I actually find the idea of "protag-kun actually knows there's no hope but has deluded himself into thinking he's the hero as a fucked up coping mechanism and subsequently led everyone to their ultimately pointless deaths" really interesting. A shame it's just another edgy twist in a hilariously bad anime.
its an even bigger shame because while Geoff didn't mention it Natsuko is similarly delusional, believing her various murders and general sociopathy is teaching everyone else that once they got stuck in the kings game they couldn't escape and should give up hope rather than prolong their suffering, ultimately meaning she thinks shes murdering and torturing people for their own good. If the series genuinely tried to analyze the hero and villains delusions and how they compare to one another that could have been really interesting
As a writer, I just looove these anime. They come up with incredibly interesting concepts, but execute them so poorly that I can just take the same concepts and do my own exploration on them, fleshing out their full potential like the anime should. And no one would ever know where the idea came from, because who tf would suspect it's from a shitty anime😂
I also really like the concept behind Natsuko's character; someone who survived the death game, and becomes so deadset on surviving that she doesn't care what she has to do or who she needs to hurt. The problem is, of course, the creator did not deliver on that, and we instead get crazy yandere bitch. Could you imagine if Natsuko was actually manipulative, instead of all the other characters just being stupid and ignoring her being obviously evil? If instead of having villain speeches about how naive main character guy is, she showed through her actions her resolve to survive at the detriment of everyone else? And then at the end where it is revealed that protag-kun has been deluding himself and everyone else with false hope that they're gonna make it out of there, Natsuko calls him out, showing (not telling) how the two of them are a lot more alike than he would care to admit
The idea of someone calmly explaining their tragic backstory while actively on fire (and with a massive water source nearby) is the exact kind of batshit insanity I come to anime for
I mean, I'm pretty sure jumping in a lac while being on fire would insta kill you because of the big thermic shock. But it's not like logics apply in this anime. The girl was supposed to burn but her skin and clothes looked pretty fine. It looked like she unlocked a cool new Super Sayan transformation.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if she did jump into the water and died that way but just before she does the king sends a text saying they know that would happen and they never planned for her to burn to death. Like- using people’s natural reactions against them.
So, a bit of grim dark history here but there was a mahayana Buddhist monk in 1963 self immolated (set himself on fire) in protest, and was able to, through mediation etc. Not ya, scream in insane agony like a normal person. He did not, however, deliver an emotionally devastating tale of suffering sexual abuse as he did so. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, maybe she was a powerful Buddhist? Also, wouldn't thermic shock probably be less painful and more quickly than just sitting in fire "I mean who just stands in fire?" Also, seriously, what are the fidget spinners for?
I know I should be morally mortified, but a guy knocking his friend out cold with a punch only to then tearfully turn to his girlfriend and sadly ask her to bang his now unconscious friend is just utterly absurd to the point that all I can do is laugh.
RIGHT?! That plot point speedruns through about a dozen consent violations in the blink of an eye but the scene somehow comes out the other end as the funniest thing anyone has ever written!! 😂
King's Game has this way of being so tactless and absurd for no reason while still taking itself completely seriously that what in any other story would make me really uncomfortable loses almost all weight and becomes hilarious. I know I probably shouldn't be laughing but i mean... What else can I do? I sure as hell can't stop watching, I *need* to know what this show is going to pull out of its ass next.
29:53 that dude getting killed because he accidentally said his name in conversation ergo "naming him" is literally the same logic as that Total Drama episode where Leshawna gets eliminated because everyone said her name outloud too many times even though they didn't want to eliminate her. If your gore horror show works on Total Drama logic, YOU'RE DOING SOMETHING WRONG!!!
It's literally the same logic as the RUclips videos like "if I said the word 'meat' I die" and then the thumbnail is the word "meteor" and their player character falling into lava or some shit
Spoiling Natsuko’s heel turn with the OP literal MINUTES before it happens in the show is really just the perfect metaphor for this entire show: turning unbearable levels of edge hilarious through incompetent execution.
@@highdefinition450yeah, it’s a shame really. I prefer it when they’re vague if they do spoil things, like the JJK S2 second OP. For readers of the manga, it’s filled to the brim with references, but it’s too vague for anime watchers to get it.
Exactly! There’s no satisfaction in seeing a Death Game/Battle Royale being played completely straight to the very end and then being told “This Will Continue, Fuck You For Caring”. Even fucking Hunger Games knew this.
@@jtlego1 This isn’t a battle royale, there is no last-man-standing. Your only reward for surviving is getting to play again next year but ultimately you’ve already been doomed to death.
Hot take but that's why I'm not a fan of Devilman Crybaby (yes I know it's a shit ton deeper but I'm not a fan of stories where everyone just fucking dies)
but at the same time, if he's so worried about the bro code they shouldve just had a threesome instead of the plot resorting to SA'ing him while unconscious 😭
Dear god, the irony of Nobuaki objecting to Natsuko seemingly wanting to do it out in the open when nobody was objecting to her being forced to do it against her will out in the open mere seconds before is MIND-BOGGLING.
@@Bussy_Destroyer I don't think it's fair to imply that the author was trying to say something like that. I don't get the sense that he put that much thought into this story at all. (I'm not defending the story; whatever the cause, it's definitely gross that so many people are apparently okay with sexual assault. I'm just mocking the author.)
Could've been an amazing twist if it turned out Nobuaki was just as traumatized as Natsuko, but that took the form of a messiah complex where he let the other's die to save himself, while deluding himself that he wasn't at fault for anything. Could've been a perfect parallel of each other. Natsuko using her nihilism to terrorize everyone and basically doing everything on her own, while Nobuaki uses optimisim to false hope everyone into helping him, Ultimately each having the same goal, of being scared of death and a innate desperation to live. Natsuko finally shattering Nobuaki's delusion in the final confrontation, causing him to snap even further from the guilt, and eventually he and Natsuko take each other out, leaving the traumatized other girl to end it herself to not turn out like those two, being selfless enough to not inflict this on anyone else.
So that would change.. The last scene? Because he already is as traumatized as her and he already knew he would kill another class when he survived the first. If he was even a bit heroic and didn't feel like killing more people he should just have isolated himself in a cabin without a phone. They are both the villains here and stupid to boot. The virus require a school class or village to activate, if you are isolated it will be dormant and your survival chances go up a lot since you don't have to play Russian roulette with 29 other kids to survive. And if the virus isn't happy with that you would die but the chances of dying that way still sounds better then just continuing playing forever.
@@loke6664no, it would've made the whole show better if the writing was aware of how shitty Nobuaki is and used that shittiness to the story's advantage in setting up parallels between them leading up to the final confrontation. Idk, I think if they had actually competent writing they could've managed to make it a story about the cycle of abuse & trauma, albeit it would be much better if Riona or whatever her name is would manage to end the game (acting as a metaphor for the cycle of abuse) without having to kill herself.
My favorite part is when the Hacker girl spontaneously combusts and for no reason just starts casually taking off all her clothes as she calmly goes on for 5 minutes about her backstory WHILE ON FIRE. That's when this anime went from enjoyably bad horror anime to a god tier comedy.
That entire scene is just… so inept in the absolute funniest way possible. Like, I wanna know what goes in on someone’s mind when they think that they should turn a scene where someone’s *burning alive,* WHILE they’re explaining how they got *SA’d as a CHILD* into a *fanservice scene!* When I first saw that scene, I thought „oh, she’s taking her clothes off so she has more time“. But then I thought about it for more than three seconds and realized „wait, this doesn’t make any goddamn sense“. Because it’s not just her clothes that are on fire, it’s her *whole body!* Her entire being was in flames! So they literally just made her do that, so that we can ogle at a goddamn highschooler, while she’s actively burning alive, WHILE she’s explaining how she got SA‘d as a child! What?! How! Who thought that that was a good idea?! (Also, more minor complaint, it’s weird how tame her punishment is. Like, she threatened to end the game in it‘s entirety, yet she only suffered like… the most peaceful immulation ever. Meanwhile, the bully, who literally only punched the MC *once,* got turned into a human squib. Huh?!)
@@Hawk7886"Tis but a scratch... I've had worse" i still have time to monologue, and give everyone an uncomfortable strip show, made worse by the past I'm sharing
You know the plot twists in Kings Game feel like the writer wrote the plot twist got bored in the middle of writing it so he made a new one and repeated the process five times in a row.
Reminds me of one of the Super Best Freinds' observations about David Cage; "the loves the 3rd act twist so much he includes one in every act and multiple in the last."
Or the writer wrote himself into a corner and came up with some BS plot twist because he couldn't come up with a better idea how to put an end to the mess he created. Naruto Shippuuden
I get that it's shocking to be ordered to Do The Deed with someone you aren't attracted to, on pain of death. But I feel like after the 2nd or 3rd time it happened, everyone would loosen up a bit, buy a dozen boxes of condoms for the group and ride it out. Telling people to slam hams is just not all that compelling of a Death Game task!!
Being the victim of...esoteric sexual assault, I guess?...is objectively a pretty terrible situation. But it's also hard to take seriously when it's basically the only thing the characters are forced to do until the author is ready to break out the murder.
If I had to do that or die, I'd want to be drunk first. They're all under drinking age but a lot of what they do is illegal so lemme just pour some rum in my Coke real quick
The supernatural killing as an order kinda ruins the entire premise. The type of story this is, should be one where the orders start out small but are mainly there to get the kids to escalate out of their own volition, with a message about how horrible people will become if they get unchecked power or how everyone is going to escalate something either out of their own self interest or to one up each other You don’t start this type of story with “if you don’t have sex with someone you both die”, It starts with “confess to your crush” or “steal a pencil”, things people would do anyways if challenged by their friends. Only to then escalate after something like “punch a classmate”. Which leads to the first person disobeying and getting proportionally punished, like by getting punched by an invisible force and have 2 teeth knocked out. Then when it becomes really bad it turns out that if three disobediences happen, the game ends, but at that point the really harsh stuff starts to happen, like “break someone’s arm” or “sexually assaulted someone”, which is the point when discussions about making someone fail the challenge come, with the logic that as long as anyone sacrifices themselves, either willingly or unwillingly the horror will end. Which now turns into a game of chicken/pass the bomb, where no one wants to be the one who has to take the punishment but also wants others to take it. It’s not a hard concept to write
Yes, also, what if there's prize money involved. Instead of a supernatural force punishing them, the game just ends if no-one punishes the losers. It'd be like a dictatorship, if the majority rebelled they could make it, but because everyone's afraid they all go along with increasingly worse things for an uncertain reward, like the sunk-cost fallacy.
Part of what makes this show and shows like it so beautiful is how so many of the ways in which it fails could have been avoided with little to no effort on the part of the creators. Gives this baffling feeling of "none of this had to be here but they just couldn't help themselves."
Reminds me of Dead Tube. Even though everyone was competing to have the most views of their snuff films right out of the gate, you see more innocent people think that they just have to do pranks, but then it escalates to secretly filming someone pee, a punch, then full on brawls and violent murder. It resets and goes more out of control with each arc, until all the children in a school kill their teachers and barricade themselves inside of the school and forget why they're even killing each other to begin with.
I would counter this is sort of what writing has come to these days. It is the fear of catching the viewer within the first 15 seconds or else they'll pick up TikTok while staring at Instagram and streaming Twitch at the same time all while making a sandwich and talking to their best friend AND their significant other. In other words: The writers don't have confidence in their own writing, so they try to enact "crash TV" and try to do anything that will capture the attention. I might not desire to be an author anymore, but I still hear the discussions in the author's world. This is also why people are writing up to 50 books a year. Yes, that is right. 50. Writing isn't an art anymore, it is merely content.
@@hegel5000 i'm going to guess that they're supposed to be packs of condoms but somewhere along between blocking and coloring it got mistaken for fidget spinners because condoms are not packaged like that
Mother's Basement can just throw out sentences like "loadbearing flashback" "both found cosplaying Sayori" "so naturally, it's lynching time again" "Danganronp-ish scenario" "she really doesn't take him not taking that well well"
Yeah bc how the hell is no one questioning why this kid is the only survivor of a whole classroom that got killed? And it happened again? No one is trying to research this or knows what's happening? Do the teachers/governemtn not exist? makes no sense lmfao
I’m stuck on the detail that the kings game hides a hidden message only decipherable over three iterations of itself and the big secret revealed by such an arduous decoding process is information that anyone able to decipher the message would already know
What, like a map to holy grail or something? Would make sense if your goal was to keep it hidden forever while adhering to strict rules about making it "public for all humanity". Malicious compliance and all that.
@@AlteredNova04I mean, it's a biological, genetic *and* memetic virus. The mere concept of *approaching* someone who participates in the King's Game is already a condition to be a participant. Had Natsuko and Chiemi's dad never had children, the game would've probably ended in that very same village the first time.
Not just that. There is a live action version of this madness too (literally just this series' flashback sequence death game, but in its entirety). Here's Mystery Recapped covering that: ruclips.net/video/Pxw_r0RMA20/видео.htmlsi=kOrTprzDJtmux7Db
I still can’t believe they made a manga explaining everything that happened at the village. They somehow explained it as “So we made super hyper poison, and because we didn’t let the cousins bang, one of them opened it, and now, the village is super fucked, and now it’s a virus also fuck you.” I also can’t believe I managed to read that whole thing and thought it was sort of compelling. God, how many brain cells died to make me think that was good?! Geoff, I blame you for that set of memories resurfacing.
There was also a live action film version of the death game that was shown in the flashbacks Nobuaki had in this show. They somehow did the story better there...somehow.
