FULL SPOILERS AHEAD. But Id say theres probably already a seventy percent chance of the person reading this review already knowing exactly what Ousama Game is and the kind of reputation it has. 500https://i.ur.com/THe7ysy.jpg But being a little late to the party has never stopped me before and it wont stop me now. Ousama Game Its a fucking joke Horror anime? Garbage GARBAGE ...But not necessarily for the reasons you may be thinking. You can go ahead and close the review at this point if you wish. But for those who make the unfortunate decision to continue: lets begin the autopsy Initial Conclusion 440https://i.ur.com/4KwC3Lp.png Ousama Game is I think you either hate it love it or love to laugh at it. Personally I think Im definitely in the love to laugh at it camp. But there are several layers that you have to decipher or try and make sense of while youre watching it. A Is the studio animating this being serious? B Was the original creator being serious? C Were you supposed to find the deaths where people exploded into blood funny and were you supposed to find the nonbloody deaths serious emotional and dramatic? Some of these questions I still dont know the answers to. Was this an insult to the horror genre as a whole? No. Theres the whole torture porn genre or the type of horror where whether its a beast human entity or monster theres something out to kill our entire cast of characters and we the viewer are there to either watch either everyone die or one or a few rise to the challenge and survive. 440https://i.ur.com/QevU1JR.png The problem with Ousama Game isnt that its edgy that its ridiculous that its fucking stupid or that it goes too far. No I think the problem is that not only is it not enough of any of these things but its just completely unfocused. Honestly I get way more of the feeling that more than a few people behind this show knew exactly what they were making than its fellow Fall 2017 horror brethrenhttps://anilist.co/anime/100226/EVILORLIVE/. So criticizing it from that angle seems way more appealing than an actual full serious breakdown of all of the terrible writing... 440https://i.ur.com/fMj03yF.png I mean its teenagers getting messages on their cell phones telling them to do things or theyll die. You should almost immediately alter your expectations accordingly the moment the first teenager explodes into blood or drop the show. 440https://i.ur.com/23se21p.png My Expectations vs Reality 440https://i.ur.com/on0sl6y.png ...Yeah it ended up being even worse than that. Im glad that even back then one episode in I called it cheap trashy horror because that is definitely what Ousama Game is. But as I noted previously it is bad trash horror. Well right out of the gate we are never shown a King. It is this weird omniscient but invisible force and there is no reasoning behind any of the commands it doles out to the students beyond the original creator going well this is what happens next. When theres no... no tangible and/or visible entity that is putting all these teenagers through hell its just... its immediately lame. 440https://i.ur.com/uS5aowj.png 440https://i.ur.com/72tmB9Y.png Like imagine the Friday the 13th movies if you just remove Jason Voorhees entirely. Rather than Jason himself wandering around murdering campers its just like an invisible floating machete that just kills people indiscriminately. ...Id totally watch a horror movie about a rampaging invisible machete actually. Its stupid. You gotta have a monster you gotta have someone pulling the strings you gotta have a TANGIBLE ENTITY. Which... Ousama Game itself basically admits and/or eventually realizes. Because while there is an antagonist through the whole show they are essentially a fellow student who is being forced to play the Ousama Game. Still the show literally ends after most of the other students are killed by disobeying the King with the actual antagonist just going around and directly causing other peoples deaths... 440https://i.ur.com/HzvbdDg.png ...Eventually going so far to just pull out a random chainsaw. And it was at that moment where I and I believe many others who watched this show probably exclaimed WHY THE FUCK WASNT THIS THE ENTIRE SHOW. Like the end of the show or... maybe even that entire section of the show about the last command of the King was absolutely the best/most enjoyable part of the show. That was the sort of command I wanted the King to be giving out from the very start of the show. 440https://i.ur.com/0UTHaiQ.png Get to the summit of this mountain in this amount of time the person farthest behind will die every so many hours. Thats weird and has the potential to be fun. You have the potential for just outright sabotage which of course eventually ends up happening and you just have people dropping off from exhaustion. But instead most of the commands the King gives are just... Have sex with this person. Why? Because I told you to. Do you want to explode in blood??? Then I guess you better do it. 440https://i.ur.com/yI3L1NB.png I really wanted there to be a King. Like a student who is just fucking systematically pushing their classmates into the very depths of insanity just because they could. But it really is just basically whatever goes. Theres absolutely no structure or consistency to the commands and while there are rules