English Dub Review: King’s Game “Wail (Karma / Tears)”

Things just got dialed up to eleven… in the past.

Overview (Spoilers)

In the past, just after Nami walked her blind self out into the ocean to save Nobuaki, Rea appeared behind him, announcing that she was the King. He didn’t believe her. After all, Nami touched her. However, since it was actually Rea grabbing Nami, it was technically a loophole. He lost control of her temper and threw her down, threatening to kill her if she really did turn out to be the King. He just got a tasering for his trouble. If she really were the King, though, he’d be dead, not tasered. Using his pain, she tried to bolster his resolve and harden him against the terror of the game. She was planning on winning this game, but with his “save everyone” attitude, it served her purposes to follow along. In the meantime, Yousuke had been doing research into the Kings Game. His first clue was that each person that died received a text from the King just before they got the axe. It contained a single character, れ. Since they were on the subject of information sharing, Nobuaki told Yousuke about his encounter with Rea. He suspected something wasn’t right with her, and Yousuke told him she used to be happy before her dad raped her. In any event, since they were narrowing in on the source of the game, Yousuke asked Nobuaki to look after Kaori, the girl he loved if anything should happen to him. Nobuaki agrees, unreservedly. Right then, texts went flying from the King. First, the order of the day was that “Nobody should do anything unnecessary in the game”. The second was a slew of people dying. First was a group of guys who tried to protect themselves from getting orders by blocking the King or canceling their phones. Then others. People who were doing nothing but staying home. Nobuaki figured out the connection. They’d been crying. He tried to tell Yousuke, but it was too late. He had already cried after asking Nobuaki to take care of Kaori. Before he kicked the bucket, though, he tracked down the origins of the game. It was first played at Yonaki Village. If Nobuaki could get there, he could find the information needed to end it. That’s when Kaori called Nobuaki, unable to get through to the dead Yousuke. Trying to spare her from crying, He told her that Yousuke was alright. He waited at the train station to go to Yonaki, but Kaori attacked him, thinking he did something to kill Yousuke. He told her everything, even how Yousuke felt about her. Before dying from her own tears, she released him.

This episode may require some explanation. First, the text that the King sends to kill is れ, pronounced “re”. It’s tough to break this character down because it messes with grammar a bit. れ is the imperative form of the word “reru”, which is used to talk about someone’s actions. It’s a passive voice, and I believe this れ may be a form of the “suffering passive”. Suffering passive in Japanese grammar isn’t often used by natural speakers. In this voice, the verb is out of the speaker’s control. Suffering passive says “this is happening unto me and I can’t stop it”. In this case, it is the imperative. It’s as if the King was saying, “You’ve done what you’ve done, and now you have to do this and you can’t control it”. Playing with the tense and voice seems to be a theme in this episode, as Rea made the point that the touch between Nami was done by her, not to her, and was under her control. Words that contain れ are “otsukaresama” (thank you, that will be all), “abureru” (to fail, miss out, or be pushed out), “owakare” (farewell), and “kutabare”, which means effectively “die and go to hell”. Who knows if those have anything to do with it?

The other thing was about crying being unnecessary.  As much as we stateside have a stigma against crying, the Japanese have a REAL stigma against crying. The International Study of Adult Crying (yes, it’s a real thing somehow) states that of the 37 nationalities polled, Americans are the most likely to cry, and the Japanese are the least. To them, hiding your anger and pain is a virtue. In fact, there has been a growing movement called Rui-Katsu, or “tear-seeking”. People have begun noticing that the stigma against crying has actually had a negative effect on the people, so they have been going to communal events intended to make them cry so that they can cleanse themselves of the baggage they’ve been holding onto. Leaders of these events have noticed that crying is a conscious effort for some of these people. So, from this we can see why the King feels crying is unnecessary, and how Nobuaki was able to piece it together, despite its vagueness.

Our Take

Wow, this episode had a lot go down in rapid succession. So much so, I had trouble keeping track to write my review! More than ten kids killed in one night. I complained about this a bit last week, but the death counts are so numerous and grisly, where are the adults in all this? If this was about college students, I’d understand… ish. But we are talking about minors who live with their parents and deal with the same teachers every day. Nobody has anything to say about their kids getting hung, decapitated, chopped up, having heart attacks, getting thrown from windows? Nothing? Do the police not even consider that the victims of these horrific deaths are all in the same class? This is a pretty big plot hole and one that could even have added new tensions, as the adults could try to prevent the kids from playing the game, only making things worse. Instead, the adults don’t even show up. It’s like Peanuts meets Final Destination in here.

The episode’s writing was fast-paced, constantly blinking from Nobuaki’s perspective to shots of texts and their results. There were a few pacing issues with the dialogue, especially on the beach scene at the beginning. It felt a bit rushed, and I don’t know if that was the fault of the animation or the translation. Kaori’s dialogue also felt off in its timing and tone. Genna Ford was trying to bring out the shy ingenue in the character and threw in some nifty nuances here and there. At a few points, however, it sounded like someone reading lines. Yousuke (Alejandro Saab) was pretty compelling for a talking head, though. He had a fire in him, and it drove the episode along.

The visuals. Man, I have a hard time with this. Not because it’s bad, but because it’s good. Good at depicting painful, shocking, terrifying deaths. Watching as one of the students starts falling apart, piece by piece, was… disquieting. Partly, the voice actor did a pretty good job. Mostly, it was in how the shots were arranged and how we got to see the victim’s reactions as they realized their life was coming to a screeching halt. The blood felt off in color, and it looked a bit more viscous than I’m used to seeing blood being, but otherwise, these deaths feel shockingly real.