Haha. I feel the same. I read this manga as a teenager and I remember liking it somewhat in part due to all the edgy stuff they were doing. Now as an adult I look back and cringe a bit. In some fairness to the manga, they at least did the first group first rather than a flashback so it was better paced and you didn't know yet that everyone was going to die.
I read the first manga years before the anime came out At first I thought the characters were compelling and how the situation kept escalating And then came the virus reveal happened and it might have killed a couple of brain cells After that I held this series with high contempt at how dumb everything is. Didn't even bother reading the prequel and sequel. Heck, didn't even bother with the anime. This video is all you need and it kills the same amount of brain cells in lesser amount of time
picking to continue the game instead of punishment is extra funny because we know the punishment could be as simple as become disabled or even just do something embrassing, imagine if that was the twist, after picking to live and dooming the whole class he picks punishment the second time, and then that punishment is just "eat a gross bug"
A regular beheaded corpse? Not funny! A beheaded corpse with a new hat being put on it? Funny! It's at times like this I think back to Jordan Peele's thoughts on the similarities between horror and comedy. How you can write a scenario that builds up tension but depending on how it ends the feelings elicited can drastically change.
I can't help but wonder how that happened. How a teenager looked at his friend's decapitated body without understanding why he was lying on the ground or realizing that his head was a full meter away from his body, and put a hat where his head should be. My first assumption is that it's adaptation jank. Like, the scene was written a bit more vaguely, such that a reader could assume Teru was less obviously dead, but then it was interpreted in a very funny way when the anime was made.
@@flamesbaldwin108 In the prequel manga two cousins fall in love, but people don't approve. In a fit of outrage, one of the cousins breaks a pot full of magic blood (it's from some bugs that had a death match and their blood was used for witch stuff in the past if I remember right) and this sets off the first ever king's game. This king's game originally used handwritten messages delivered by a mind controlled individual, but then after that game the king's game randomly made the leap to digital and that's why kids get death game texts on their phones in later rounds of the game
@@sodapop-rockstar It's based on an old curse ritual called Kodoku. Originated in China but was a thing in Japan as well. I've seen it referenced in another similar manga story as well. The idea is that you put 100 varieties of highly venomous creatures (generally insects/spiders, but some versions mention snakes) together in a jar and let them fight until only one survives. Then you use the last creature left to poison and curse someone.
You got me. I was waiting for 'who is the king' all along, I thought it would be predictable, I thought it would be silly, I thought I'd get a good laugh. No. No laugh for me. A virus is sending texts and is somehow able to tell what's happening among people and also it can execute people's bodies in the way that it said it would. That isn't drama. That isn't a plot twist. That's stupid and I'm mad.
how are you a King if your both a biological AND a computer virus? what does the show have to do with Kings anyways? is it just a title? should’ve made the virus a more tangible character or the actual protangionst that we follow like Monokuma or Koro-sensei, would’ve been cooler and way funnier
@@leoultimaupgraded9914 The king label is PURELY from the party game popular in Japan when the original was made called 'king's game' where one person is the 'king' and gets to order a single other person to do something. It's a bit like truth or dare. In fiction it's an excuse for sex. No clue how it's carried out in reality.
I find it funny that they could've made the king a supernatural threat, logic has already leff the building, so why not? But instead they make it a virus that's somehow able to send text messages, chop body parts and make people hang themselves. It would legit make more sense if it were magic
The best part is that "killer virus spreading through technological devices" is where the frickin Ring novels go for their story, so this whole anime is literally just book Sadako's revenge plot but worse.
Okay but you gotta admit there's some comedy in the concept that even the creators of this anime couldn't seem to figure out what the king was supposed to be.
Bryn appril’s her name and, much like the rest of the cast, deserve way better than this. Still i give that she went unnecessarily hard in this role given the awful material she had to work with.
As an SCP fan, the idea of a memetic virus I'm actually really on board with. But all 3 at once (memetic, digital, biological) just begs the question "Why not a curse then?" over explaining something just tanks the believability of it because you've taken out all the aidience legwork to fill in gaps. Legwork they will do with just enough information.
Exactly. Let me fix this for the author: It's a parasite in people's brains. These are known to cause pretty disturbing behavioural changes and body-modifications in animals, so suspension of disbelief does not have to carry as far. The most outrageous horror stuff is just in the infecteds' heads. The orders take forms that people are used to get orders from, as the brain tries to make sense of it all. The game is meant to place the people where the parasite needs to go. Think of the snail that crawls up grass or the ant that lets itself be eaten by a cow. This also explains why so many of the orders are sexual in nature and some characters going into the ocean? Yeah. They are the super spreaders. Why are so many already infected to begin with? Eh. Ask Corona. 😂 Anyway, the postmortem messages are really just their own body telling them to save the species or something. There. Mildly less stupid paperthin excuse for gratuitous torture-porn. 😂
I would argue that a Supernatural effect that expands to digital, biological and memetic level would be a great idea. It's a curse spread through magical practices and the likes, thus you stop those rituals and Hide the knowledge. Woops, the Curse evolved and now carries along with blood, so you don't let those that carry it have children and Hunt down those that try to escape. Woops, now the simple knowledge of it existing is enough to keep happening in new people and start new lineqges of cursed people, so you try to kill everyone involved. Woops, now technology itself is enough to pick it up and spread It everywhere in the world, and with it the knowledge of the rituals spread. It's a self-fueling curse of pure violence that feeds on people and finds new ways to infect mankind. That's pretty metal, if you ask me.
There is something to be said about a group of scientists doing everything in their power to avoid the word "curse" when defining an SCP though. Sometimes an SCP exists as a writing prompt.
On one hand, it's probably better to...do that than to let him die. On the other hand, what the frick, author? You did _not_ have to put the characters into a position where they have to do sex crimes to survive!
@@nero1798 Yeah, I'm pretty sure that part is a whole second sex crime. Or maybe the whole thing is one obscure sex crime? I'm not a sex lawyer...or a normal one, for that matter.
You know what really tickles me? The OP shouting THIS IS THE EEEEEEEND could be kind of prophetic or foreshadowing if the King's Game actually ended with this group of students, but that "to be continued" at the end undermines it one last time.
coldrain really didn't deserve to be associated with this show at all. I love the band, but I legit can't even listen to that song anymore because of this show.
@@pre4edgcI didnt know Feed the Fire was this shows opening, so my feelings on it haven’t changed. Luckily, they’ve also written songs for Fire Force and JJK, so i think their doing great in terms of writing ops for GOOD shows
Too be fair, coldrain (the band that sang the opening FEED THE FIRE, an increadible song you should listen to outside of this garbage show) probably wasn’t told it was gonna end on a to be contuined, and were given a rough draft of the script and what not still a banger song wasted on this show
The first time you see someone sit on their own balls at a wedding dinner, it's funny. The second time you see someone sit on their own balls at the same dinner, you feel bad for them. The third time you see them sit on their own balls at this dinner, you start to get mad that they can't stop doing it. Watching King's Game is like watching this guy sit on his own balls twenty-six times in a row, leaving you torn between anger that they are doing this on purpose to bother you and fear that they aren't and literally cannot stop sitting on their own balls.
Heya! Nobuaki's English VA, Comona Lewin, here- just clocking in to offer a little perspective on the experience of recording for this show all the way back in 2017! First of all, I hope you all understand that it'll never be proper of me to denigrate a show I've worked on, so please don't expect any 'brutally honest tell-alls' or anything, but my objective isn't to to come in fighting to defend its honor, either- just to talk about my experience :) Pretty much nobody knows my personal story with this show, but to give you an idea- I'd just turned 19 years old a month before we started recording King's Game. I'd only started studying Theatre in college the year before, and this show, despite not being my first EVER anime part, was actually the first time I'd ever recorded synced to a mouth flap- much less having 6-hour sessions with 100+ cues in each episode. I remember while recording for episode 3, we needed to pause because I started having panic attacks- mostly stress-induced from suddenly being thrust into a lead role with my barely-two years of acting and having to live up to the expectations that come with that. (Not to mention the *incredibly* triggering content later on in the show for me personally, which I had no idea was coming.) Those expectations included being a very-visible trans actor (which, not to get into it too much, I was /also/ only just beginning to explore my own gender identity- you can tell because my old name is still what you'll find credited), and receiving all of the murky ire that came with it. To this day, I still look back at my time working on this show and wonder how seriously it affected who I am now, especially considering how suddenly it all happened. I'll also say that I would accept the role I was offered one thousand times out of a thousand. For all the sickening anxiety I was riddled with trying and feeling like I was failing to live up to expectations before my 20th birthday, I also learned more about myself, my acting style, and about just how goddamn hard voice acting is. If it weren't for King's Game, it would have taken me a hell of a lot longer a time to learn and internalize the work ethic and humility that's necessary to properly contribute to a project and make a *genuine* impact on people. So, do I look back and think 25-year-old me could do a heck of a lot better than 19-year-old me? Yeah, of course I do. It'd kinda be a problem if I didn't. But for 25-year old me to be able to run confidently and help make art with sincere meaning to people, 19-year-old me needed to fall flat on their face over and over and keep going, no matter how much dirt, mud, and tear-stained pain covered them. I may not be able to see this show the same way everyone else does, but above all else, it personally represents where I started learning that fucking up isn't the end of your world: it's just where you fell down onto, and it's where you get back up from. All that aside though, the real moral of the story is King's Game introduced me to Coldrain, and they're one of my favorite bands now, so objectively speaking, you can't say this show never did anyone any good LOL
The voice acting actually seems quite solid in this! I didn't care for the original manga so I didn't watch the show, but based on this video the voice acting is certainly not the part I would complain about, so I'd say "well done."
That's so cool that you got the lead role at 19! I'm sorry that it was a rough time recording given what you had experienced around that time. It's very interesting to hear how this impacted and boosted your career!
As someone who's PTSD decides it has a sense of humor and makes me think cartoons are a million times more violent than they are, I appreciate the warning ahead of time. Like, I know you laied heavy into the "I guess I GOTTA do this" but the prep legit made my PTSD calm down, so bit aside, legit thank you.
same. I don't have PTSD, but I do have triggers, and just having an idea of what I was getting into and not be completely blindsided really does make all the difference. esp when he undercuts the triggering moment by pointing out the apparently sexual fidget spinners😂
I have C-PTSD, and while it takes a lot to trigger me because of desensitization AND I’ve watched this garbage anime, I will always appreciate a trigger warning even if I don’t need it. Someone will, so it matters.
@@Venialbartender Because when I told my doctor my symptoms such as violent flashback to watching a human being die, he got me tested for it. Probably don't ask that next time, as it can set off those flashbacks in certain people.
The funny thing is that there are a lot of really solid actors for this dub too. It's just either the direction was terrible or the cast knew what they were working on and put in "just gimme the check" performances, which honestly adds to the ironic comedy aspect.
I was morbidly curious so I checked it out (the whole series is available on a youtube playlist). You giving us the sparknotes made it infinitely easier to handle because holy crap I felt like I was experiencing a gas leak with the show's logic. Here are some golden moments that you will experience if you choose to watch it yourself: 1) When tossed the chainsaw, the guy who was going crazy had no idea how to turn it on. Natsuko had to take a minute to snap out of the crazy to teach him. 2) Everyone goes to heaven Wolf's Rain-style holding hands 3) The finger-breaking scene is even funnier than described. Natsuko attacks her best friend twice and is still forgiven. 4) The flashbacks happen as if they were Saturday morning cartoons with life lessons to just try and explain why doing anything is pointless and it's implied that characters keep proposing solutions but the protag keeps going 'no it's useless' over and over up until the final episode. He's just a constant bummer. If the flashbacks weren't happening you would realize that none of the current game members are even doing anything except standing around to be slaughtered. 5) The way characters talk is wildly inconsistent. They all act the same until it's the episode when they're about to die and then they emulate the same energy. It's hard for me to really describe other than 'every male VA starts sounding like a shounen protagonist and every female VA sounds like a tragic love interest'. 6) The computer guy's death was the most hilarious but frustrating thing ever. People were ordered not to cry and the protagonist just goes around telling people not to cry or look at their phones as if that would lessen anyone's anxiety about the situation. People that he calls just end up crying after being told not to, thus killing them even faster. The computer guy begs the protagonist to not let his crush cry before he goes........ and then the protag immediately interacts with her to let her know that he died and he loved her so she immediately cried. 7) There are several characters who do their own individual research but they're all doing it at the same time so nobody learns any new information-- except for the protag, again, who pretends like he's starting from ground up. There are moments when characters try to drop truth bombs on each other but since everyone knows the same information they just go "Yeah I heard that too" and move on. 8) The rabbit covered in jizz wasn't ever explained but there was a scene where Natsuko waved the keychain version of it around which was equally nasty and dirty. Apparently her sister used to have the stuffed animal rabbit and it was just some kind of confirmation that the protag was correct about them being related. I thought at first maybe that just meant the rabbit keychain was making them all sick and they were just idiots for a while. 9) When the protag's phone was stolen there were several moments when he both did and didn't know information that would only be from the phones. For example he DID know where to meet up from a group text Natsuko sent right down to the time, but he didn't know the rules of the next game. 10) The protagonist talks about 'the worst thing he's ever done' and it wasn't when he made his girlfriend assault his best friend-- it was just when he lied to the class about him knowing how to get out of the game to win the popularity contest. Sexual assault has zero consequence. 11) Natsuko is just... riding a guy when she calls the protag. Casually straddling the guy tweening-motioning up and down. There is so, so much more. Please, I beg of you, suffer with me. Just try not to check out the comments because it's full of people thinking that it's the deepest spookiest anime in the world and it'll give you brain rot.
