Darwin’s Game : Eighth

Episode 7

“Eisu” (圧砕エイス)

This episode honestly had everything in it. We’re here with deaths, destruction, cryptic shit… The whole lot of it.

Darwin’s Game tries to regain its lost momentum it seems.

It kind of works as well.

Everyone kind of had their part to play and we did indeed lose the Florist which is kind of sad and I have a feeling his loss didn’t in any way harm the numbers of the Eighth in any good way.

We learn more about the Eighth in this episode.

Wang it turns out has the ability to teleport within five metres, his second in command Keiichi is able to use air or some such thing whilst Sig is a pyrokinetic. Together they are a formidable team and I feel like people underestimate them as a team of pure brute force and numbers when in actual fact Wang is pretty switched on.

Not only did he crack the code the same way Rain did but he was able to outsmart her LaPlace ability as well. Not only that he is a pretty good leader seeing that he mobilized the entirety of the Eighth which is something Rain hadn’t considered either, the only reasons she’s got one step ahead of him is her LaPlace’s ability to internalize and therefore crunch the data in a much bigger way.

Most of this episode was about fighting and all that though.

Wang cuts off Ryuji’s arm, The Florists dies after being hit in the chest by Sig and then brings the building tumbling down probably not killing Sig or Keiichi but a whole bunch of the Eighth, even Rain gets tortured for a small period of time and Shuka and Sui get involved too.

Lots of action, a lot happening and a hint at what the treasure might be and where it is.

Maybe that is what the show does best though?

When it tries to build relationships between characters or expand on something beyond the game it tends to come off as forcing square pegs in round holes for no reason.

I don’t think this event worked because of that if I’m honest.

It felt like it skipped quite a huge chunk of Kaname’s character development, it definitely fast forwarded the relationship development with Shuka and then tried to introduce so many new characters and abilities as well as explaining the clans and their wars whilst also trying to get across this big confusing event and a sneak peak at the world behind this game all at the same time.

Some episodes, specially the first one or two, were really good. Suspenseful, full of action and made you care.

Then there were the last few episodes which focused on the wrong things and didn’t really make you want to continue watching.

This episode went back to what it did best but at this point there is so much going on, so many new faces, so many abilities that the episode became hard to keep up with in so many different ways.

Who can do what, who is who, what is the point of their inclusion in this episode, what is the point of any of this?

That being said it at least looks like it’ll be ending soon and we might get some answers to some things but at the same time boy did it take its time to get through this story and majorly messed up all the momentum it did have going into it.