Wretched Egg awakening would likely wreck Japan. Ganta and Crow got into a fight with Hagire that left him mostly dead, but Yosuga helped him get back on his feet, albeit in what turns out to be a much more decrepit state than before. The last chapter ended with Ganta putting together a plan to shut down the Mother Goose system that regulates the powers of the Wretched Egg so he can bring Shiro back and stop Hagire. And if I remember correctly, I don’t think the plan made all that much sense even last year.

Deadman Wonderland – Do You Want To Die? [YES]/[NO]

This sounds an awful lot like the thing you've been trying to STOP.

And so the pieces have fallen into place. From the information put forward in this chapter, I have a fairly good idea of how the next few chapters will go. According to Ganta, his Branch of Sin, which is what Hagire wanted in order to release the seal on the Wretched Egg, is also the one thing that can strengthen the seal. Based on this, he’s decided the best course of action is to plug his ability into the Mother Goose system and hope really hard that he can bring Shiro back, rather than accidentally unleash a walking natural disaster. And based on the look on his face in that panel, he’s pretty confident that this plan is in no way stupid or reckless.

Current Manga Rankings – 2011 – Part 1

I started reading manga a few years ago, and in that length of time I’ve acquired a surprising number of ongoing series. They have quite a bit of variety to them, from shonen to josei, weekly to whenever-the-hell-it-feels-like. I’ve had the chance to talk about quite a few of these series, and even reviewed some of them already. Since it’s the end of the year, though, I thought I would take the opportunity to rank all of my ongoing manga. This way I can discuss some series I couldn’t before, and I can state which manga I like the most and why.

30. Bleach

Here’s the thing about Bleach: it’s the one series on this list that I never read the old chapters for. It’s not something I would do by choice, but then again, I never really intended to start reading Bleach at all. One day I heard that the manga would be showing Gin’s bankai, so I read that chapter to see it and just didn’t stop. That’s a big part of why I find it so hard to get mad at this series. It takes a good deal of effort to feel anything towards it, really. I’ve been told that not caring about something is one of the cruelest things you can do to it, and that’s why it gets the lowest spot on this list.

Deadman Wonderland – Chapter 48

Aw, now they can't play the "Which one is Hikaru?" game.

There comes a time in many series where you have to accept that a character’s time has come. People can easily die in just about any series, especially ones like Deadman Wonderland, and it’s sometimes possible to tell that someone is going to even before it happens. That’s what I’ve felt for a little while regarding Crow. It was only a few chapters ago where he was badly beaten by Hagire, and a small part of me thought he would die then. After all, this is the finale, and it’s unlikely that we’ll get through it without a few casualties. Even as he regained his fighting strength, the scene where he came to rescue Ganta felt like something even he knew would lead to his death. And after beating Hagire’s twin guards, he took enough damage that I knew he wasn’t coming back up, and it looked like it was finally time.

As it turns out, though, Ganta disagreed with me.

Deadman Wonderland – Review

As you may have noticed, I’ve seen the “murder for shock value” twist a few too many times.

Well, even though it took a month and a half to make, it was still faster than the last video. Most of my problems were in the writing, as it had been a long time since I’d written the Black Cat review. After that, the actual recording didn’t take long, and the editing was mainly held back by problems with my new video editor. I went back to MovieMaker for this one, and I’ll probably stay there until I get used to making videos in general. It looks alright, though, since I stopped trying to abuse the zoom mechanics.

I’m still a little apprehensive about this video, but considering the positive response to the last one, I shouldn’t let it bother me. The one issue I will bring up is the camera. The view window on the side doesn’t show the entire field that will be recorded, so it was difficult to tell what I would get. I’ll try to fix that for next time.

The next review should still take more than two weeks, since I have English work that needs to take priority for a bit. Plus, it’s gonna be a little more complex then these last two.