to the Ousama Game they are fucking shaky at best. 440https://i.ur.com/ZRIYsEf.png But Ill of course get to that... A Genuinely Clever Move The thing is in this anime there are actually like four different Ousama Games. Theres the one thats happening in the present which is its own manga in itselfhttps://anilist.co/manga/77332/OusamaGameShuukyoku/ theres the one that the main male character went throughhttps://anilist.co/manga/54836/OusamaGame/ which precedes the one that this is mainly adapting publicationwise as well theres the original game that was done before all of them via letters rather than cellphones which I guess got its own spinoff mangahttps://anilist.co/manga/85429/KingsGameOrigin/ at some point when the second manga was still going and only ended a year before the anime aired and finally I guess theres the fourth Ousama Game that the antagonist of the anime and the second manga went through which I guess the original writer can just write whenever he feels like making more money apparently it already exists in light novel formhttp://ousamagame.wikia.com/wiki/King27sGame:Visit. ...The actual original Ousama Game is in fact actually I guess a series of trashy cell phone novels? I actually did not know that until starting this review that the three different manga are all different people adapting this guyshttps://anilist.co/staff/108945/NobuakiKanazawa trash. ...So the question is how do you even approach adapting this fucking mess? Do you start with the very first Ousama Game what with letters rather than cellphones? Or do you start with the first one that the main male character which I guess either the original creator named after himself or hes using the main characters name as a pseudonym which if its the latter good on him because I wouldnt want to put my real name to this shit either is in? Well the correct answer is... just do it all. Just rip off that bandaid in one fucking movement. 440https://i.ur.com/xVOb3Bm.png 440https://i.ur.com/fGXBDce.png 440https://i.ur.com/7QuMjZq.png 440https://i.ur.com/K5KYk4F.png The main focus will of course be on adapting the Ousama Game with the subtitle thats literally just EXTREME but well also partially adapt some of the original Ousama Game that Nobuaki was in with the various references of the other two Ousama Games left intact. They could have totally just tried to do a full on adaptation of the original Ousama Game that seemed from what we saw of it much more boring and actually apparently more about trying to find out who the fuck or what the fuck the King is. But thank Christ they said nah fuck that lets just get to the chainsaw as soon as possible. 440https://i.ur.com/2xS1exz.png Like the Nobuakis past Ousama Game was apparently like five volumes long with twenty five chapters. The present Ousama Game is also five volumes long but with sixty chapters. ...I have not read any of the Ousama Game manga but I can already picture it in my head. Its probably a hell of a lot longer. Like by the end of the first episode of the anime were already into the Ousama Game. The manga probably has all of this preamble shit and actually like tries to build up or introduce the class and that is... I dont want that. Nobody wants that. 440https://i.ur.com/JoWWxuf.png ...Granted I guess the structure wouldnt be quite as fucked what with like the start of the present Ousama Game leading to a large section of flashbacks that show events of the original Ousama Game and then leading back into the present Ousama Game without actually showing the conclusion of the original Ousama Game until just about the end of the present Ousama Ga Look either we have to deal with a plot structure thats fucked up beyond recognition or we have to deal with more Ousama Game being animated. The point is Im glad they actively chose to abbreviate it. ...Also apparently theres actually even more Ousama Games than I initially thought? Well at least they focused on adapting the most over the top one. After all how can you raise it any further past EXTREME?? https://i.ur.com/VEvTDk7.png Oh fuck off. Yeah sure waste my time with the smaller fish when you could have animated the entire teenager populace of Japan literally exploding into blood. The Death Game Genre Wouldnt it be great if we could just... exile the entire death game genre out of the horror/psychological/thriller genres and into its own... thing? https://i.ur.com/xXCnl8L.png It should just very quickly be noted that I think I would have reacted much worse to the rest of Ousama Game if I hadnt read another death game series before I finally got back to Ousama Game. I wont spend much time on this but like if youre reading this review and you watched Ousama Game and thought it was one of the absolute worst/insufferable things youve experienced let me recommend you to your next challenge. Ikenie Touhyouhttps://anilist.co/manga/100164/IkenieTouhyou/. Imagine... imagine Ousama Game but without the gore. And to accompany the cell phone messages there is this talking vindictive virtual mascot bee... thing? 