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From the Bookshelf of She-Geeks…

Deadman Wonderland, Vol. 1 (Deadman Wonderland, #1)

Jinsei Kataoka,

Kazuma Kondou (Illustrator)

Start date: May 1, 2014

Finish date: May 31, 2014

Discussion: Manga

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What Members Thought

Nov 20, 2013 Jamie rated it really liked it

Shelves: manga-manwha

Bizarre and twisted with lots of gory action. Ganta's entire classroom is brutally massacred in from of him by a mysterious "Red Man" and next thing he knows he is in prison for apparently murdering them. But this is no ordinary prison. It is a televised deathmatch, prison and amusement park all in one! Sounds crazy right? Well it doesn't stop there...

This is one very messed up read. In a place with madmen with special abilities, competitions for survival and expensive candy that you will die if ...more

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Feb 06, 2010 Cornerofmadness rated it really liked it

I’m not a giant fan of the ultra violent manga since they tend to be long on gore and scantily dressed women and short on plot so I came into this with some preconceived notions. Happily, Deadman Wonderland blew those notions away. Yes, there was gore and violence but there was plot. Said plot, however, is a bit different and takes a nice dollop of suspension of disbelief.

It opens with Ganta Igarashi, a teenaged boy, and his classmates whining about the lame school trip that’s planned to Deadma

I’m not a giant fan of the ultra violent manga since they tend to be long on gore and scantily dressed women and short on plot so I came into this with some preconceived notions. Happily, Deadman Wonderland blew those notions away. Yes, there was gore and violence but there was plot. Said plot, however, is a bit different and takes a nice dollop of suspension of disbelief.

It opens with Ganta Igarashi, a teenaged boy, and his classmates whining about the lame school trip that’s planned to Deadman Wonderland, which is a privately run prison if said prison was owned by Disney and run by an insane sadist (not that the tourists are aware of this). It’s the year 2023 and is ten years after a major earthquake destroyed Tokyo. Worries about a lame vacation end suddenly when the ‘red man’ appears in the classroom. Whether it’s actually a man in armor or a robot, you’re not entirely sure, but he lays waste to Ganta’s class, leaving only Ganta alive. He does shoot Ganta in the chest with something that looks like a large crystal, embedding it.

Ganta, however, survives unmarked and here’s where the suspension of disbelief comes in. He’s rushed through a trial, with no evidence offered up and quickly sentenced to death at the Deadman Wonderland prison. His induction into the prison isn’t easy as Ganta ends up on Chief Prison Guard Makina’s bad side, who, in spite of her tough appearance is one of the few pieces of fan service with her Nazi-like uniform, mini-skirt, G-cups and stiletto heels. She is, however, happy to carve up any prisoner who she thinks deserves it, which is pretty much all of them.

As Ganta tries to get his bearings, still pretty much in shock over his fate, moaning that he wants to die, he’s visited by a very odd girl, an albino in a body stocking who wears, for reasons unknown, boxing gloves. She plans to help him achieve that goal but realizes quickly he didn’t mean it. She introduces herself as Shiro and becomes his friend, proving to be highly protective of him. Shiro is a bit of a mystery, somewhat child-like, referring to herself in third person and moving around the prison with strange ease.

Ganta meets Azami, a young lady who teaches him the ropes, like needing CPs, prison cash, to get anything, including food, and bullies who’ll take everything from him and everyone around him. He’s befriended by Yo, the young man Makina carved on in the beginning.

To his horror, Ganta learns his death sentence is already being carried out by his collar, which is slowly injecting him with poison. He needs to eat ‘candy’ every three days or die and this antidote costs a lot of CPs. To earn them, he has to enter the various spectacles that are put on for the tourists. Deadman Wonderland, after all, is an amusement park, so to speak, designed to get people back into Tokyo. They think the games are just that, games with gory special effects. However, as Ganta learns, these games are brutally, fatally real and that’s just the start of all the things that are going wrong at Deadman Wonderland. Ganta, himself, has been changed by the Red Man’s attack in a fundamental way, giving him something unexpected. As this rockets to the end of the first volume, the reader knows a lot more of what’s going on than Ganta does and it adds for a lot of tension. All in all, I was impressed with this first volume.

...more

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Jan 19, 2015 Diana Lynn rated it liked it

Shelves: manga

Definitely an entertaining start. I've watched the show and so far, I can see it left a lot out. Honestly, I don't really see why the show strayed so much, even in the first few episodes...this volume is awesome. Ganta is even a little more badass in this than the show (which is great because I found him quite whiny and unlike able in the show). Overall, A great start and I look forward to reading more. ...more

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Feb 15, 2015 Katie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The only survivor of his massacred middle school class, Ganta Igarashi is blamed for their deaths. He is sentenced to Death Row at Deadman Wonderland. An amusement park of sorts where prisoners must compete in deadly competitions for the amusement of others if they have any hope of surviving. A bit gruesome at times but a great story so far & very nice art! Thoroughly enjoyed it!!!!

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