Dearly Beloved…
For my initial thoughts, take a look at when I did my first impressions article for the Fall 2017 anime season.
I had high hopes for King’s Game but was ultimately let down. Watching this was akin to watching a death, so with that let us all morn together and walk through the seven stages of grief. May this anime rest its weary soul in peace, torn to shreds by the internet (I actually kind of low-key liked it though…).
1. Shock & Disbelief
If you recall, my initial impressions of King’s Game (or Ousama Game The Animation) was optimistic. I simply couldn’t believe it would be as bad as it was. The moment that shook me into a state of disbelief was when the “antagonist” chick cried rape after begging for sex. Not saying that you can’t revoke consent but the show’s logic was on full display here, and by that I mean there wasn’t any. There were warning signs everywhere, but that leads me to the next stage…
2. Denial
What you see in my first impressions is denial. Surely this show wasn’t bad. Maybe it just hit a rough patch. These are all thoughts I had at one point. Spoilers, the show was just bad. I didn’t want this show to be bad though. A chance at a proper Future Diary was something I desperately wanted but alas it was not meant to be. If anything, King’s Game was actively worse.

3. Pain

After a few episodes, watching King’s Game became a real chore. It was physically painful at how stupid the characters and events were. Sure, I was laughing on the outside at that haircut scene, but I was crying on the inside.
4. Anger
In the final four episodes, I was pretty mad at the show. Constantly ripping into it, the lack of logic, mistakes in the animation (which there were A LOT), etc… I yelled a lot at the TV. Granted I didn’t get Black Mirror levels of angry (that show inspires so much anger in me) but my blood was almost boiling with this one.
5. Bargaining
I was actually watching King’s Game with a friend and it came to the point where he asked me if we could drop it. I just couldn’t give up on the show though! I don’t know why, but I really wanted to see this thing through. Correction, I had to see this show through to the end. I pleaded with him to press on, share in the miserable excuse of a show with me, but ultimately I had to continue the journey… alone.
6. Depression
At this point I was hopeless for the show. With only one episode left, I simply didn’t think there would be anything redeeming about King’s Game. No light to point to amidst all this darkness. I soured, my bitterness and frustrations mounting. “What’s the point?” I wondered as I pressed play for the final episode. After all, I knew the show was going to be garbage.
7. Acceptance
However, to my surprise, I actually ended up enjoying King’s Game in a way. It was a bad show, don’t get me wrong, but I was compelled to watch it. Ultimately, I thought it had a pretty good ending. Even with that sequel hook, and we are definitely getting a sequel to this hot mess *sarcasm* (but no seriously, would watch), there wasn’t really anything major for me to complain about with the final episode. Just minor gripes that were omnipresent problems throughout the show. With a little tweaking in the writing and direction King’s Game could have been pretty fantastic.
It was here that I had my realization.
As AniTube’s Gigguk has taught me:
This was just something that I hadn’t been willing to accept up to now but hopefully I’ve helped you realize it as well. Let’s be honest, you all finished King’s Game too after all.
All joking aside, I tried something really different with this look at King’s Game so let me know your thoughts on both the anime and article in the comments below. If you enjoy my work, or the work of my contributors, consider becoming a Patron of mine. Every little bit goes right back into the blog. For more details just click the picture below. As always, thanks for reading and I hope to see you all back here at Jon Spencer Reviews real soon!
This was a really fun post to read. Other than denial, I don’t think I went through many of the phases above but that’s probably due to a lot of experience with this kind of bad writing in horror stories. Mostly I just kind of got to acceptance though couldn’t help but wish the show might have taken advantage of its cool premise and done something interesting with it.
Whichever way, I really had a good laugh reading this post as I can totally see a viewer going through each of these stages while watching this anime.
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Yeah, anime is pretty bad in particular at writing good horror stories and presenting them well. I’m in agreement with you, I wish this one would have worked out and taken advantage of its good ideas. Glad you enjoyed the post and managed to make you laugh, that was the goal 😀
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I loved this post. I think it was a really fun and engaging read. Now I know to stay clear of this series.
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Thank you for reading and I’m glad that the post was able to engage the way I had hoped 🙂
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Yes, it was very effective!
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Thank you again! ^.^
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I heard about negative things dealing with this show, but I didn’t realize it was that bad. Granted, I’ve suffered through some bad anime series and I’ve reviewed some of them, but I’m sorry you had to deal with King’s Game.
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Haha, no worries. I did actually enjoy my time by the end. King’s Game was weirdly compelling and oddly satisfying to watch. It’s very hard to explain, because the show is legitimately bad.
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Gotcha. It’s fun to watch despite being bad? You mean that this anime is like The Room in a way? Hahaha!
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XD Yeah in a way. Like I said to Raistlin earlier this morning on his post, King’s Game has all the pieces to be a good show but somebody aranged them into the wrong picture. I mean, definitely not for everybody and you’ll know pretty fast if you can sit through this or not. At least the end game pays out in a positive way for the series.
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Understandable. Haha! I’ve seen that problem where the potential was there in different shows or movies, but the execution was handled poorly. At least it had a good ending if you say so.
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Yeah, it wrapped everything up exactly the way it needed to. Even though the internal logic of the show was wonky at least it was consistent.
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I see. At least some consistency can be a good thing.
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You weren’t kidding this morning when you said you were going to try something different. Now…..here it comes: I SERIOUSLY FREAKING LOVED THIS 😂 This was truly a really fun post and one that I highly enjoyed reading. Wonderful and really original idea of doing a review. (I should have done this for Star Wars the Last Jedi, but I would probably have gotten stuck on the depression phase). Seriously though, this was a really great post.
I’m with you though as you already know. Definitely want a sequel for this…and I am going to watch it as well 😊
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Yay! 😀 Glad you enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun writing about it and coming up with the idea. My goal was to create something a bit funny that poked fun at the show in an extreme way but still expressed my enjoyment of it.
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Well you definitely succeeded with that. Really a seriously fun post to read. This was a great idea 😀
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Again, thanks so much! ^.^
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