English Dub Review: King’s Game “Begin Again (Break Again)”

Crap, some idiot got the Death Note again…

Overview (Spoilers)

Nobuaki is a transfer student with a loner streak. More like an entire loner paint job. He tries very hard to push everyone away, even the loveable Natsuko. She’s just a bright ray of sunshine, even though her parents died just a little while ago. The class wants to go out of their way to make Nobuaki feel welcome. They even make him part of the team for the relay race at the school festival. After that race, he feels like he might be able to open up to them. Maybe things will go back to normal for him. Maybe things won’t turn to hell like the last… Too late. Nobuaki gets a text. It contains a series of rules and a demand. He has to kiss Natsuko in the next 24 hours, or both of them will die. He tries desperately to convince his class to take this “King’s Game” seriously. They don’t take kindly to his attempts, thinking he is making a joke in poor taste. Despite the fact that she obviously likes him, and she’s really easy on the eyes, he refuses to kiss her. He’s still carrying a torch for his girlfriend, who may or may not have had her life ended by the King’s Game. Oh, yes. This is a very real thing. Shortly after she surprises him with a kiss at the stroke of midnight, both of them receive texts about the other students who didn’t do as they were told. They were all hanged by a mysterious force simultaneously. The class gathers to talk about the happenings, but things turn nasty for Nobuaki. He reveals that his last class was all killed by the Kings Game, and he was the only survivor. If this was true, then that means he willfully put Natsuko’s life on the line for his own death wish. The boys of the class are about to curb stomp him, when the class gets another text. Hideki Toyoda, the leader of the beatdown committee, has been sentenced to punishment by bleeding to death. Then and there, his body breaks out into bloody blisters, and all of his blood vessels burst in front of his classmates. The King’s Game has begun again, and already, the class has been cut by a third.

King’s Game is the anime based off of a cell phone novel. Parts of the story were transmitted to readers by text. This only made the story more frightening, as you received the story the same way the players received their commands. The focus of the original story was on the social effects these commands were having on the kids. For example, one of the commands we saw briefly on screen was for two of the students to hook up. Since they survived the day, they obviously did it. However, she had a boyfriend, and he didn’t take too kindly to that. We can see in this episode that the fear the King’s Game brings draws out the worst in humanity. This makes me wonder how the story would have played out if it was an Alternate Reality Game? Strike that. It would probably end up with some real-world terror that we really don’t need.

Our Take

To start off with, this show gives me many of the same vibes as Future Diary and Death Note. That’s a good thing, as I read the manga of both rapturously until the anime came out. Both stories were dark and twisted, exploring the nasty side of psychology. This one is a bit more about the shadows of sociology, and how far you are willing to go to avoid death. Is this sadistic game all about testing your will to survive, or is it about studying your reaction to an inevitable, horrible death? How would you react to the King’s demands? Will you turn on your classmates, and plot towards forcing them to fail at all costs? I was on the edge of my seat for most of this grotesque murder show, even though I kinda figured out what would end up happening. I still feel that they revealed the King’s game element a little too early in the episode. In the opening moments, we see him having a dream of his girlfriend literally falling to pieces. after the text tells her sentence. I feel that if they hadn’t revealed that so soon, the mystery around Nobuaki would have been a bit more shaded. As it is, we can figure out pretty quick as to why he’s a loner. His girlfriend died, and it seemed pretty paranormal. If this dream sequence was left out, we would have had an episode where he was completely unknown to us. I feel like it would have made him a bit more interesting.

The voice acting is tense, and rightly so. We’ve got quite the cast lined up for this anime, as every one of the 32 students got some face time. I appreciated how they all brought their A-game to the party. I can’t tell who is going to last and who isn’t since everyone’s voice actors are working so hard. I feel, however, that Bryn Apprill was slightly off as a casting choice. Not to say she performed poorly! Not at all! However, her voice just didn’t feel right for Natsuko’s look and personality. It sounded as if she was older. Perhaps we will get more from her as the series goes on, and her “older sound” will come to make sense. In the meantime, though, it sounded off.

The art and animation are pretty standard fare. Mainstream as far as linework and level of detail… until you get to the deaths. Those are almost too detailed. Nobuaki manages to save one classmate from hanging, but only after the punishment began. The resulting face Tsubasa was making after surviving it was horrific. This show is not for the faint of heart, but if you can stand it, you are in for a nail-biter.