440https://i.ur.com/RwdQLXY.png It... it genuinely made me look upon Ousama Game in a completely new light. I guess the entire point of this section of the review is to just point out the genre that Ousama Game crawled out of is a gigantic trash fire and theres genuine value in the statement: There are worse things out there.https://anilist.co/manga/101223/TomoguiKyoushitsu/ I havent even progressed into that one yet any further than the first chapter because I feel as if Im still not mentally prepared. And also I dont like cannibalism. Also I am not joking with this at all. The sole reason why I was even able to dust myself off and actually come back to finish Ousama Game after being like on episode three or four for MONTHS was because I read and suffered my way through this absolute gigantic piece of shit. So of course I had to include a dedicated section for it in this review. ...at least Ousama Game wasnt THIS bad... maybe Ill try it again and then never ever touch a death game anything ever again 440https://i.ur.com/BZkk1SJ.png How Ousama Game Really Dropped the Ball Back to the main thread of this review... I think one of the most frustrating things about Ousama Game is almost everything around the antagonist. Like the main male protagonist she has already survived another Ousama Game but unlike the protagonist she has came to a very different conclusion about how one should proceed in the Ousama Game. 440https://i.ur.com/D5evTwy.png 440https://i.ur.com/whw9bqR.png The whole conflict between them is selflessness versus survival. Hope versus despair. One character will claim to be willing to do whatever is required to ensure she survives the Ousama Game. The other is willing to pay whatever price he needs to if it means ensuring the survival of the others around him. This could have genuinely interesting or entertaining but the writing is just so fucking trash that the antagonist almost verbatim says something along the lines of Well someone had to be the bad guy towards the end of the show. 440https://i.ur.com/hcZ11WT.png 440https://i.ur.com/mLuRcAw.png Like if the show had been more about the guy trying to desperately keep others alive despite already having the knowledge that only one person can survive an Ousama Game whereas the girl is just actively fucking sabotaging his efforts and outright killing people or causing their deaths? That would have been great I mean why didnt Natsuko just fucking smash literally all of her friends fingers in the finger game to send the rest of the class into chaos if she wanted to actively bring the Ousama Game to a quicker end? Like if the rules are so poorly fleshed out that you can just smash another persons fingers and psychologically dominate them into voting the way you want you would think she would have used this to actually actively thin out the numbers. But literally nobody dies/gets punished in the finger game. 440https://i.ur.com/hxhgtx1.png Which wouldnt be too big of a problem if it wasnt for the fact that shortly after the finger game its revealed that when Natsuko had the guy who started going on about his dream of being a stylist right before smashing his hands phone she blocked the King on that guys phone. Its established earlier through the flashback episodes of the first Ousama Game manga that if you block the king it causes you to get punished and therefore killed. 440https://i.ur.com/iV6zeSk.png 440https://i.ur.com/FsZaXCq.png ...Thats probably one of the lamest things Ive ever witnessed in a horror anything. She had an opportunity to cause chaos and very likely at least cause the death of one other person. She did not take it. Instead she kills a guy by blocking a number...? That was when Natsuko immediately became a joke and then I realized why the fuck was the entire class just bending to her every whim? 440https://i.ur.com/FSqUhst.png 440https://i.ur.com/f4AAAIr.png Like basically the only rules of Ousama Game are that you cant withdraw from it you cant block the King etc. Hell the way the show ends basically demonstrates that OUTRIGHT MURDER is acceptable. Maybe... maybe take Natsukos phone? Maybe restrain the actual insane person? Maybe realize she keeps saying that only one person can survive Ousama Game and she seems very keen on being that ONE PERSON NO MATTER WHAT SHE HAS TO DO? 440https://i.ur.com/Cz3w4FT.png 440https://i.ur.com/CprGWsa.png Finally when Natsuko is just running around the woods misdirecting other classmates to their deaths as theyre trying to get the mountain or outright causing their deaths and when she brings a goddamned chainsaw into the situation... youre just left asking why didnt she do any of this sooner? There is actually absolutely nothing establishing that the mountain run command is going to be the last round of Ousama Game so did... Natsuko finally decide she had enough and it was time to wipe everyone else out? 440https://i.ur.com/Le6N4qF.png 440https://i.ur.com/dKb2NuJ.png Just using straight up fucking Looney Tunes tactics now. It literally doesnt matter. Because time to actually give some kudos to the original creator as he actually did the right thing and didnt shy away from having literally everyone end up dying. Unfortunately its kind of ruined by the fact that there are plenty of other Ousama Games... We found out the truth about the Ousama Game Itll keep going on forever unless everyone whos played dies 440https://i.ur.com/MzEH4CC.png Then they have their little chainsaw battle at the end and both the hopeful protagonist and the despair inducing antagonist die knowing that theyre free from having