English Dub Review: Darwin’s Game; “Aquarium”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Kaname and Rein team up with Hiiragi, their former enemy, along with another unexpected ally, to take on a much bigger, impending threat coming their way. 

Our Take

Kaname has a dream where he meets his deceased friend, Kyoda, wherein he questions his friend’s motives for playing Darwin’s Game. Kyoda states that it was the amount of money you can win as a reward; a common rationale that Kaname will continue to encounter in the future. And just like those other people, Kaname chides Kyoda for this, ever averse to the great danger the game presents. Although this scene is brief and simple, it’s a good checkpoint for Kaname, serving as a moment to grieve, vent his frustration, and reflect on his journey thus far. 

But like all dreams, we must wake up and face the mundane. 

Anticipating the arrival of Wang and his Eighth clan, Kaname and Rein have formed an impromptu alliance with The Florist, whose name is Hiiragi. Wanting to bolster their numbers further, they attempt to enlist the aid of the man in the juggernaut armor that Kaname had encountered earlier. At first, he refuses, but once he hears that the Eighth clan is en route, he quickly changes his tune and joins for reasons not yet known. His name is Ryuji, and he is as mysterious as his face is unassuming. 

Speaking of Wang and the Eighth clan, the man in question reveals a hidden aspect of this treasure hunt event: the fact that all players of the game can interact with the players in the event, though still unable to formally participate. This is a technicality that will surely spell disaster for our new alliance. But as critical as this technicality seems, in truth, it’s far from the biggest one discovered this episode. 

Kaname’s new alliance is proceeding along, surprisingly, rather amicably and fairly. As the apparent leader, Kaname is judicious and measured in directing the conversation and taking everybody’s opinions into account. When dividing the loot, he freely agrees to give enough rings to win to the people who refused to join and even gives a majority of the remaining rings to Hiiragi for doing most of the heavy lifting. I’m a bit surprised that this thrown-together clan is functioning so cordially. The impending threat of being killed by a band of thugs probably inspires some cohesion, but one would think there would still be some headbutting present.

As they’re calmly discussing matters of life or death, Rein takes the time to point out some inconsistencies in the value of the points each ring is worth in relation to their correlating gem. This leads to a further examination of the event rules, where, more pertinently, they realize that it states the existence of a clear condition but does not specify it in any way. This triggers a wild bout of speculation, none of which they can do anything with right now. This section of the episode feels like it takes up a majority of its runtime; a rather bland conversation that attempts to pick apart and discover new aspects of the event, but, for the most part, accomplishes very little. 

While the hotel gang is droning on about semantics, Shuka is out and about piling up the rings and the body count. She’s en route to join and bolster Kaname’s clan when she encounters a new threat. A little boy attacks her with the ability to control water and ice, and outmatches, captures, and drowns her. This little gremlin’s ability to control every aspect of water is fairly comprehensive and is probably the most powerful person we’ve seen thus far; yet another seemingly-almost-too-strong elemental power. 

Shuka sends out a distress text to Kaname, who heads out to help her, accompanied by Ryuji. Kaname and Ryuji have an informative conversation about their Sigils. Evidently, there are certain objects Kaname’s Sigil cannot duplicate, such as cars or smartphones. Basically, anything too large or too complex, which is to say, anything too narratively convenient for him to make and deus ex machina himself out of. Ryuji’s Sigil makes him a human lie detector, which seems underwhelming, but will no doubt be useful in all of the conversations everyone likes to have before and during battles in this show. 

As they approach Shuka’s last known location, they find a little girl who is unmistakably the exact same person as the little boy who attacked Shuka. Psychotic, androgynous, super-powered little kids with multiple personalities are the best anime trope. It doesn’t take long for this encounter to devolve as they find a nearby subway tunnel that has been flooded. The increasingly bold and unperturbed Kaname disrobes and dives in to try and save Shuka. We’re at about the halfway point for this season, so the fate of our heroine is most likely secure. 

While Kaname and Ryuji are out on their rescue mission, Rein makes the most intriguing discovery yet. Upon each ring is a QR code that outputs a number on a colored label in the AR camera. This leads to yet another round of speculating, though the underlying truth being excavated here is by far the most demanding question, with what seems like the most complex answer underneath. 

This treasure hunt event arc is certainly taking up a lot more time than I had expected of a season with effectively only ten episodes. It seems like we’ll be sticking with it for most of them, if not all of them.