Strange outlines of bodies have been appearing all around Shinjuku etched as blocks into various surfaces, some claim they were "street art" someone was creating over night. Kaname Sudo soon finds the real reason behind the "art" as he accidentally takes part in "Darwin's Game", an app that grants its participants unique "Sigil" powers while taking part in timed battles to kill the challenged opponent or survive. Now he must find a way out desperately trying not to kill.

This was one of those shows I knew nothing about. There wasn't any hype either but I saw some of it on TV so I thought I'd watch it. Interestingly enough the first episode was almost an hour long but the rest are your usual length.

At first, it seems like another surival game show full of gore and an excuse for fan service. We even see a girl who jumps straight into bed with the male protagonist as soon as they've met. Literally.

So not so great for first impressions.

However, if you give it a chance and watch on, you'll find it's deeper than that. Despite having powers Kaname actually tries to outsmart his opponents and, his compassion and determination not to kill earns him the respect with a number of other players he meets. Kaname teams up with them and pretty much grows, becoming the strategist on winning along with a fair bit of puzzle solving. Direction's quite good as it flows between fight scenes and puzzle solving. Usually it transitions into the ending theme song too which is a nice touch.

I quite enjoyed watching Kaname team up how he manages to make it through against all the ruthless opponents. As his team grows it's quite enjoyable watching them support each other. It's also quite good to see a survival show that has a normal heroine instead of a yandere type like in Future Diary where hurting is caring.

Too bad the art is quite rough as backgrounds are ok-ish, sometimes abstractly plain, sometimes a bit more detailed. Characters themselves look off in ratio here and there. Their attire look simple and faces lack outline to show much depth or detail. As it basically filled with psychos you can expect plenty of gore although my version was partly censored.

That said, the show just gets better with each episode. Season 1 covers roughly up to volume 8 of the Manga and after watching this you might be more familiar with gemstones.