The One's Within Review Episode 1

Let The Games Begin

Nakanohito Genome [Jikkyouchuu] Episode 1

Another mouthful of a name so we might just go with ‘The One’s Within’ as it is called on Anime Lab and call it a day. I’m very on the fence with this series more so than any other I’ve so far tentatively added to my Summer Anime watch list. Mostly because it has severe Danganronpa vibes about it and I always had mixed feelings about that title.

within1a — *I’m hoping he doesn’t find people collapsed very often.*

I think my problem with Danganronpa, and likewise my problem here, is how contrived the situations are the characters find themselves in. I don’t mind a fantasy character stumbling upon a dragon in a cave because it is a logical stumbling block for the setting. However these kinds of stories deliberately place the characters in settings that defy logical reasoning and the conflicts they come into contact with are not a natural by-product but more a deliberate hindrance to them.

within1b — *Nothing more natural than a giant panda.*

I’m not actually saying that can’t be fun and all. The original Saw movie certainly demonstrated that sadistic manipulation of situations to push others to the limits and beyond could be compelling viewing. Yet every following movie had diminishing returns as the initial motive for the contrivance became less relevant and we mostly engaged in contrivances for the sake of sensationalism and nothing more.

within1c — *Not a threat. Definitely not a threat.*

But that’s taking us a long way away from The One’s Within. Basically a group of gamer have been abducted and have woken up somewhere where some guy wearing a suit and a llama head is setting them challenges to overcome all the while with an overall challenge of getting a huge number of views (I can’t remember if it is was 100,000 or 1,000,000 or 100,000,000 – there’s a bit of a difference there).

Affiliate Link – Soundtrack

So I guess whether I find this series satisfying overall will depend on who is watching and giving these views, and why the game is set up this way and people are being abducted. If we don’t get some kind of context that gives some sort of logic (fictional logic is find) to the situation and it is just arbitrary because it is, then I’ll feel like this is mostly a waste of time regardless of how entertaining individual moments are.

Still, the characters are so far a nice mixture of personalities that will hopefully develop beyond their current one note stance, there’s certainly plenty of intrigue, and I don’t mind this visually. I’d really like to be optimistic but Afterlost last season has currently brought my hope for delayed explanations in anime down to zero again.