Oh yeah, it’s so good lmao. I actually watched this anime a WHILE ago when I first got into anime, and I remember thinking it was some “terrifying look into despair” or whatever, but I guess I was just an edgy teen. Looking back it’s one of the funniest anime out there without it even trying.
If I'm not mistaken and remembering it right, in the live action movie/series (sorry I don't really remember which one), whenever a student died, they immediately ceased from existence. Like when two of the students refused to obey the King's order and were punished, their desks and chair just gone and their homeroom teacher don't recognize the two students' name, as if they never exist. I find that interesting and maybe the anime have the same premise? Sorry for my bad grammar, English is not my first language.
Easily the funniest and edgiest moment for me was Ria being on fire for like 2 minutes, having time to talk her backstory while this epic music plays in the background before she jumps off in true badass fashion. (While there was literally water around obviously) Peak moment of the anime. I also refuse to believe the dub production recorded this without already thinking of it as an actual shitpost. At the same time, the fact the original JP voice actors were able to stay so serious throughout the show is just as impressive. Honestly the thing I'm scared the most about now is that my furniture is gonna turn into plot convenient side-characters at any day..
if you want an anime where the dub cast knew it was bad, watch Ghost Stories. it is the first/probably only officially sanctioned by the animation studio parody dub. it's the full series but the dialogue reads like a hilarious abridged series. they were basically told that the only things they could not alter were how the ghosts worked with their folklore. all because by god this bombed and it was the only way the studio thought of to have it make money. props to them for that but they were also the geniuses who got a Jpop girl to sing a song called Sexy Sexy in an anime with a cast of elementary school kids... not joking. the parody dub has plenty of sex jokes.
yep @@jardex2275 i kind of wish more series did that, not everything will be a hit so doing that gives them a second chance of sorts to find an audience. the dub bloopers are also usually hilarious. or the rant video the English lead of Evangelion did to mock its ending.
If the kid was ordered to nominate six people to die and then die himself what's his incentive for actually following it? He's dead either way what reason does he have to take six other people with him?
Exactly, none, and I mean NONE of the rules make any sense. What was the point of sacrificing everybody if the game is just going to continue. Maybe the “King” entity is bored? Lol
I love how Natsuko's v/a *completely* changes her vocal performance the exact second the heel-turn happens. Like, you'd think she was suddenly voicing a completely different character, and boy is she having the time of her LIFE voicing that second character. I also feel like it may not be a coincidence that the backstory of this ..."virus" has a decent amount in common with some of the truth behind the mysteries of Higurashi's curse, albeit filtered through the brain of someone who maybe didn't understand that the way *that* worked made sense as a plot element that was, mostly, separate from the supernatural elements of the story. And also was *consistent* about how it was used and who it affected. That said, the original medium by which this story was told probably made it a hell of a lot more immersive/engaging than this anime adaptation does. Honestly, I'm glad that sort of serialization as a means of storytelling is coming back into fashion with things like Dracula Daily.
The youtuber Joseph Anderson like to make fun of the trope of psychopath having a completly different voice once it's revealed to the audience that they are crazy. It's a trope I never noticed before, but once someone point it out you notice it everywhere, like 95% of the time there's a "they were crazy all along twist" they start making a cliche deranged voice and it's so stupid.
"what if final destination's parents were cousins" I laughed so hard at that omg I've never commented here before but I'm delurking to say I'm glad you got this back up, and good luck!
You know, this video caused me to do a thought experiment on how to "fix" this bad story. Not that I think I'm a good writer, its just one of those things you can do in hindsight because there actually is a nugget of a good story buried beneath all the shlock. Like it's nihilistic but have a theme of "you can't run away from death" would actually work. You can delay it but ultimately death does eventually comes for everyone. And Nobuaki's desperation to prevent his own death translates until the game continuing. He literally becomes the virus. And to go along with that, remove the dumbass twist of Chiemi and Natsuko being sisters because that literally felt like a last minute insertion on the author's part because he realized implications of his MC being the cause of everyone's deaths and decided that Natsuko was actually the one to infect everyone to absolve him.
but didn't they say in the anime that Natsuko was in another game before that one? so wouldn't it just it be both her and Nobuaki being the ones infecting the others with the two trying to cope with their first game before their 2nd game came
There's a mecha anime called Bokurano, where a group of kids have to take turns piloting a mecha to fight against mecha from other universes; the losers' universe is destroyed, and regardless, the pilot will die, because the mech is powered by their life force. So all the main characters know they're going to die soon, but don't know exactly when, and dealing with that is part of the plot. This shows that you could do a death game where everyone is definitely doomed and make it work, as long as the writing is actually good.
Listen...I know people's opinions on Danganronpa are pretty divided (I have a deep personal love for it, despite the glaring flaws) but you guys have to admit that it pulls off the zany-to-horrifying balance of this genre _really_ well. It's stylish, larger than life, aware of its campiness (in the games at least) and the characters, like them or not, are actually interesting and contribute something to the story they're in. Danganronpa is _fun_ , which makes the dark parts hit way harder. It really feels like this author wanted to emulate it (seriously, tragedy being spread via Dawkins' meme theory was an actual thing in the anime) but fundamentally misunderstood what people love about it.
I fuckin love danganronpa. Kodaka’s writing hits a perfect sweet spot between absurd comedy and twisted tragedy. if you haven’t checked out his anime Akudama Drive yet, you should. it’s just as fun.
Well, if you combine problem-solving Kyoko with problem-causing Nagito, you get problem rotating door Kokishi. Comparing Kokichi's actions to Kyoko's makes me realize that Kyoko was damn lucky to have Makoto in her game.
As is well-known among us entities of a higher plane, the spelling "Geoff" is for good, holy beings while "Jeff" is for evil incarnate. I propose that Evil Geoff is actually spelled Evil Jeff.
I'd like to point out that if Natsuko ALSO survived a previous game, then even if Nobuaki did decide to end the game and take the punishment that, Natsuko still did continue the game herself and would have infected the class with the kings game virus regardless of Nobuaki's decision.
I should probably add to this that since multiple instances of the game clearly exist, then it's highly unlikely that any one game will ever truly end unless the king contrives to have every single survivor compete in one final iteration. So my big question is, if there's always only ever one survivor... how did this game have two previous survivors participate? How in the world did the game split into several iterations in the first place? Basically, nothing anyone can do will end it, it just does whatever it wants. This whole premise is utterly pointless!
@@CWTyger I think that was supposed to be the genetic part. There were 2 sisters and each one created an iteration because it's a virus but also a genetic conditions. And a computer virus. And a ghost. Presumably the 'reveal' in the cliffhanger that was never made would have been a cousin or somthing of the 'carriers'. Or an iteration the father started or something.
You know, that bit at the end with the protagonist basically dooming everyone because he keeps acting like there's a way for people to survive could actually be a really interesting plot device. If, you know, it was implemented with even a shred of competency. I imagine there's a parallel world where this isn't dogshit and they go a sort of Talentless Nana route with it where the protag is clearly a villain all along and his whole schtick is that he has to manipulate everyone into thinking he's some kind of messiah that can get them all through it. But, then we wouldn't get to see crazy people sex, so I guess that's an L.
It kinda reminds me of this one scene in Danganronpa V3. At the beginning there is a ridiculously hard platforming section where Monokuma says you have to make through in order to escape the killing game. Kaede gives an inspirational hope speech about being able to make it through but after failing so many times, Kokichi chastised her for trying to inspire people to fail over and over again.
It would have worked better if the characters thought they were safe because the clock on the wall said 12:03, so he's past the time when the King said he'd kill himself, but just after he left the room someone checked their phone and realized _the clock was five minutes fast!_
This series is like a fever dream. There's like nothing funnier than mentioning this "terrible horror anime I watched that turned out to be a comedy actually" and learning other people know it. It's a gift that keeps giving. Either you curse someone with its knowledge and laugh at their reactions or you can laugh with someone else who already knows over the ridiculousness of it. God bless you for spreading this. thing, to more people JHJDFDXG
If I remember right, in the live-action movie the ending was that Natsuko was still the sole survivor of her old school’s game, but that the King wiped her memory afterwards. She survives the present game as well, gets memory wiped again, and the cycle continues at a new school, making the ending actually tragic because she doesn’t WANT to keep the game going but the curse doesn’t give her a choice. Still a better and more sympathetic route than “nah I’ll go to another class anyway.”
@@caramel_frappeYes. Ousama Game was adapted into a Live-Action low-budget Japenese film released in the early 2000's but changes the source material but has better execution in my opinion. Also, the protagonist in the movie was Chiemi (Nobuaki's girlfriend), not Natsuko (she doesn't appear in the movie).
- He watched the anime, and he died. - Then and there? - No, about eighteen years later. It's a thing about watching the anime, you never know when it's gonna take effect.
The whole King's game: virus/computer virus/meme/ genetic disorder would actually make sense if this anime was part of the metal gear universe. I'm not joking everyone would nanomachines inside them, which would explain why the king's game can be hacked, infect people, passed on both genetically and via MEMES. Yes... it all makes sense now.... its NANOMACHINES SON!
It would be kind of amusing if this turns out to be the result of a WILDLY mutated strain of that weird fungus-virus from MGS5 that got transplanted to Japan and kept being developed until it turned into THIS, and it ends with them using nano-machines to combat the virus when it breaks out into a new King's Game... but maybe that's just what I'm telling myself because I now want to see an alternative scenario where Raiden shows up with a katana to like... cut the virus. Somehow. Still dumb, but at least it'd be better than this!
@@goranisacson2502 All the nanomachines that make up the game/virus flow out of their victims' bodies, combine with eachother until they turn into the big puppet thing and Raiden slices it in half with a katana.
33:25 "Oh, Dear!" "What is it?" "I Spontaneously Combusted." "Oh, I am sorry." "Oh, it's quite alright, I've grown tired of living." "Ah, very good then." "For the best." "Indeed." "Is it raining again?"
Honestly, the premise of a Death Game survivor getting roped back into another would've been an interesting angle. That is, the aftermath, the trauma and having to go through it all over again. In that respect, skipping over the first Volume might have worked... if they actually had the right amount of episodes or even ended Season 1 on a cliffhanger so as to spread it across a potential two cour.
Basically both just Danganronpa 3 and Danganronpa V3 then. Although 3s death game was technically achievable without any deaths, it just happened that way as an excuse to get the Ultimate Animator to make a super Hope animation that would probably fuck over the world just as hard.
I mean it's such a no-brainer that even *the* Battle Royale, that started the whole Death Game genre, had a character that survived a previous game. This book is 50+ years old and there's still not many survivor characters that can even compare to that guy in character depth
The best part of the video was all the different ways Geoff somehow found to describe the one thing my League teammates tell me to do when I go 0/1 in lane.
When i watched this anime years ago i was completely caught off guard when they explained that all was caused by a biological virus evolving into a computer virus I remember shouting to the screen: are you fricking kidding me!? Thats not how viruses work!! Thats not how anything works!!
I'd say the part where the girl throws herself out the window is funny for three reasons. 1. Her celebrating too early. 2. Her throwing herself out the window despite NOT wanting to die. 3. Her incredibly benign punishment.
You know... Seeing "Evil" Geoff at the end use the self-deprecating sign-off that you haven't used in a while... Honestly real clever writing as a long-time viewer. Happy to have been here all this time!
The worst thing is that the premise could lead to a very interesting story if used correctly: 1 - Make the game something 100% supernatural, instead of this mess of viruses and Memes. 2 - Make the origin of the game be an ancient curse passed down from generation to generation, which adapts to the current era, Jumanji style. 3 - Make decent characters. 4 - Reduce the blood and guts and make deaths simple and quick, to really show how fragile human life can be. 5 - Make the story revolve around themes of self-sacrifice, the good of the many against the good of the few, fear of death and how there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. ...What would the ending be like? I have no idea, I'm not a writer, but it would definitely be better than this one.
I second this list. I remember As the Gods Will manga was fairly good with the supernatural premise and characters. I remember it being fairly gory though. It has been a while since I read it so I can’t say whether it holds up or not.
You know, there is a manga with very similar premise. It's called Kamiisama no iiutori and while the ending is kinda ass, it does do the whole death game thing much better. Sadly, it only got a live action movie adaptation.
I can't help thinking Real Account did the whole meme virus thingy (or whatever was going on there) better. Which is one hell of a thought, honestly (Real Account was pure trash, but in a good way. Both self aware and rather genuine) I legitimately love it
I don't think I'll ever be over the scene with the computer virus ending in the girl just being lit on fire. It was so funny it was just completely unbelievable
Nobuaki's GF also happens to be Kaguya herself. She'd rather be with Miyuki whose brother lost an arm and a leg than Nobuaki who's a super delulu about being a hero.
I feel like a lot of this shows problems could be solved if they went for the supernatural angle. Some guy in the village was shunned for Reasons, so he uses his Big Brain to combine an advanced A.I, a dark ritual, and a demon that was sealed up several thousand years ago. The demon uses their new found freedom to kill a whole bunch of people locally, leading to the o.g guy to actually regret the carnage, leading to the confession letter. The whole thing got into the wild word because the people that came to clean up had an open network phone, so the demon bundle jumped to that, spreading over the web, randomly activating when the demon gets hungry for more victims.
I always am left wondering if the voice actors at least have fun with shows like this, because I don't know how much is enough to actually be paid to dub it
From what I understand, it is usually pretty common for actors and voice actors to quickly realized they are on a terrible show and usually either ham it up for fun or just try to get it over with. It sucks, but it pays the bills and puts dinner on the table.