to suffer this fate for the rest of their lives and nobody else has to go through it because of them. But nope Cant just end it there Gotta keep making Ousama Game More and more MORE AND MORE OUSAMA GAME: ANNIHILATION. OUSAMA GAME: APOCALYPSE. OUSAMA GAME: GALAXY. I would pay money to see a scifi Ousama Game but like all the students are aliens. Just keep pushing it as far as you possibly can. 440https://i.ur.com/AUAzq0q.png The Actual Comedy of Ousama Game 440https://i.ur.com/nKLDQu3.png 440https://i.ur.com/kTWYNBL.png When I called Ousama Game unfocused what I mean is that... theres like two different types of deaths utilized through the whole thing. Oh and also worth noting it becomes very blurred whether some deaths are just how these characters are actually about to just die on their own or actual punishments from the King because they still send out a message claiming that theyre being punished. 440https://i.ur.com/zz1uZLT.png 440https://i.ur.com/BFAjhLe.png Or... the punishment doesnt have to be death at all but those are so few in number that it may as well as just be Ousama Game itself deciding to just fuck with everybody. Haha Time for the punishment Hope the person who is getting punished didnt immediately kill themselves because the punishment for this one ISNT death 440https://i.ur.com/78NNhD5.png 440https://i.ur.com/cdrUPa6.png 440https://i.ur.com/QIVYfqf.png 440https://i.ur.com/mBj6r8t.png Like the ones that are supposed to be funny are the especially gory ones where characters just basically explode into blood. But the true hilarious deaths are of course the ones that are treated as if like the intention behind them was to make you feel emotional for these characters who are dying. One of the deaths that caused me to laugh the hardest when two characters who we are very quickly shown that they love each other right before it happens like their punishment is like death via heart attacks. 440https://i.ur.com/lmcF2Pk.png 440https://i.ur.com/cd73Qye.png Completely bloodless shouldnt be funny whatsoever but I was laughing hysterically as these two characters were like trying to drag each other to the other so they could hold hands as they died. Reading that previous line word for word back to myself really... really paints myself in a bad light but I cant help that this trashy horror makes me laugh so much. Also that death is almost directly after when were shown what like some of the other students in Ousama Game: Extreme are doing which just... its a tonal nightmare. Like when its doing that stupid emotional heart attack death the series actively wants you to forget what series youre watching. Just a couple of scenes before that was THIS. 440https://i.ur.com/7F9xGFn.png 440https://i.ur.com/LhaPAIG.png 440https://i.ur.com/BZHBI4q.png The gory deaths are funny sure but this series is way funnier whenever it tries to be serious. I know were doing like a finger game thing or whatever but I really need to cut the main protagonists hair because I dream of being a professional stylist one day and I plan on breaking my fingers in this finger game and I know that I cannot cut hair without this hand 440https://i.ur.com/6hpagtK.png 440https://i.ur.com/QYAQRWz.png Its almost a parody. I know this shit is probably directly right from the source material but I really think the people behind the anime knew. 440https://i.ur.com/gUWsx8T.png 440https://i.ur.com/rMMGrYt.png Conclusion 440https://i.ur.com/OqcPH3Q.png 440https://i.ur.com/7Ryc7OQ.png 440https://i.ur.com/waaQuEi.png ...I genuinely really dont think its quite as bad as its made out to be honestly. The writing is trash the source material is trash when thinking of this in terms of like an actual serious horror its a complete joke but. In terms of over the top cheap trash horror...? 440https://i.ur.com/fpGbPEz.png 440https://i.ur.com/xfmcSXE.png While at the very start it was kind of miserable I did end up laughing quite a lot at this. Like the gore and the deaths in Anotherhttps://anilist.co/anime/11111/Another/ are a billion times better but the overall tone of that series is way more serious which is what primarily prevented me from enjoying it because I was taking Another seriously and then... it disappointed me with how it turned out. Ousama Game is pretty much a joke from the very start as Ive already stated. There was no taking it seriously. But the King being like a goddamned virus rather than one of the students...? 440https://i.ur.com/eMjK8Rp.png Ugh. Ousama Game while disappointing was some pretty funny trash. I do remember being a lot more miserable in the first couple of episodes than the rest of the series though. ...Possibly controversial but I give it a 4.5 out of 10 or 45 out of 100. Again its trash but I genuinely think as far as the anime goes a bunch of it was intentional. Plus it ends in a pretty gloriously trashy way what with that fucking chainsaw that I guess was just at the summit of the mountain waiting for them. Its edgy its stupid its over the top... but if youre looking to watch something where the characters are there just to die... it fulfills that purpose Also if were being honest that other horror showhttps://i.ur.com/MZypGF7.png that aired along with it in the same season is enormously worse than Ousama Game. Come on. 500https://i.ur.com/VIZFZsk.png