Deadman Wonderland 02

Ganta performs in front of a crowd at Deadman Wonderland by competing in a race filled with deadly obstacles.

Wanna hang out?

Summary:
After surviving the falling debris, Ganta is taken to the infirmary where the doctor tells Ganta to make sure he eats his "candy". At the infirmary Ganta meets Yo Takami (the guy who got sliced by Chief Makina last episode). Yo informs Ganta of Deadman Wonderland (DW)'s currency Cast Points which can be used to buy food, merchandise and even shorten sentences, and Yo suggests that Ganta enter the Dog Race event in the afternoon for a reward of 100000 cast points. Shiro suddenly appears and after that learning that participants get a free bean paste bun both Ganta and Shiro decide to enter the race. Later, Yo informs Assistant Warden Tamaki about Ganta entering the race.

Ganta, Shiro and the other participants are preparing in a locker room when a big guy and his cronies show up to bully people. The big guy is a former martial arts champion and tells everyone else to forfeit the race or else his group would beat them up, and both Ganta and Yo are kicked around. Shiro walks in unaware of the situation and the big guy is about to punch Shiro, but Makina shows up which forces the big guy and his gang to back off. Afterwards, Ganta reads the DW rules book and learns that "candy" is the antidote to the poison in the collar and must be consumed every three days. Failure to do so will lead to death. Since Ganta doesn't have any candy (or lost his first portion), he realizes he must win the race and use the reward to buy candy.

Hi there Mr. Blurry Censor Light.

Human shields are one way to survive arrow barrages.

Before the start of the Dog Race, Tamaki tells the ring master to make the obstacles as lethal as possible but just explain to the outside audience that it's all an act. The race begin and Ganta quickly finds out that people are really getting killed on the course, but the crowd thinks it's all an elaborate show. Shiro is also in the race and bumps into Ganta from time to time, but both manage to survive to the last obstacle along with the big guy. The winner of the race is determined by who can hold on to a ball while floor panels fell out and gave way to spikes underneath. Ganta catches the ball first but is eventually cornered by the big guy. The big guy tells Ganta to give up, but Ganta musters up the courage and throws the ball into the big guy's face, and the ball is then caught by Shiro. The big guy tries to go after Ganta but the floors fall out and the big guy is killed by the spikes. With the big guy out of the way, Ganta goes to get Shiro who is hanging off the side of a floor panel. Upon seeing all the bruises on Shiro, Ganta realizes Shiro has been protecting through the race. The panel Shiro is hanging onto gives away and Shiro tries to pass the ball to Ganta, but Ganta grabs Shiro's arm instead. The ball falls onto a spike and is deflated, and thus the race has no winner. Ganta is glad that he saved Shiro, but now without the cast points and tomorrow being his third day, Ganta is in desperate need of some "candy".

If you wanted the ball so bad, then you shouldn't have tried to catch it with your face.

By this angle, I'm not sure how it's possible for Ganta to grab Shiro's arm, but whatever.

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The introductory stuff continues this week, and Ganta gets a quick lesson on how the prison economy works, and more lessons on why prisons (in particular Deadman Wonderland) are shitty places. The episode did a decent job explaining about "candy" and cast points without dragging the show down, although that's maybe because I read the manga and already know the details. The obstacle course was of course ridiculously violent for a public spectator show, but it's not that ridiculous compared to Ganta's imprisonment and death sentence. The animation looked good for the most part, although sometimes the faces look a little weird, and that might also be because I read the manga version and is more used to those designs. The blood and deaths are noticeably blurred/darkened out during the Dog Race. This hasn't bothered me too much yet, but we'll see what happens once the action really picks up.

Overall another decent introductory episode, but of course the show hasn't gotten into the "real" story yet. This episode didn't mention the Red Man and Ganta's special powers very much, but of course there should be more focus on that strange destructive power in the future.

We finally saw the OP sequence this week, but it was nothing special.