33:55 How fucking unaware of sex do you have to be to think that fidget spinners are sex toys? Unless the author or animator had something REALLY kinky in mind when making that scene? Either way, absolutely hilarious!
Apparently the girl with the white hair was sexually abused as a kid so guess it supposed to be juxtaposition of her childhood innocence against the gross abuse she experienced… which still begs the question why they chose a fidget spinner as the toy that would represent childhood innocence rather than something like a doll or a plushie or toy vehicle or something else more commonly associated with childhood innocence.
The meme/virus/genetics/whatever twist regarding the cause of the kings game reminds me of the original Ring novels, where Sadako's "die 7 days after watching the VHS tape" curse was actually a psychically mutated strain of smallpox, that then mutates further into a strain that also alters the DNA of any ovulating women, and then all that actually just happened in a VR world but now the virus has escaped into the real world and mutated even further into a super cancer, and _I SWEAR_ I didn't make any of this up.
I'm so glad the (non-Rasen) movies skipped the sci-fi elements to make them almost purely supernatural (tho that didn't stop them from making completely unnecessary convoluted additions to Sadako, looking at you, weird good and evil sadako twins from Birthday)
You know, that could actually be a halfway decent twist in a series that was fully written to make it hit as hard as humanly possible, and actually managed to *spoilers* construct Natsuko Honda as a genuine hero trying to end the game who is taken for a suicidal sadist until the final reveal. There is an actual opportunity here to plant clues that we should be thinking about these characters differently, even if the final message would have been very strange.
To be honest, like - her monologue at the end about how, if her classmates were doomed to die, she wanted them to die by her hand because at least she loved them enough to make it quick - there was something genuinely compelling there! But it gets bogged down in the midst of all the other absurdity.
Can I just take a moment to highlight how insane Ria's death is? As in, not that it's good, but that I'm pretty sure the person who wrote it was legitimately insane. Okay, so let's just buy the thought that this mind virus can force you to self-immolate. Already a stretch, sure. But then, as if to cool herself off, she takes off her jacket as if to just to show off all the totally RUclips friendly reasons she has all those scars. And, for some reason, instead of taking the obvious way out (just making the fire too bright to draw details on Ria), some animator thought "yeah, just keep the underwear on until she stands gets up to throw herself over the cliff". Ria became the living embodiment of the "This is fine" meme for a moment and it's probably the highlight of the show.
I did the unthinkable. I paused the video, watched all the 12 episodes in less than 24 hours and then came back to finish it. I don't feel like I'm in heaven because I want to get out of here
One of the funniest things not mentioned in the video is the fact that the protag-kun's Japanese VA is Mamoru Miyano (the voice of Light Yagami, Okabe Rintaro, Ling Yao, etc, etc). What a show to add to the resume.
I like the part where the guy got virused into his head just twisting around and spinning. But like... You'd think this would have gone on the news at some point and people would know about it
Honestly this show has a vastly better dub than it deserves. I remember back when TFS was doing their weekly anime review show (Anime FMK) they would talk about the absolute insanity that was King's Game. I see they were not exaggerating. This thing makes Future Diary seem perfectly reasonable on all fronts.
I have just now remembered how spontaneous combustion girl was on fire for like a solid 30 minutes before she fell over the side of the dam, like pretty sure if your whole body is on fire for that long things start to... Burn? I also remembered how much my partner and I laughed through that entire scene over how it just kept going and she continued to just not burn!
As a LEET hacker girl, her mind is super logical and thus resistant to the hypnosis effects of the memetic computer viral infection. Not resistant enough to not be on fire, but enough to only be on fire a little bit all over for a long time until she dies. I assume.
I read the manga years ago and thought it was pretty silly, but good fun. When everyone said the anime adaptation was terrible I thought it was just because the manga wasn't exactly a work of art, but I can't believe how much WORSE they made it
@kariissmol9172 I also read it but a while ago, so I'll likely get some details wrong. I don't think Natsuko's character even exists in the manga. The final race challenge also isn't present. The detective girl is also introduced a lot sooner. She plays the same "smart aloof girl that progresses the investigation" role but she's more present in general. The rest is pretty similar.
Perhaps the most underrated bit of insanity here is the fact they turned the first volume into flashbacks. Stories kind of work best if they start at the beginning?
If there were simply rules that the king had to abide by it would save this whole thing by putting restraints on the writer. It's really fair to compare this to Death Note, but part of what kept that going as long as it did is both the holders of the death note trying to figure out clever to exert power while staying within the rules and the anti-Kira's trying to figure out what limits existed on the mystery killer(s) either mandatory or self-imposed. Having the king being this undefined supernatural force with no restrictions that is also somehow perpetuated as a weird kind of disease that spreads without any agency by the king is just directionless nonsense that will eventually be explained by a deus ex machina conclusion with a million loose ends.
32:32 Oh my god, did the author name the main character after himself?? What an amazing little cherry on top of the perfect shit sandwich (no it doesn’t even get to be a sundae) Edit: lmaooo
I mean the guy has three girls fall in forever love with him over the course of like, two weeks, of course he's the author's self insert. Wouldn't be surprised to hear that the hacker girl was also into him.
I remember years ago when I tried watching Another, and that show felt like each episode was written by starting with the death scene and working backwards. But at least the voice acting and animation was clean and competent. King's Game is Another except the director is spiking the entire production team's coffee maker with ketamine and the writing room has a life sized Gasai Yuno statue on full display
I love how you find so much joy you manage to get when you watch one of these things, as you turn those rotted like a jack o lantern on Thanksgiving lemons into a medicinal lemonade spread among others to spare them of the pain you endured
In the prequel manga back when the king's game was just a virus with magical origins it mind controlled someone to make the order letters. When the game went digital that stopped and it...figured out how to use electronics, I guess.
@@sodapop-rockstarwhat? It's a virus! Virus don't control minds like that. All it can do is force a extremely specific type of victim to execute a specific set of pre-coded instructions in whatever manner the victim has available to achieve said instructions. And it certainly doesn't DIRECTLY AND INSTANTANEOUSLY INTERACT with the proceedings! That requires the active intelligence of an actual entity! What nonsense
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Holy crap! this was my favorite "look how much this anime sucks" type video you have ever made!
that end was some S tier villan voice! have you auditioned for any VA bc jezus dude that was sick
I actually find the idea of "protag-kun actually knows there's no hope but has deluded himself into thinking he's the hero as a fucked up coping mechanism and subsequently led everyone to their ultimately pointless deaths" really interesting. A shame it's just another edgy twist in a hilariously bad anime.
its an even bigger shame because while Geoff didn't mention it Natsuko is similarly delusional, believing her various murders and general sociopathy is teaching everyone else that once they got stuck in the kings game they couldn't escape and should give up hope rather than prolong their suffering, ultimately meaning she thinks shes murdering and torturing people for their own good. If the series genuinely tried to analyze the hero and villains delusions and how they compare to one another that could have been really interesting
Right? Right? Like it could be SO interesting, but the implementation was just so bad that it makes a cool concept seem bland??
As a writer, I just looove these anime. They come up with incredibly interesting concepts, but execute them so poorly that I can just take the same concepts and do my own exploration on them, fleshing out their full potential like the anime should. And no one would ever know where the idea came from, because who tf would suspect it's from a shitty anime😂
@@resir9807 That's where Hunger Games went wrong. It should've started with BAD source material.
I also really like the concept behind Natsuko's character; someone who survived the death game, and becomes so deadset on surviving that she doesn't care what she has to do or who she needs to hurt. The problem is, of course, the creator did not deliver on that, and we instead get crazy yandere bitch.
Could you imagine if Natsuko was actually manipulative, instead of all the other characters just being stupid and ignoring her being obviously evil? If instead of having villain speeches about how naive main character guy is, she showed through her actions her resolve to survive at the detriment of everyone else? And then at the end where it is revealed that protag-kun has been deluding himself and everyone else with false hope that they're gonna make it out of there, Natsuko calls him out, showing (not telling) how the two of them are a lot more alike than he would care to admit
The idea of someone calmly explaining their tragic backstory while actively on fire (and with a massive water source nearby) is the exact kind of batshit insanity I come to anime for
I mean, I'm pretty sure jumping in a lac while being on fire would insta kill you because of the big thermic shock.
But it's not like logics apply in this anime.
The girl was supposed to burn but her skin and clothes looked pretty fine. It looked like she unlocked a cool new Super Sayan transformation.
@@ousou78stop drop and roll ftw
Wouldn’t it be awesome if she did jump into the water and died that way but just before she does the king sends a text saying they know that would happen and they never planned for her to burn to death.
Like- using people’s natural reactions against them.
So, a bit of grim dark history here but there was a mahayana Buddhist monk in 1963 self immolated (set himself on fire) in protest, and was able to, through mediation etc. Not ya, scream in insane agony like a normal person. He did not, however, deliver an emotionally devastating tale of suffering sexual abuse as he did so. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, maybe she was a powerful Buddhist?
Also, wouldn't thermic shock probably be less painful and more quickly than just sitting in fire "I mean who just stands in fire?"
Also, seriously, what are the fidget spinners for?
The alternate ending to Saint Maud.
I know I should be morally mortified, but a guy knocking his friend out cold with a punch only to then tearfully turn to his girlfriend and sadly ask her to bang his now unconscious friend is just utterly absurd to the point that all I can do is laugh.
"Hey my close friend, you wanna SA my other friend while upconscious, not a nig deal."
RIGHT?! That plot point speedruns through about a dozen consent violations in the blink of an eye but the scene somehow comes out the other end as the funniest thing anyone has ever written!! 😂
An escenario so specific and convoluted it can only be the author's poorly disguised netorare fantasy.
@SirEriol the entire thing is the author's poorly disguised fetishes.
King's Game has this way of being so tactless and absurd for no reason while still taking itself completely seriously that what in any other story would make me really uncomfortable loses almost all weight and becomes hilarious. I know I probably shouldn't be laughing but i mean... What else can I do? I sure as hell can't stop watching, I *need* to know what this show is going to pull out of its ass next.
This thing did, in fact, influence my brain, because it took me two days to realize that a BLIND girl has left a written message on the sand.
I mean, you CAN write with your eyes closed, and it was janky enough to look like that
OMG you're right
don't forget she also somehow walk all the way to the beach without anyone help
@@shikniwho7215I don't know blind people do that all the time
@@Dracon7601 The recently blind who literally was blinded yesterday can do that?
29:53 that dude getting killed because he accidentally said his name in conversation ergo "naming him" is literally the same logic as that Total Drama episode where Leshawna gets eliminated because everyone said her name outloud too many times even though they didn't want to eliminate her. If your gore horror show works on Total Drama logic, YOU'RE DOING SOMETHING WRONG!!!
Douchebag genie logic. I feel that this anime has bigger issues than douchebag genie logic.
literally it was the first thing i thought of 😭😭😭its so goofy
Or something right if you have taste.
total drama but played incredibly seriously
It's literally the same logic as the RUclips videos like "if I said the word 'meat' I die" and then the thumbnail is the word "meteor" and their player character falling into lava or some shit
Spoiling Natsuko’s heel turn with the OP literal MINUTES before it happens in the show is really just the perfect metaphor for this entire show: turning unbearable levels of edge hilarious through incompetent execution.
tbf anime does tend to spoil things in the openings lmao i've seen it a couple of times
U act like anime doesn't do this in general.
They didn't used to
@@highdefinition450yeah, it’s a shame really. I prefer it when they’re vague if they do spoil things, like the JJK S2 second OP. For readers of the manga, it’s filled to the brim with references, but it’s too vague for anime watchers to get it.
Pretty sure that the marketing team has a competition about who can spoil the most twists.
The plot of this series can be summed up as "Everyone dies and more people will die in the future." It's the most nothing story I have ever heard of.
Exactly! There’s no satisfaction in seeing a Death Game/Battle Royale being played completely straight to the very end and then being told “This Will Continue, Fuck You For Caring”.
Even fucking Hunger Games knew this.
@@jtlego1 This isn’t a battle royale, there is no last-man-standing. Your only reward for surviving is getting to play again next year but ultimately you’ve already been doomed to death.
@@jtlego1 So, Final Destination in steroids.
@@arturoaguilar6002 Battle Royale x Mario Party x Final Destination x an aircraft carrier worth of steroids. My favorite crossover
Hot take but that's why I'm not a fan of Devilman Crybaby (yes I know it's a shit ton deeper but I'm not a fan of stories where everyone just fucking dies)
Damn, that one dude cared more about the bro code than he did about his own life. I strangely respect that even as I decry it as utter idiocy.
True bro
Man decided He would rather die than participate in NTR.
If he cares about bro code so much could have just suck his bro off
sometimes idiots can be the most admirable.
but at the same time, if he's so worried about the bro code they shouldve just had a threesome instead of the plot resorting to SA'ing him while unconscious 😭
Dear god, the irony of Nobuaki objecting to Natsuko seemingly wanting to do it out in the open when nobody was objecting to her being forced to do it against her will out in the open mere seconds before is MIND-BOGGLING.
yeah like she didn't need the backstory, that alone would be the beginning of *ANYONE'S* villain arc
fr tho
it's somehow worse for a woman to want to do something 'indecent' than it is for a woman to be forced to do that same thing
it's just SO incredibly subtle, but I think this anime might have issues with women!
@@Bussy_Destroyer I don't think it's fair to imply that the author was trying to say something like that. I don't get the sense that he put that much thought into this story at all.
(I'm not defending the story; whatever the cause, it's definitely gross that so many people are apparently okay with sexual assault. I'm just mocking the author.)
