Manga Review: Deadman Wonderland #2 by Jinsei Kataoka &Kazuma Kondou
Ganta Igarashi’s life sucks. First, his entire junior high classroom is murdered by a being called “Red Man”, then Ganta as the sole survivor is framed for the crime. He’s sentenced to life imprisonment in Deadman Wonderland, a for-profit prison built on the ruins of Tokyo and run as a tourist attraction. The prisoners are forced to entertain visitors with various dangerous contests to earn “cast points” to buy essentials and luxuries, and “candy” which is a temporary antidote to a poison they’ve been given.
On the bright side, Ganta has made a couple of friends, the kleptomaniac Yo, and the white haired girl named Shiro. Shiro’s a bit of a mystery–she obviously knows Ganta from childhood, but he doesn’t remember her at all, and Shiro’s not in the prison databases.
At the beginning of this volume, Ganta’s in the infirmary recovering from a deadly race during which he suddenly exhibited strange powers-powers that remind him of the Red Man! Other prisoners’ gossip suggests that the Red Man may be locked away in Ward G, a part of the prison that isn’t on the maps.
Ganta and his friends go in search of Ward G, but the guards release a “capture” robot codenamed Necro Macro. Just as things are looking most dire, a new face shows up and destroys the robot. But he’s not a friend, but an attacker known as Crow, who wants to challenge Ganta, calling him “Woodpecker!”
Ganta’s strange power activates again, but the authorities catch up and stop the match, as it was planned for tomorrow. Yo and Shiro are returned to the main prison, while Ganta is taken into Ward G.
Exposition time! Turns out Ward G is where the “Deadmen” are kept, people who can turn their blood into a weapon, like Crow, Ganta and probably the Red Man. This is kept secret even from the regular prison guards. In an event known as “Corpse Carnival”, the Deadmen are pitted against each other in duels for the amusement of the extremely wealthy, who wager on the duels. It also turns out that Tamaki, the “promoter” who runs Ward G, is the alleged “defense attorney” who represented Ganta in his rigged murder trial.
While Yo and Shiro try to find a way into Ward G, the battle between Crow and Woodpecker begins. Can Ganta survive when he doesn’t even know how his power works?
This combination of dystopian YA fiction and battle manga was moderately successful, getting a translation from Tokyopop and spawing a short anime.
About the best thing this series has is the notion of hemokinesis as the central power gimmick. It lends itself to nifty if gory visuals, and establishes some limits to what the Deadmen can do.
Like many dystopias, however, the elaborate setup of Deadman Wonderland seems highly implausible. The sheer reliance on human cruelty at every step of creating a theme park prison, plus the super cruel area even the guards are in the dark about? And it’s all been set up within the last ten years! Just thinking about how many people had to sign off on this project breaks my suspension of disbelief.
And Ganta’s a stock boys’ manga lead at this point in the story. Spiky-haired, woefully under-informed and slow on the uptake, but has a stubborn personality and never gives up. Shiro’s a much more visually interesting character, but her…odd…behavior seems likely to lead to some reveals later on that could be iffy on the mental health stereotypes level.
Content notes: gory violence, torture, mutilation. Shiro’s skintight leotard is supposed to be skin-colored, making her look nude. A trans character dresses in lingerie as daywear, which makes me suspect transphobia coming up in future volumes.
Recommended with caveats for fans of dystopian battle manga.
Here’s the opening theme of the anime!
