Bryce's Blog

Surprisingly, I visited Borders again recently. It is not surprising that I did go to a bookstore, but my find there was interesting. I had every intention of seeing if they had either Cage of Eden and/or Bloody Monday. However, and expectedly, they did not have either. I say expectedly, since they are shutting down and ten days remained from when I made my recent visit, so of course they should not have any new titles. Instead I found something is probably going to be rare, which is the English edition of Deadman Wonderland volume 4. It could be rare because TokyoPop, the one that held the license for the English edition went under. Anyway, I thought I would post a review of it today.

What is it about? A boy named Ganta Igarashi is just an ordinary person who goes to school and is a big fan of a main attraction that had been opened sometime after a great earthquake happened. The attraction is known as Deadman Wonderland, which provides entertainment and is also a privately run prison. One day, a being in a suit with a helmet covering its face appeared in front of a window in Ganta’s classroom. The being kills everyone in Ganta’s class, except for Ganta himself, who somehow survived. Afterwards, he is arrested for the deaths of his classmates and sent to Deadman Wonderland with a death sentence. Now, he will not only start learning the truth of Deadman Wonderland, but desires revenge against the being he calls the red man.

In this book, Ganta meets a group of inmates that want to break out of Deadman Wonderland and expose its inhumane treatment towards prisoners, at least the deadmen, who occupy G-ward. In order to do this, they plan to take advantage of the week in which the prison goes through inspection. However, things are not going to be easy, since an enemy is in their midsts.

The volume was pretty decent, I did enjoy the breakout attempt. Even though I read these chapters before, I was still surprised that the data chip had a bomb. It was also good to see that Ganta was trying to keep Shiro from getting involved, even though he was not aware yet that Shiro was the one he was searching for the entire time. Shiro is still acting like a kid, but she definitely did something good by saving Ganta from the blast. The breakout and Shiro’s rescue were interesting, even having read them before

The volume is not perfect though. For example, when Ganta is introduced to the members of Scar Chain, the name of the group of inmates from earlier, who all desire freedom, they introduce themselves as Skull Chain, but later, they refer to themselves as Scar Chain. Ok, I have done name changes during stories before, but TokyoPop was idiot for letting something like this go through. Either use Skull Chain throughout or Scar Chain throughout. Do not use one then change immediately to the other. Only do it when necessary, and nothing in the storyline of Deadman Wonderland suggests a name change. Minor errors are allowed in things, but this is not a minor error. Outside of that, there was not much wrong with the volume, but it did take down the volume quality-wise. Unnecessary name changes take quality down.

Even though the breakout attempt and Shiro’s rescue were good, I am a little undecide whether or not that this was worth it, due to an inconsistency in names by TokyoPop, who no longer exists anyway. For now, I will say check it out for continuity’s sake, but otherwise, steer clear of the TokyoPop translation of this volume.