I mean, have you seen Hentai? Half of them are basically rape that the female ends up enjoying, god forbid woman get horny too
Could've been an amazing twist if it turned out Nobuaki was just as traumatized as Natsuko, but that took the form of a messiah complex where he let the other's die to save himself, while deluding himself that he wasn't at fault for anything. Could've been a perfect parallel of each other. Natsuko using her nihilism to terrorize everyone and basically doing everything on her own, while Nobuaki uses optimisim to false hope everyone into helping him, Ultimately each having the same goal, of being scared of death and a innate desperation to live. Natsuko finally shattering Nobuaki's delusion in the final confrontation, causing him to snap even further from the guilt, and eventually he and Natsuko take each other out, leaving the traumatized other girl to end it herself to not turn out like those two, being selfless enough to not inflict this on anyone else.
annnnnd it i not matter
did not
So that would change.. The last scene?
Because he already is as traumatized as her and he already knew he would kill another class when he survived the first. If he was even a bit heroic and didn't feel like killing more people he should just have isolated himself in a cabin without a phone. They are both the villains here and stupid to boot.
The virus require a school class or village to activate, if you are isolated it will be dormant and your survival chances go up a lot since you don't have to play Russian roulette with 29 other kids to survive. And if the virus isn't happy with that you would die but the chances of dying that way still sounds better then just continuing playing forever.
@@loke6664would have better with more specific foreshadowing
@@loke6664no, it would've made the whole show better if the writing was aware of how shitty Nobuaki is and used that shittiness to the story's advantage in setting up parallels between them leading up to the final confrontation. Idk, I think if they had actually competent writing they could've managed to make it a story about the cycle of abuse & trauma, albeit it would be much better if Riona or whatever her name is would manage to end the game (acting as a metaphor for the cycle of abuse) without having to kill herself.
My favorite part is when the Hacker girl spontaneously combusts and for no reason just starts casually taking off all her clothes as she calmly goes on for 5 minutes about her backstory WHILE ON FIRE. That's when this anime went from enjoyably bad horror anime to a god tier comedy.
Yep, that got me too. "Oh well dang, guess I'm on fire now. How disappointing."
That entire scene is just… so inept in the absolute funniest way possible.
Like, I wanna know what goes in on someone’s mind when they think that they should turn a scene where someone’s *burning alive,* WHILE they’re explaining how they got *SA’d as a CHILD* into a *fanservice scene!*
When I first saw that scene, I thought „oh, she’s taking her clothes off so she has more time“. But then I thought about it for more than three seconds and realized „wait, this doesn’t make any goddamn sense“. Because it’s not just her clothes that are on fire, it’s her *whole body!* Her entire being was in flames! So they literally just made her do that, so that we can ogle at a goddamn highschooler, while she’s actively burning alive, WHILE she’s explaining how she got SA‘d as a child! What?! How! Who thought that that was a good idea?!
(Also, more minor complaint, it’s weird how tame her punishment is. Like, she threatened to end the game in it‘s entirety, yet she only suffered like… the most peaceful immulation ever. Meanwhile, the bully, who literally only punched the MC *once,* got turned into a human squib. Huh?!)
@@Hawk7886"Tis but a scratch... I've had worse" i still have time to monologue, and give everyone an uncomfortable strip show, made worse by the past I'm sharing
To me was quite the contrary, that moment the anime went from a comedy gold to a crap horror!
Yeah, her immediate reaction was so subdued, like "Welp, I'm on fire, again..."
You know the plot twists in Kings Game feel like the writer wrote the plot twist got bored in the middle of writing it so he made a new one and repeated the process five times in a row.
Congrats you have summed up like 80% of all web novels
Just like The Supernaturalist!
Reminds me of one of the Super Best Freinds' observations about David Cage; "the loves the 3rd act twist so much he includes one in every act and multiple in the last."
Or the writer wrote himself into a corner and came up with some BS plot twist because he couldn't come up with a better idea how to put an end to the mess he created. Naruto Shippuuden
"What are the fidget spinners for?!" That line killed me, phenomenal! 😂
oh god, the anime *does* kill you!!
That was my thought as well.
Yea I lost it at that as well lol
Okay but what ARE they for 😭😭
The expression on his face looking both scared and like he gave up on life really helps sell it
47:19 I like how she ran straight, tripped moving forward, and then proceeded to fall backwards off a cliff that suddenly appeared behind her.
Truck-Kun's evil cousin Cliff-Sama.
*Insert Caleb City sounds
Don't forget, this was the invisible cliff she was running TOWARDS for... reasons? 🤣
Kaizo Mario doesn't go THAT FAR!
XD
LMFAOOO I knew something looked off about that clip but I didn't rewind to figure it out lol
I get that it's shocking to be ordered to Do The Deed with someone you aren't attracted to, on pain of death. But I feel like after the 2nd or 3rd time it happened, everyone would loosen up a bit, buy a dozen boxes of condoms for the group and ride it out. Telling people to slam hams is just not all that compelling of a Death Game task!!
Being the victim of...esoteric sexual assault, I guess?...is objectively a pretty terrible situation. But it's also hard to take seriously when it's basically the only thing the characters are forced to do until the author is ready to break out the murder.
If I had to do that or die, I'd want to be drunk first. They're all under drinking age but a lot of what they do is illegal so lemme just pour some rum in my Coke real quick
@@timothymclean yeah like they're gonna need therapy but no reason to beat someone's ass over jt
The supernatural killing as an order kinda ruins the entire premise.
The type of story this is, should be one where the orders start out small but are mainly there to get the kids to escalate out of their own volition, with a message about how horrible people will become if they get unchecked power or how everyone is going to escalate something either out of their own self interest or to one up each other
You don’t start this type of story with “if you don’t have sex with someone you both die”, It starts with “confess to your crush” or “steal a pencil”, things people would do anyways if challenged by their friends. Only to then escalate after something like “punch a classmate”. Which leads to the first person disobeying and getting proportionally punished, like by getting punched by an invisible force and have 2 teeth knocked out. Then when it becomes really bad it turns out that if three disobediences happen, the game ends, but at that point the really harsh stuff starts to happen, like “break someone’s arm” or “sexually assaulted someone”, which is the point when discussions about making someone fail the challenge come, with the logic that as long as anyone sacrifices themselves, either willingly or unwillingly the horror will end. Which now turns into a game of chicken/pass the bomb, where no one wants to be the one who has to take the punishment but also wants others to take it.
It’s not a hard concept to write
Yes, also, what if there's prize money involved. Instead of a supernatural force punishing them, the game just ends if no-one punishes the losers. It'd be like a dictatorship, if the majority rebelled they could make it, but because everyone's afraid they all go along with increasingly worse things for an uncertain reward, like the sunk-cost fallacy.
@@fynnwhite Tomodachi game. Not exactly the same [money is involved but not as a reward for example.]
Part of what makes this show and shows like it so beautiful is how so many of the ways in which it fails could have been avoided with little to no effort on the part of the creators. Gives this baffling feeling of "none of this had to be here but they just couldn't help themselves."
Reminds me of Dead Tube. Even though everyone was competing to have the most views of their snuff films right out of the gate, you see more innocent people think that they just have to do pranks, but then it escalates to secretly filming someone pee, a punch, then full on brawls and violent murder. It resets and goes more out of control with each arc, until all the children in a school kill their teachers and barricade themselves inside of the school and forget why they're even killing each other to begin with.
I would counter this is sort of what writing has come to these days. It is the fear of catching the viewer within the first 15 seconds or else they'll pick up TikTok while staring at Instagram and streaming Twitch at the same time all while making a sandwich and talking to their best friend AND their significant other.
In other words: The writers don't have confidence in their own writing, so they try to enact "crash TV" and try to do anything that will capture the attention. I might not desire to be an author anymore, but I still hear the discussions in the author's world. This is also why people are writing up to 50 books a year. Yes, that is right. 50.
Writing isn't an art anymore, it is merely content.
This is a real "I can't believe it's not Ghost Stories" moment.
But instead of Monica Rial as a Christian nutcase, you've got Bryn Apprill as a batshit insane yandere.
@@jakey14344 true
I haven't seen King's Game but if it's half as funny as Ghost Stories count me in.
"We have Ghost Stories at home"
@@KiwiLombax15 So true.
The delivery on "what are the fidget spinners for?" was outstanding. Perfect mix of fear and confusion.
Also, "What's a nun?". Geoff is the one dude I will actually watch sponsorship sections for
I still wanna know what the fidget spinners are for!
The abject terror on his face is beautiful.
@@hegel5000 i'm going to guess that they're supposed to be packs of condoms but somewhere along between blocking and coloring it got mistaken for fidget spinners because condoms are not packaged like that
@@hambor12 This is probably the truth but I'm going to keep them as fidget spinners in my head canon.
Mother's Basement can just throw out sentences like
"loadbearing flashback"
"both found cosplaying Sayori"
"so naturally, it's lynching time again"
"Danganronp-ish scenario"
"she really doesn't take him not taking that well well"
"Did Sneako write this?"
"What if Final Destination's parents were cousins"
“Wait, Did I just turn into a republican?”
We can't forget "turning into Logan Paul content"
"what's the fidget spinners for"
Does the Kings Game also teleport you and your class to a pocket dimension because literally nobody outside the classroom exists.
Lol.
King's Game = Corpse Party?
Yeah bc how the hell is no one questioning why this kid is the only survivor of a whole classroom that got killed? And it happened again? No one is trying to research this or knows what's happening? Do the teachers/governemtn not exist? makes no sense lmfao
I’m stuck on the detail that the kings game hides a hidden message only decipherable over three iterations of itself and the big secret revealed by such an arduous decoding process is information that anyone able to decipher the message would already know
Maybe it's just to fuck with them.
What, like a map to holy grail or something? Would make sense if your goal was to keep it hidden forever while adhering to strict rules about making it "public for all humanity".
Malicious compliance and all that.
Also the hidden message secret was a fucking lie lmao
@@AlteredNova04I mean, it's a biological, genetic *and* memetic virus. The mere concept of *approaching* someone who participates in the King's Game is already a condition to be a participant. Had Natsuko and Chiemi's dad never had children, the game would've probably ended in that very same village the first time.
I screamed "WHAT" multiple times watching this idiocy.
How do you write an entire series without having a single thought?
this man must have had chatGPT in his brain along with that bio computer virus thingi
Ask Stephanie Meyer
It's got plenty of thot, though.
@@ddubmomo Don't even go there twilight is unironically more coherent than this shit at least
Not just that. There is a live action version of this madness too (literally just this series' flashback sequence death game, but in its entirety). Here's Mystery Recapped covering that: ruclips.net/video/Pxw_r0RMA20/видео.htmlsi=kOrTprzDJtmux7Db
I still can’t believe they made a manga explaining everything that happened at the village. They somehow explained it as “So we made super hyper poison, and because we didn’t let the cousins bang, one of them opened it, and now, the village is super fucked, and now it’s a virus also fuck you.”
I also can’t believe I managed to read that whole thing and thought it was sort of compelling. God, how many brain cells died to make me think that was good?!
Geoff, I blame you for that set of memories resurfacing.
noooooooooo you made me remember it too nooo
There was also a live action film version of the death game that was shown in the flashbacks Nobuaki had in this show. They somehow did the story better there...somehow.
Haha. I feel the same. I read this manga as a teenager and I remember liking it somewhat in part due to all the edgy stuff they were doing. Now as an adult I look back and cringe a bit. In some fairness to the manga, they at least did the first group first rather than a flashback so it was better paced and you didn't know yet that everyone was going to die.
@@theerrantwanderer WHAT
I read the first manga years before the anime came out
At first I thought the characters were compelling and how the situation kept escalating
And then came the virus reveal happened and it might have killed a couple of brain cells
After that I held this series with high contempt at how dumb everything is. Didn't even bother reading the prequel and sequel. Heck, didn't even bother with the anime.
This video is all you need and it kills the same amount of brain cells in lesser amount of time
picking to continue the game instead of punishment is extra funny because we know the punishment could be as simple as become disabled or even just do something embrassing, imagine if that was the twist, after picking to live and dooming the whole class he picks punishment the second time, and then that punishment is just "eat a gross bug"
I've eaten bugs before, so that doesn't seem that bad
@@TupocalypseShakuryou WILL eat ze bugz
@@TupocalypseShakurI think that was the point.
Saying "i got you a hat" and putting it on the stump of his head is actually the funniest thing ever 😭
A regular beheaded corpse? Not funny!
A beheaded corpse with a new hat being put on it? Funny!
It's at times like this I think back to Jordan Peele's thoughts on the similarities between horror and comedy. How you can write a scenario that builds up tension but depending on how it ends the feelings elicited can drastically change.
I can't help but wonder how that happened. How a teenager looked at his friend's decapitated body without understanding why he was lying on the ground or realizing that his head was a full meter away from his body, and put a hat where his head should be.
My first assumption is that it's adaptation jank. Like, the scene was written a bit more vaguely, such that a reader could assume Teru was less obviously dead, but then it was interpreted in a very funny way when the anime was made.
"What if Final Destination's parents were cousins" hits different when you know what happened in the prequel manga
What does that MEAN!?
@@flamesbaldwin108it means that the king's game started because two people had the misfortune of not being born in Alabama/West Virginia.
@@flamesbaldwin108 In the prequel manga two cousins fall in love, but people don't approve. In a fit of outrage, one of the cousins breaks a pot full of magic blood (it's from some bugs that had a death match and their blood was used for witch stuff in the past if I remember right) and this sets off the first ever king's game. This king's game originally used handwritten messages delivered by a mind controlled individual, but then after that game the king's game randomly made the leap to digital and that's why kids get death game texts on their phones in later rounds of the game
@@sodapop-rockstar Kids these days and their damn phones! Back in my day we killed people via postcards.
