Darwin's Game

Episode 6

Nice to see Darwin's Game step it up this week as all the pieces move into place for a series of explosive confrontations and Kaname gets his smooch on. Last week barely saw the return of Shuka before she began plummeting to her doom in the icy waters of a flooded subway station. Kaname was primed to rescue her while Ryūji wandered off on a sidequest to grill a demure girl in a hoodie who can control water.

We were initially led to believe (and honestly I'm still not sure how the timing of all of this plays out) that there were twin water/ice users; a boy that's primarily responsible for trapping Shuka and his timid sister who Ryūji is chasing around. It becomes evident in this episode that this was a farce and their actually one in the same person. In fact, Sui (the sister) is in total denial that she's got some serious psychological issues going on and instead believes that her brother's (Sota) spirit is actually living within her.

Kaname manages to retrieve Shuka who has, some how, not drowned or contracted hypothermia. Some CPR (well, the breathing part) quickly revives her and she and Kaname escape after sharing a real first kiss. They confront Sui in a convenience store with Ryūji and after some apologies are exchanged, they decide to let her join the party! Guys, the consequences in this show for trying to kill (and successfully killing) people are really, really low. Pretty much everything is forgivable if you just sound sorry enough. Everyone's totally cool with Sui's explanation about her dead brother and how close she came to killing to Shuka. Besides, night is falling and Wang and his clan are on the move to the hotel to retrieve all the rings that have accumulated there as well as the Diamond Ring that awards the most points.

There were suspicions that the in-game event is not as straightforward as it appears and Wang is starting to figure that out as well. He plans to send the whole 8th Clan in and thanks to the inexplicably convenient "weapon shop," they're stocked t the brim with grenades. The Florist is more than happy to lay down his life in his pursuit for cash for his daughter's medical treatment and he meets them head on. The episode sets up a Human Torch "mini-boss" as a possibly formidable foe for the Florist but, like previous skirmishes, he's defeated with out much of a second thought.

Rein, meanwhile, has sleuthed out that the jeweled ring values are based on each stone's hardness according to the Mohs scale of mineral hardness and somehow uses this information to figure out what the coordinates are for the game's real treasure. Kaname is on board with following this thread up and advises the rest of the clan to abandon the rings they've collected so far since they're useless at this point and can be used as tracking devices. This is risky, since collecting enough rings per person would guarantee survival even if it didn't mean obtaining the game's true prize. Rein sets off on foot to Shibuya Station where the treasure is supposed to be located.

Putting aside some of the more convenient plotting, this was one of Darwin's Game better episodes in recent weeks. We got a few decent character moments (namely the Florist and Rein and Kaname and Shuka). Honestly, it's biggest hindrance right now is lack of a decent villain. Wang and his cronies, outside of being generic hooligan types, aren't particularly interesting. Wang's major motivation seems to be little more than "gotta get more power" but he hasn't had any true villainous moments that make him feel threatening to our heroes. I thought when we started getting insight into who was controlling the game we'd get a Big Bad reveal but that thread has more or less disappeared during this whole Ring Collecting Game Arc.

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Darwin's Game is currently streaming on FUNimation.