English Dub Review: King’s Game “Demise (End | Grudge)”

THAT IS NOT HOW CHAINSAWS WORK!

Overview (Spoilers)

The group runs to the summit, but with only one minute left, they run into Natsuko. Nobuaki tackles her to give them an opportunity, and she grabs hold of his ankle to hold him and Aimi there. Off screen, he kicks her a couple times to get her off. Everyone arrives at the summit, but they realize that many more should have already been there. Natsuko admits she met them, but only sideways admits to getting them killed. Now that they have all been confirmed at the top, a new order come out: They must chop off each other’s body parts and make a human-shaped doll. Instantly, Ryou hits Nobuaki over the head with a rock, to keep him from participating. Instead, Ryou volunteers as tribute, but how to go about it? Luckily, Natsuko whips a chainsaw out of nowhere. He takes it, and starts to chop off his leg, but it gets stuck on the bone. Natsuko helps him, but he dies from shock and blood loss. Now, Natsuko sets her sights on chopping off bits of Nobuaki. Aimi attacks her to protect him, but gets a sudden chainsaw to the gut for her troubles. Now that the side characters are out of the way, Riona decides that instead of getting rid of the crazy evil chick, they should work together and share their collections of syllables from the kill messages from the King. Once assembled, the syllables reveal a secret: The only way to stop the King’s Game is for nobody to survive the game. Nobuaki can’t believe it, and hopes to find a way that they can survive this. Natsuko snaps (further) and attacks him. As she chokes him, she reveals her reasoning behind being a sociopath the whole series. To be honest, it makes no sense, and is totally counter-intuitive. She’s basically just crazy. Riona picks up the chainsaw and shoves it in Natsuko’s back. As the pair embrace and Riona leans in for a kiss, Natsuko somehow gets up and gives Nobuaki a sudden chainsaw to the throat! This bit of energy expiring she dies. Nobuaki exchanges some words with Riona before he dies as well. She carries his body into the ocean and drowns herself in the hopes that she can end the game.

She doesn’t. A new class receives the text, and the King’s Game begins again. It says “To Be Continued”. I hope not.

Our Take

Oh, wow. This episode just plummeted off the edge of stupidity. Most of that is centered around that chainsaw. Where did it come from? These are obviously old ruins, and that is a pristine, new chainsaw. Obviously didn’t come from there. Did Natsuki bring it? Never saw that as she ran. Why bring it as if you planned for this whole situation? Why is it that this chainsaw can start up instantly upon use? Nobody sees this thing coming, but chainsaws are freaking huge and loud.

And, we’re just getting started. So, despite getting her back gouged up, and her spinal chord shredded, Natsuko is able to stand up for one more attack like a classic horror movie monster. Then, despite having his throat turned into a puree, Nobuaki carries on a normal conversation. That front part of your neck? That’s where air comes in and out of your lungs. If that gets made into a meat smoothie, then the air can’t be pushed out through your mouth properly to allow you to talk. At all. Explain also for me, why was it necessary to censor his gaping neck wound in one shot, but leave it in after he’s dead? It’s the same wound, and you have shown far more grisly stuff in previous episodes.

Then, we have everything Natsuko says in this entire episode. She tries to say she was being a manipulative sociopath in order to push the group to be stronger and maybe survive this. Nope. No, you did exactly the opposite. She claims in her final moments that she loves Nobuaki. Again, that’s exceptionally doubtful. You have tried multiple times to get him murdered. Now, this could all just be considered the rantings of a lunatic, except that we have a brief moment of Nobuaki in heaven with all the good people he’s known. Natsuko is there, and everyone is okay with that. Are you serious? This girl is the worst and only made it as far as she did because of plot armor.

And that ending. That ending just makes me rage. That plot point that everyone had to die for it to be over had been teased since… forever. It seemed like such an important mystery. But, here, it is completely moot. It is a complete and utter lie for no purpose other than to give the show a possibility of continuing. And hey, what about that one text that said that they would only discover the King if they all hated each other? That wasn’t worth anything. This is crap. None of the plot of this show means anything, and we might as well just watch a snuff flick because that is all this amounts to.

Oh, and the animation is inconsistent. Thought you ought to know. Tons of errors, awkward posing, plain jane cinematography. Voice acting was all the same as what we’ve heard. Brynn Apprill’s Natsuko shows the most variance in her performance, and even that was only two or three modes.