@@sodapop-rockstar It's based on an old curse ritual called Kodoku. Originated in China but was a thing in Japan as well. I've seen it referenced in another similar manga story as well.
The idea is that you put 100 varieties of highly venomous creatures (generally insects/spiders, but some versions mention snakes) together in a jar and let them fight until only one survives. Then you use the last creature left to poison and curse someone.
You got me. I was waiting for 'who is the king' all along, I thought it would be predictable, I thought it would be silly, I thought I'd get a good laugh. No. No laugh for me.
A virus is sending texts and is somehow able to tell what's happening among people and also it can execute people's bodies in the way that it said it would. That isn't drama. That isn't a plot twist. That's stupid and I'm mad.
how are you a King if your both a biological AND a computer virus? what does the show have to do with Kings anyways? is it just a title?
should’ve made the virus a more tangible character or the actual protangionst that we follow like Monokuma or Koro-sensei, would’ve been cooler and way funnier
@@leoultimaupgraded9914 The king label is PURELY from the party game popular in Japan when the original was made called 'king's game' where one person is the 'king' and gets to order a single other person to do something. It's a bit like truth or dare. In fiction it's an excuse for sex. No clue how it's carried out in reality.
I find it funny that they could've made the king a supernatural threat, logic has already leff the building, so why not?
But instead they make it a virus that's somehow able to send text messages, chop body parts and make people hang themselves.
It would legit make more sense if it were magic
The best part is that "killer virus spreading through technological devices" is where the frickin Ring novels go for their story, so this whole anime is literally just book Sadako's revenge plot but worse.
Okay but you gotta admit there's some comedy in the concept that even the creators of this anime couldn't seem to figure out what the king was supposed to be.
The VA for dub Natsuko was absolutely giving this more than it deserved.
For real, it gave me Ghost Stories dub vibes, and it's great.
She clearly followed Raul Julia's school of "I realize I'm in a piece of shit so I may as well have fun with it".
@@IdiotinGlansFor I Beheld SATAN As He Fell From Heaven. LIKE LIGHTNING!!!
@@TheLordofMetroids“You Came Here to Fight a Madman, And Instead You Found a GOD?”
Bryn appril’s her name and, much like the rest of the cast, deserve way better than this. Still i give that she went unnecessarily hard in this role given the awful material she had to work with.
As an SCP fan, the idea of a memetic virus I'm actually really on board with. But all 3 at once (memetic, digital, biological) just begs the question "Why not a curse then?" over explaining something just tanks the believability of it because you've taken out all the aidience legwork to fill in gaps. Legwork they will do with just enough information.
Exactly.
Let me fix this for the author: It's a parasite in people's brains. These are known to cause pretty disturbing behavioural changes and body-modifications in animals, so suspension of disbelief does not have to carry as far. The most outrageous horror stuff is just in the infecteds' heads. The orders take forms that people are used to get orders from, as the brain tries to make sense of it all. The game is meant to place the people where the parasite needs to go. Think of the snail that crawls up grass or the ant that lets itself be eaten by a cow. This also explains why so many of the orders are sexual in nature and some characters going into the ocean? Yeah. They are the super spreaders.
Why are so many already infected to begin with? Eh. Ask Corona. 😂
Anyway, the postmortem messages are really just their own body telling them to save the species or something.
There. Mildly less stupid paperthin excuse for gratuitous torture-porn. 😂
I would argue that a Supernatural effect that expands to digital, biological and memetic level would be a great idea.
It's a curse spread through magical practices and the likes, thus you stop those rituals and Hide the knowledge.
Woops, the Curse evolved and now carries along with blood, so you don't let those that carry it have children and Hunt down those that try to escape.
Woops, now the simple knowledge of it existing is enough to keep happening in new people and start new lineqges of cursed people, so you try to kill everyone involved.
Woops, now technology itself is enough to pick it up and spread It everywhere in the world, and with it the knowledge of the rituals spread.
It's a self-fueling curse of pure violence that feeds on people and finds new ways to infect mankind.
That's pretty metal, if you ask me.
There is something to be said about a group of scientists doing everything in their power to avoid the word "curse" when defining an SCP though. Sometimes an SCP exists as a writing prompt.
Them not making a curse while the setting is legit Japan and they have a lot famous super natural folklore is odd
That actually sounds like such an interesting idea though.
The real cherry on top is that Nobuaki’s VA is pouring out his heart and soul in every line
I think the VA uses she/her pronouns. They left a comment saying they’re trans.
it's they/them
Just noting for future people who see this comment both replies are right, Comona uses they/she pronouns.
The "Just do it while he's unconscious" had my jaw on the floor. Jesus Christ.
On one hand, it's probably better to...do that than to let him die.
On the other hand, what the frick, author? You did _not_ have to put the characters into a position where they have to do sex crimes to survive!
@@timothymclean if he really was that desperate to save his bro's life he should have slept with him instead of forcing his girlfriend.
@@nero1798 Well, the problem with that plan is homophobia. And also that that's still a sex crime the author forced the characters to commit.
@@timothymclean true it still would be a sex crime, but at least he would commit it himself instead of having his girlfriend commit it.
@@nero1798 Yeah, I'm pretty sure that part is a whole second sex crime. Or maybe the whole thing is one obscure sex crime? I'm not a sex lawyer...or a normal one, for that matter.
You know what really tickles me? The OP shouting THIS IS THE EEEEEEEND could be kind of prophetic or foreshadowing if the King's Game actually ended with this group of students, but that "to be continued" at the end undermines it one last time.
coldrain really didn't deserve to be associated with this show at all. I love the band, but I legit can't even listen to that song anymore because of this show.
@@pre4edgcI didnt know Feed the Fire was this shows opening, so my feelings on it haven’t changed. Luckily, they’ve also written songs for Fire Force and JJK, so i think their doing great in terms of writing ops for GOOD shows
Too be fair, coldrain (the band that sang the opening FEED THE FIRE, an increadible song you should listen to outside of this garbage show) probably wasn’t told it was gonna end on a to be contuined, and were given a rough draft of the script and what not
still a banger song wasted on this show
Should've been a foreshadowing of this director's career.
The first time you see someone sit on their own balls at a wedding dinner, it's funny. The second time you see someone sit on their own balls at the same dinner, you feel bad for them. The third time you see them sit on their own balls at this dinner, you start to get mad that they can't stop doing it.
Watching King's Game is like watching this guy sit on his own balls twenty-six times in a row, leaving you torn between anger that they are doing this on purpose to bother you and fear that they aren't and literally cannot stop sitting on their own balls.
as a non ball haver can you explain what sitting on one’s own balls is like? what’s the significance of it?
It is moderately painful, causes a very distinct facial reaction, and simply shouldn't be possible if you have yourself reasonably well-arranged.
I want this comment framed on my wall. I haven’t laughed like that in a long time, thank you.
What a last sentence
XD
How is this possible, balls haver ? How can you sit on your own balls ?
The girl jumping out the window and just EXPLODING had me howling
23:09
AWOOOOOOOOOOO
Oh no! She landed in that delivery truck full of chocolate pudding! What are we going to have for dessert _now?!_
The funniest thing is that she survived for a couple hours at the hospital...
How!? How wasn't exploding instant death!?
Heya! Nobuaki's English VA, Comona Lewin, here- just clocking in to offer a little perspective on the experience of recording for this show all the way back in 2017! First of all, I hope you all understand that it'll never be proper of me to denigrate a show I've worked on, so please don't expect any 'brutally honest tell-alls' or anything, but my objective isn't to to come in fighting to defend its honor, either- just to talk about my experience :)
Pretty much nobody knows my personal story with this show, but to give you an idea- I'd just turned 19 years old a month before we started recording King's Game. I'd only started studying Theatre in college the year before, and this show, despite not being my first EVER anime part, was actually the first time I'd ever recorded synced to a mouth flap- much less having 6-hour sessions with 100+ cues in each episode. I remember while recording for episode 3, we needed to pause because I started having panic attacks- mostly stress-induced from suddenly being thrust into a lead role with my barely-two years of acting and having to live up to the expectations that come with that. (Not to mention the *incredibly* triggering content later on in the show for me personally, which I had no idea was coming.)
Those expectations included being a very-visible trans actor (which, not to get into it too much, I was /also/ only just beginning to explore my own gender identity- you can tell because my old name is still what you'll find credited), and receiving all of the murky ire that came with it. To this day, I still look back at my time working on this show and wonder how seriously it affected who I am now, especially considering how suddenly it all happened.
I'll also say that I would accept the role I was offered one thousand times out of a thousand. For all the sickening anxiety I was riddled with trying and feeling like I was failing to live up to expectations before my 20th birthday, I also learned more about myself, my acting style, and about just how goddamn hard voice acting is. If it weren't for King's Game, it would have taken me a hell of a lot longer a time to learn and internalize the work ethic and humility that's necessary to properly contribute to a project and make a *genuine* impact on people.
So, do I look back and think 25-year-old me could do a heck of a lot better than 19-year-old me? Yeah, of course I do. It'd kinda be a problem if I didn't. But for 25-year old me to be able to run confidently and help make art with sincere meaning to people, 19-year-old me needed to fall flat on their face over and over and keep going, no matter how much dirt, mud, and tear-stained pain covered them. I may not be able to see this show the same way everyone else does, but above all else, it personally represents where I started learning that fucking up isn't the end of your world: it's just where you fell down onto, and it's where you get back up from.
All that aside though, the real moral of the story is King's Game introduced me to Coldrain, and they're one of my favorite bands now, so objectively speaking, you can't say this show never did anyone any good LOL
The voice acting actually seems quite solid in this! I didn't care for the original manga so I didn't watch the show, but based on this video the voice acting is certainly not the part I would complain about, so I'd say "well done."
Thank you for sharing your experience (and hello fellow trans person). Congratulations on your growth
I'm glad to hear you learned and I hope you're doing well!
The fact that you VA’d this well at 19 is insane. You did great.
That's so cool that you got the lead role at 19! I'm sorry that it was a rough time recording given what you had experienced around that time. It's very interesting to hear how this impacted and boosted your career!
Ok but I unironically love Natsuko actually. Every line from her is comedy gold.
Bryn Apprill going ham really sold it. Lady looked at the script and knew that she owed the audience her 110% at a minimum.
The "Love ya" made me laugh way harder than I should have
@@animeotaku307yeah even in bad stuff she's in she's atleast fun to watch
As someone who's PTSD decides it has a sense of humor and makes me think cartoons are a million times more violent than they are, I appreciate the warning ahead of time. Like, I know you laied heavy into the "I guess I GOTTA do this" but the prep legit made my PTSD calm down, so bit aside, legit thank you.
same. I don't have PTSD, but I do have triggers, and just having an idea of what I was getting into and not be completely blindsided really does make all the difference. esp when he undercuts the triggering moment by pointing out the apparently sexual fidget spinners😂
I have C-PTSD, and while it takes a lot to trigger me because of desensitization AND I’ve watched this garbage anime, I will always appreciate a trigger warning even if I don’t need it. Someone will, so it matters.
How do y know u have PTSD
@@Venialbartender Because when I told my doctor my symptoms such as violent flashback to watching a human being die, he got me tested for it. Probably don't ask that next time, as it can set off those flashbacks in certain people.
@@shainekennedy2742 so you had a doctor diagnose you ? Or was it a tiktok doctor
Evil Geoff delivered better, more immersive voice acting than anyone in this dub.
I’ll take the compliment, but with the asterisk that natsuko’s VA understood the assignment and SLAYED
The funny thing is that there are a lot of really solid actors for this dub too. It's just either the direction was terrible or the cast knew what they were working on and put in "just gimme the check" performances, which honestly adds to the ironic comedy aspect.
Evil Geoff for the win
@@mothersbasementBryn Aprill is just a really good VA.
It was already horrible in subs, thank you mothersbasment for showing me it gets so much worse with dub. I don't think it was possible.
I was morbidly curious so I checked it out (the whole series is available on a youtube playlist). You giving us the sparknotes made it infinitely easier to handle because holy crap I felt like I was experiencing a gas leak with the show's logic. Here are some golden moments that you will experience if you choose to watch it yourself:
1) When tossed the chainsaw, the guy who was going crazy had no idea how to turn it on. Natsuko had to take a minute to snap out of the crazy to teach him.
2) Everyone goes to heaven Wolf's Rain-style holding hands
3) The finger-breaking scene is even funnier than described. Natsuko attacks her best friend twice and is still forgiven.
4) The flashbacks happen as if they were Saturday morning cartoons with life lessons to just try and explain why doing anything is pointless and it's implied that characters keep proposing solutions but the protag keeps going 'no it's useless' over and over up until the final episode. He's just a constant bummer. If the flashbacks weren't happening you would realize that none of the current game members are even doing anything except standing around to be slaughtered.
5) The way characters talk is wildly inconsistent. They all act the same until it's the episode when they're about to die and then they emulate the same energy. It's hard for me to really describe other than 'every male VA starts sounding like a shounen protagonist and every female VA sounds like a tragic love interest'.
6) The computer guy's death was the most hilarious but frustrating thing ever. People were ordered not to cry and the protagonist just goes around telling people not to cry or look at their phones as if that would lessen anyone's anxiety about the situation. People that he calls just end up crying after being told not to, thus killing them even faster. The computer guy begs the protagonist to not let his crush cry before he goes........ and then the protag immediately interacts with her to let her know that he died and he loved her so she immediately cried.
7) There are several characters who do their own individual research but they're all doing it at the same time so nobody learns any new information-- except for the protag, again, who pretends like he's starting from ground up. There are moments when characters try to drop truth bombs on each other but since everyone knows the same information they just go "Yeah I heard that too" and move on.
8) The rabbit covered in jizz wasn't ever explained but there was a scene where Natsuko waved the keychain version of it around which was equally nasty and dirty. Apparently her sister used to have the stuffed animal rabbit and it was just some kind of confirmation that the protag was correct about them being related. I thought at first maybe that just meant the rabbit keychain was making them all sick and they were just idiots for a while.
9) When the protag's phone was stolen there were several moments when he both did and didn't know information that would only be from the phones. For example he DID know where to meet up from a group text Natsuko sent right down to the time, but he didn't know the rules of the next game.
10) The protagonist talks about 'the worst thing he's ever done' and it wasn't when he made his girlfriend assault his best friend-- it was just when he lied to the class about him knowing how to get out of the game to win the popularity contest. Sexual assault has zero consequence.
11) Natsuko is just... riding a guy when she calls the protag. Casually straddling the guy tweening-motioning up and down.
There is so, so much more. Please, I beg of you, suffer with me. Just try not to check out the comments because it's full of people thinking that it's the deepest spookiest anime in the world and it'll give you brain rot.
Oh yeah, it’s so good lmao. I actually watched this anime a WHILE ago when I first got into anime, and I remember thinking it was some “terrifying look into despair” or whatever, but I guess I was just an edgy teen. Looking back it’s one of the funniest anime out there without it even trying.
like 10+ kids offed themselves in 2 nights and the school still has classes?
If I'm not mistaken and remembering it right, in the live action movie/series (sorry I don't really remember which one), whenever a student died, they immediately ceased from existence. Like when two of the students refused to obey the King's order and were punished, their desks and chair just gone and their homeroom teacher don't recognize the two students' name, as if they never exist. I find that interesting and maybe the anime have the same premise?
Sorry for my bad grammar, English is not my first language.
@@nurnadhirahsaing6169 Faculty must think their school sucks to have so few students.
Easily the funniest and edgiest moment for me was Ria being on fire for like 2 minutes, having time to talk her backstory while this epic music plays in the background before she jumps off in true badass fashion. (While there was literally water around obviously) Peak moment of the anime.
I also refuse to believe the dub production recorded this without already thinking of it as an actual shitpost. At the same time, the fact the original JP voice actors were able to stay so serious throughout the show is just as impressive.
Honestly the thing I'm scared the most about now is that my furniture is gonna turn into plot convenient side-characters at any day..
if you want an anime where the dub cast knew it was bad, watch Ghost Stories. it is the first/probably only officially sanctioned by the animation studio parody dub. it's the full series but the dialogue reads like a hilarious abridged series. they were basically told that the only things they could not alter were how the ghosts worked with their folklore. all because by god this bombed and it was the only way the studio thought of to have it make money. props to them for that but they were also the geniuses who got a Jpop girl to sing a song called Sexy Sexy in an anime with a cast of elementary school kids... not joking. the parody dub has plenty of sex jokes.
@@jockpackage1770 Most of the lines are improvised as well, so it gives a look into the mindset of the dub cast.
yep @@jardex2275 i kind of wish more series did that, not everything will be a hit so doing that gives them a second chance of sorts to find an audience. the dub bloopers are also usually hilarious. or the rant video the English lead of Evangelion did to mock its ending.
this show has got to be top 5 unhealthiest relationships with sex as a concept of all time
Not gonna lie Natsuko's sudden swerve into batshit insanity is hilarious
Hearing the words "What are the fidget spinners for?" in a terrified voice is just the height of hilarity. Amazing
Timestamp?
@@gracequach676933:50 for the full bit, 34:02 for just the quote
@@undercookedtoast1479 thx
@@gracequach6769 np
If the kid was ordered to nominate six people to die and then die himself what's his incentive for actually following it? He's dead either way what reason does he have to take six other people with him?
Exactly, none, and I mean NONE of the rules make any sense. What was the point of sacrificing everybody if the game is just going to continue. Maybe the “King” entity is bored? Lol
You forgot, if he didn't, everyone was punished.
I'll give Bryn Apprill some credit. She sounds like she's having fun as Natsuko. She's been in a ton of good stuff in the dub scene as well.
I agree. She had some wide range from Qingque and Kobemi to Natsuko and Akeno.
@@jakey14344 Plus she's Krista from Attack on Titan!
bryn apprill is pretty great!
Has a pretty big role in Shy this season, actually. And absolutely kills it.
I'm disappointed but not surprised that it's actually how her name is spelled.
The discount Kyoko/Nagito bit absolutely sent me. What a vivid and yet still baffling description.
This show is proof that I've grown as a person, because when I was 17/18 I thought this was a gripping and thrilling story.
😮
I love how Natsuko's v/a *completely* changes her vocal performance the exact second the heel-turn happens. Like, you'd think she was suddenly voicing a completely different character, and boy is she having the time of her LIFE voicing that second character.
I also feel like it may not be a coincidence that the backstory of this ..."virus" has a decent amount in common with some of the truth behind the mysteries of Higurashi's curse, albeit filtered through the brain of someone who maybe didn't understand that the way *that* worked made sense as a plot element that was, mostly, separate from the supernatural elements of the story. And also was *consistent* about how it was used and who it affected.
That said, the original medium by which this story was told probably made it a hell of a lot more immersive/engaging than this anime adaptation does. Honestly, I'm glad that sort of serialization as a means of storytelling is coming back into fashion with things like Dracula Daily.
Wouldn't it be fun if Natsuko sounded like a crazy villainess from the moment she first appeared, while she was still acting like a normal teenager?
The youtuber Joseph Anderson like to make fun of the trope of psychopath having a completly different voice once it's revealed to the audience that they are crazy. It's a trope I never noticed before, but once someone point it out you notice it everywhere, like 95% of the time there's a "they were crazy all along twist" they start making a cliche deranged voice and it's so stupid.
19:32 The fact that he intervened to stop her from assaulting that guy yet stood still while she was being assaulted is baffling !
"what if final destination's parents were cousins" I laughed so hard at that omg
I've never commented here before but I'm delurking to say I'm glad you got this back up, and good luck!
Commenting here to share my love of that quip and that I too am delurking because of it
You know, this video caused me to do a thought experiment on how to "fix" this bad story. Not that I think I'm a good writer, its just one of those things you can do in hindsight because there actually is a nugget of a good story buried beneath all the shlock.
Like it's nihilistic but have a theme of "you can't run away from death" would actually work. You can delay it but ultimately death does eventually comes for everyone. And Nobuaki's desperation to prevent his own death translates until the game continuing. He literally becomes the virus.
And to go along with that, remove the dumbass twist of Chiemi and Natsuko being sisters because that literally felt like a last minute insertion on the author's part because he realized implications of his MC being the cause of everyone's deaths and decided that Natsuko was actually the one to infect everyone to absolve him.
I absolutely agree, King's Game could've been written SO much better than... this.
but didn't they say in the anime that Natsuko was in another game before that one? so wouldn't it just it be both her and Nobuaki being the ones infecting the others with the two trying to cope with their first game before their 2nd game came
There's a mecha anime called Bokurano, where a group of kids have to take turns piloting a mecha to fight against mecha from other universes; the losers' universe is destroyed, and regardless, the pilot will die, because the mech is powered by their life force. So all the main characters know they're going to die soon, but don't know exactly when, and dealing with that is part of the plot.
This shows that you could do a death game where everyone is definitely doomed and make it work, as long as the writing is actually good.
"Did Sneako direct this" Now I got the kings message and am literally dying.
Listen...I know people's opinions on Danganronpa are pretty divided (I have a deep personal love for it, despite the glaring flaws) but you guys have to admit that it pulls off the zany-to-horrifying balance of this genre _really_ well. It's stylish, larger than life, aware of its campiness (in the games at least) and the characters, like them or not, are actually interesting and contribute something to the story they're in. Danganronpa is _fun_ , which makes the dark parts hit way harder. It really feels like this author wanted to emulate it (seriously, tragedy being spread via Dawkins' meme theory was an actual thing in the anime) but fundamentally misunderstood what people love about it.
I fuckin love danganronpa. Kodaka’s writing hits a perfect sweet spot between absurd comedy and twisted tragedy. if you haven’t checked out his anime Akudama Drive yet, you should. it’s just as fun.
@@mothersbasement oh dang, I'll have to check it out! Akudama Drive totally slid under my radar. Thanks, Geoff!
Well, if you combine problem-solving Kyoko with problem-causing Nagito, you get problem rotating door Kokishi. Comparing Kokichi's actions to Kyoko's makes me realize that Kyoko was damn lucky to have Makoto in her game.
just Makoto being a luck merchant as per usual 🍀
Kyoko == Kokichi == Nagito
*WOW*
XD
As is well-known among us entities of a higher plane, the spelling "Geoff" is for good, holy beings while "Jeff" is for evil incarnate. I propose that Evil Geoff is actually spelled Evil Jeff.
Oh yeah, that’s the lore now
I went to school with a cool guy named Geoff and another guy named Jeff who was a dick. I also accept this as canon
I'd like to point out that if Natsuko ALSO survived a previous game, then even if Nobuaki did decide to end the game and take the punishment that, Natsuko still did continue the game herself and would have infected the class with the kings game virus regardless of Nobuaki's decision.
I should probably add to this that since multiple instances of the game clearly exist, then it's highly unlikely that any one game will ever truly end unless the king contrives to have every single survivor compete in one final iteration.
So my big question is, if there's always only ever one survivor... how did this game have two previous survivors participate? How in the world did the game split into several iterations in the first place? Basically, nothing anyone can do will end it, it just does whatever it wants. This whole premise is utterly pointless!
@@CWTyger I think that was supposed to be the genetic part. There were 2 sisters and each one created an iteration because it's a virus but also a genetic conditions. And a computer virus. And a ghost.
Presumably the 'reveal' in the cliffhanger that was never made would have been a cousin or somthing of the 'carriers'. Or an iteration the father started or something.
This anime just keeps coming up with ways to be pointless!
@@rebeccaliar9873 I have never seen an anime fail more hard than this one.
You know, that bit at the end with the protagonist basically dooming everyone because he keeps acting like there's a way for people to survive could actually be a really interesting plot device. If, you know, it was implemented with even a shred of competency. I imagine there's a parallel world where this isn't dogshit and they go a sort of Talentless Nana route with it where the protag is clearly a villain all along and his whole schtick is that he has to manipulate everyone into thinking he's some kind of messiah that can get them all through it.
But, then we wouldn't get to see crazy people sex, so I guess that's an L.
It kinda reminds me of this one scene in Danganronpa V3. At the beginning there is a ridiculously hard platforming section where Monokuma says you have to make through in order to escape the killing game. Kaede gives an inspirational hope speech about being able to make it through but after failing so many times, Kokichi chastised her for trying to inspire people to fail over and over again.
"oh my god I didn't die, Im so happy! :D"
"Alright let me leave the room real quick and get us drinks"
Ok that sequence got me
It would have worked better if the characters thought they were safe because the clock on the wall said 12:03, so he's past the time when the King said he'd kill himself, but just after he left the room someone checked their phone and realized _the clock was five minutes fast!_
This series is like a fever dream. There's like nothing funnier than mentioning this "terrible horror anime I watched that turned out to be a comedy actually" and learning other people know it. It's a gift that keeps giving. Either you curse someone with its knowledge and laugh at their reactions or you can laugh with someone else who already knows over the ridiculousness of it. God bless you for spreading this. thing, to more people JHJDFDXG
If I remember right, in the live-action movie the ending was that Natsuko was still the sole survivor of her old school’s game, but that the King wiped her memory afterwards. She survives the present game as well, gets memory wiped again, and the cycle continues at a new school, making the ending actually tragic because she doesn’t WANT to keep the game going but the curse doesn’t give her a choice.
Still a better and more sympathetic route than “nah I’ll go to another class anyway.”
I thought it was Chiemi who survived
There's a live action!? 😭
@@caramel_frappeYes. Ousama Game was adapted into a Live-Action low-budget Japenese film released in the early 2000's but changes the source material but has better execution in my opinion. Also, the protagonist in the movie was Chiemi (Nobuaki's girlfriend), not Natsuko (she doesn't appear in the movie).
@@caramel_frappe Yeah, and it have the same plot with some altercations. I never watch the movie but used to watched a RUclips review video about it.
- He watched the anime, and he died.
- Then and there?
- No, about eighteen years later. It's a thing about watching the anime, you never know when it's gonna take effect.
The whole King's game: virus/computer virus/meme/ genetic disorder would actually make sense if this anime was part of the metal gear universe. I'm not joking everyone would nanomachines inside them, which would explain why the king's game can be hacked, infect people, passed on both genetically and via MEMES. Yes... it all makes sense now.... its NANOMACHINES SON!
It would be kind of amusing if this turns out to be the result of a WILDLY mutated strain of that weird fungus-virus from MGS5 that got transplanted to Japan and kept being developed until it turned into THIS, and it ends with them using nano-machines to combat the virus when it breaks out into a new King's Game... but maybe that's just what I'm telling myself because I now want to see an alternative scenario where Raiden shows up with a katana to like... cut the virus. Somehow.
Still dumb, but at least it'd be better than this!
They were all sons of patriots all along
@@goranisacson2502 All the nanomachines that make up the game/virus flow out of their victims' bodies, combine with eachother until they turn into the big puppet thing and Raiden slices it in half with a katana.
Japans ultimate dues ex machina. Thank you Hideo Kojima, very cool.
I had this thought as well
33:25
"Oh, Dear!"
"What is it?"
"I Spontaneously Combusted."
"Oh, I am sorry."
"Oh, it's quite alright, I've grown tired of living."
"Ah, very good then."
"For the best."
"Indeed."
"Is it raining again?"
Honestly, the premise of a Death Game survivor getting roped back into another would've been an interesting angle. That is, the aftermath, the trauma and having to go through it all over again. In that respect, skipping over the first Volume might have worked... if they actually had the right amount of episodes or even ended Season 1 on a cliffhanger so as to spread it across a potential two cour.
Danganronpa V
Ultimate Survivor
Basically both just Danganronpa 3 and Danganronpa V3 then.
Although 3s death game was technically achievable without any deaths, it just happened that way as an excuse to get the Ultimate Animator to make a super Hope animation that would probably fuck over the world just as hard.
Catching Fire took that premise with an All Star Special for the Hunger Games
I mean it's such a no-brainer that even *the* Battle Royale, that started the whole Death Game genre, had a character that survived a previous game. This book is 50+ years old and there's still not many survivor characters that can even compare to that guy in character depth
The best part of the video was all the different ways Geoff somehow found to describe the one thing my League teammates tell me to do when I go 0/1 in lane.
So happy to see this back up!! Good work everyone! Hopefully this stays up. 🎉
yh what happened?
got my fingers crossed!
omg im glad i wasn't hallucinating when i swear i saw the thumbnail for this video and when my browser refreshed it was gone i thought i imagined it
@@mothersbasement What was the issue with the 1st upload then? copyrighted Music?
Oooo lol I was watching it and it got cut mid viewing. Yt don’t play at all
When i watched this anime years ago i was completely caught off guard when they explained that all was caused by a biological virus evolving into a computer virus
I remember shouting to the screen: are you fricking kidding me!? Thats not how viruses work!! Thats not how anything works!!
It's called plot
Someone gotta do a Pitch meeting for this
You can suspend you only so much before it becomes absolute bullshit.
I'd say the part where the girl throws herself out the window is funny for three reasons.
1. Her celebrating too early.
2. Her throwing herself out the window despite NOT wanting to die.
3. Her incredibly benign punishment.
4. Despite looking like she exploded onto a huge splash of blood on impact, she survived the fall for several hours.
5. Also the directing of face-paper-face-paper shots that makes me kinda expect some parody video clip to start.
You know... Seeing "Evil" Geoff at the end use the self-deprecating sign-off that you haven't used in a while... Honestly real clever writing as a long-time viewer. Happy to have been here all this time!
The worst thing is that the premise could lead to a very interesting story if used correctly:
1 - Make the game something 100% supernatural, instead of this mess of viruses and Memes.
2 - Make the origin of the game be an ancient curse passed down from generation to generation, which adapts to the current era, Jumanji style.
3 - Make decent characters.
4 - Reduce the blood and guts and make deaths simple and quick, to really show how fragile human life can be.
5 - Make the story revolve around themes of self-sacrifice, the good of the many against the good of the few, fear of death and how there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.
...What would the ending be like? I have no idea, I'm not a writer, but it would definitely be better than this one.
If there isn't a chainsaw fight at the end I ain't watching it.
I second this list.
I remember As the Gods Will manga was fairly good with the supernatural premise and characters. I remember it being fairly gory though. It has been a while since I read it so I can’t say whether it holds up or not.
You know, there is a manga with very similar premise. It's called Kamiisama no iiutori and while the ending is kinda ass, it does do the whole death game thing much better. Sadly, it only got a live action movie adaptation.
I can't help thinking Real Account did the whole meme virus thingy (or whatever was going on there) better. Which is one hell of a thought, honestly (Real Account was pure trash, but in a good way. Both self aware and rather genuine) I legitimately love it
Sounds like you want them to have /another/ try
I don't think I'll ever be over the scene with the computer virus ending in the girl just being lit on fire. It was so funny it was just completely unbelievable
hacker dies of HCF instruction, literally. The show once again accidentally did something hilarious.
Guess she hit a firewall.
The fact that one of the kids has the same dub VA as Deku makes me laugh in hilarity.
And that Daisuke kid who Luigi’d himself in that flashback is just Asta.
I KNEW I HEARD THAT VOICE FROM SOMEWHERE!
It's actually pretty cool seeing him in older dubs like this. Man really went up in the world.
Nobuaki's GF also happens to be Kaguya herself. She'd rather be with Miyuki whose brother lost an arm and a leg than Nobuaki who's a super delulu about being a hero.
@@angrybrony This show is... newer than My Hero Academia though?
@@Irisverse wait....fuck i thought this shit was from the 2000's with animation like that.
Sees title: "Could it be? A death game worse than King's Game?"
Starts video: "Oh, damn, it IS King's Game."
I feel like a lot of this shows problems could be solved if they went for the supernatural angle. Some guy in the village was shunned for Reasons, so he uses his Big Brain to combine an advanced A.I, a dark ritual, and a demon that was sealed up several thousand years ago. The demon uses their new found freedom to kill a whole bunch of people locally, leading to the o.g guy to actually regret the carnage, leading to the confession letter. The whole thing got into the wild word because the people that came to clean up had an open network phone, so the demon bundle jumped to that, spreading over the web, randomly activating when the demon gets hungry for more victims.
That Geoff managed to act through that entire outro without bursting out laughing is honestly impressive
How many tries did it take
The writers of the dub script should be awarded the Nobel prize for literature
I always am left wondering if the voice actors at least have fun with shows like this, because I don't know how much is enough to actually be paid to dub it
From what I understand, it is usually pretty common for actors and voice actors to quickly realized they are on a terrible show and usually either ham it up for fun or just try to get it over with. It sucks, but it pays the bills and puts dinner on the table.
Wait... how'd she write her suicide note in the sand if she's blind??
Yeah…
very easily us blind people still know how to write? lol
Katakana is easy enough?
XD
And how do you even off yourself by walking into the ocean anyways?
@@allengordon6929 going far enough to drown... Which should be a long walk, especially while BLIND...
Feeling like Minecraft Logic already
33:55 How fucking unaware of sex do you have to be to think that fidget spinners are sex toys? Unless the author or animator had something REALLY kinky in mind when making that scene? Either way, absolutely hilarious!
The absolute horror in Geoff's voice when he asks what the fidget spinners are for is so fcuking funny
Legit horror
Apparently the girl with the white hair was sexually abused as a kid so guess it supposed to be juxtaposition of her childhood innocence against the gross abuse she experienced… which still begs the question why they chose a fidget spinner as the toy that would represent childhood innocence rather than something like a doll or a plushie or toy vehicle or something else more commonly associated with childhood innocence.
His Mortified Facial Expression in conjunction with his Tone of Voice makes it even funnier.
"The King's Game is very, very real!!" that was convincing
The meme/virus/genetics/whatever twist regarding the cause of the kings game reminds me of the original Ring novels, where Sadako's "die 7 days after watching the VHS tape" curse was actually a psychically mutated strain of smallpox, that then mutates further into a strain that also alters the DNA of any ovulating women, and then all that actually just happened in a VR world but now the virus has escaped into the real world and mutated even further into a super cancer, and _I SWEAR_ I didn't make any of this up.
The curse of overexplaning in horror really sucks
One of those situations where the attempt to find a scientific explanation is genuinely more bonkers than the supernatural.
@@Brasswatchman the books have Sadako being the child of a sea deity, yet the science is what sounds unrealistic most of the and I find that hilarious
I'm so glad the (non-Rasen) movies skipped the sci-fi elements to make them almost purely supernatural (tho that didn't stop them from making completely unnecessary convoluted additions to Sadako, looking at you, weird good and evil sadako twins from Birthday)
What the fuck did I just read
You know, that could actually be a halfway decent twist in a series that was fully written to make it hit as hard as humanly possible, and actually managed to *spoilers* construct Natsuko Honda as a genuine hero trying to end the game who is taken for a suicidal sadist until the final reveal. There is an actual opportunity here to plant clues that we should be thinking about these characters differently, even if the final message would have been very strange.
To be honest, like - her monologue at the end about how, if her classmates were doomed to die, she wanted them to die by her hand because at least she loved them enough to make it quick - there was something genuinely compelling there! But it gets bogged down in the midst of all the other absurdity.
“You and me are over! I’m bored! You’re an idiot!” 😂😂😂 what a way to break up with someone!
"What if Final Destination's parents were cousins."
Eloquent as always Geoff. Love your work as always.
Can I just take a moment to highlight how insane Ria's death is? As in, not that it's good, but that I'm pretty sure the person who wrote it was legitimately insane.
Okay, so let's just buy the thought that this mind virus can force you to self-immolate. Already a stretch, sure. But then, as if to cool herself off, she takes off her jacket as if to just to show off all the totally RUclips friendly reasons she has all those scars. And, for some reason, instead of taking the obvious way out (just making the fire too bright to draw details on Ria), some animator thought "yeah, just keep the underwear on until she stands gets up to throw herself over the cliff".
Ria became the living embodiment of the "This is fine" meme for a moment and it's probably the highlight of the show.
Clearly the virus controls the powerhouse of the cell. It is the only explanation for why Ria self-immolated.
It's a shame she didn't get to show more people her Human Torch cosplay.
I did the unthinkable. I paused the video, watched all the 12 episodes in less than 24 hours and then came back to finish it.
I don't feel like I'm in heaven because I want to get out of here
One of the funniest things not mentioned in the video is the fact that the protag-kun's Japanese VA is Mamoru Miyano (the voice of Light Yagami, Okabe Rintaro, Ling Yao, etc, etc). What a show to add to the resume.
I like the part where the guy got virused into his head just twisting around and spinning. But like... You'd think this would have gone on the news at some point and people would know about it
Fun fact: in the manga adaptation, the cops are actually investigating this case, but they are totally irrelevant to the story.
@@elnaoya9274 Not an adaptation.
What really gets me is how he was still able to talk.
Honestly this show has a vastly better dub than it deserves. I remember back when TFS was doing their weekly anime review show (Anime FMK) they would talk about the absolute insanity that was King's Game. I see they were not exaggerating.
This thing makes Future Diary seem perfectly reasonable on all fronts.
I have just now remembered how spontaneous combustion girl was on fire for like a solid 30 minutes before she fell over the side of the dam, like pretty sure if your whole body is on fire for that long things start to... Burn? I also remembered how much my partner and I laughed through that entire scene over how it just kept going and she continued to just not burn!
As a LEET hacker girl, her mind is super logical and thus resistant to the hypnosis effects of the memetic computer viral infection. Not resistant enough to not be on fire, but enough to only be on fire a little bit all over for a long time until she dies.
I assume.
It's because she had a firewall installed.
I read the manga years ago and thought it was pretty silly, but good fun. When everyone said the anime adaptation was terrible I thought it was just because the manga wasn't exactly a work of art, but I can't believe how much WORSE they made it
Oh, what did they change?
@kariissmol9172 I also read it but a while ago, so I'll likely get some details wrong.
I don't think Natsuko's character even exists in the manga. The final race challenge also isn't present. The detective girl is also introduced a lot sooner. She plays the same "smart aloof girl that progresses the investigation" role but she's more present in general.
The rest is pretty similar.
Perhaps the most underrated bit of insanity here is the fact they turned the first volume into flashbacks. Stories kind of work best if they start at the beginning?
If there were simply rules that the king had to abide by it would save this whole thing by putting restraints on the writer.
It's really fair to compare this to Death Note, but part of what kept that going as long as it did is both the holders of the death note trying to figure out clever to exert power while staying within the rules and the anti-Kira's trying to figure out what limits existed on the mystery killer(s) either mandatory or self-imposed.
Having the king being this undefined supernatural force with no restrictions that is also somehow perpetuated as a weird kind of disease that spreads without any agency by the king is just directionless nonsense that will eventually be explained by a deus ex machina conclusion with a million loose ends.
32:32 Oh my god, did the author name the main character after himself?? What an amazing little cherry on top of the perfect shit sandwich (no it doesn’t even get to be a sundae)
Edit: lmaooo
I mean the guy has three girls fall in forever love with him over the course of like, two weeks, of course he's the author's self insert. Wouldn't be surprised to hear that the hacker girl was also into him.
I remember years ago when I tried watching Another, and that show felt like each episode was written by starting with the death scene and working backwards. But at least the voice acting and animation was clean and competent. King's Game is Another except the director is spiking the entire production team's coffee maker with ketamine and the writing room has a life sized Gasai Yuno statue on full display
I would suggest the book Another, that is actually decent written and waaaay better then the anime or manga!
I love how you find so much joy you manage to get when you watch one of these things, as you turn those rotted like a jack o lantern on Thanksgiving lemons into a medicinal lemonade spread among others to spare them of the pain you endured
Wait so the virus... Writes letters.... Before deciding to use texting? Why? How? What?!
In the prequel manga back when the king's game was just a virus with magical origins it mind controlled someone to make the order letters. When the game went digital that stopped and it...figured out how to use electronics, I guess.
@@sodapop-rockstar now I just wanna know what cell carrier it uses, and if it has an unlimited text plan or not.
@@sodapop-rockstarwhat? It's a virus! Virus don't control minds like that. All it can do is force a extremely specific type of victim to execute a specific set of pre-coded instructions in whatever manner the victim has available to achieve said instructions. And it certainly doesn't DIRECTLY AND INSTANTANEOUSLY INTERACT with the proceedings! That requires the active intelligence of an actual entity! What nonsense