The anime's premise sounds fairly intriguing: Shows in which the protagonist has to escape some sort of facility always have a great amount of routes it can take. In this case, it is combined with the popular Battle Royale trope due to which the potential viewer probably has high hopes towards the anime. Unfortunately, Deadman Wonderland is not able to fulfil these expectations. There are many issues with the logic the show and its characters want to apply which make it easy to see many plot holes and conveniences. The reason why the protagonist, Ganta, is convicted is because he allegedly slaughtered his entire class. However, there is no evidence other than him being the sole survivor that point to him being the criminal. Of course, one could claim that the court has been bribed but this does not explain why the whole world seems to think that he is the murderer. While it might have been possible for this anime to be a good show the viewer can simply enjoy without having to think a lot, it tries to be edgy and tense and consequently results in nothing but pretentiousness.
The anime tries to combine several characteristics other popular anime have, such as the aforementioned prison setting, a childhood friend, gore, super powers, contrived plot twists and tournaments. This, combined with a protagonist who is basically a toned down copy of Neon Genesis Evangelion's Shinji, is apparently what the writers think makes a good anime. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Everything the anime presents seems to be loosely tied together without having any impact apart from being nice to look at. What is more, a majority of the events occurring in the anime do not seem to be of any importance whatsoever. They do not contribute to the story's progress or the protagonist's development. In fact, the setting, which is built in the anime's first half, seems to become more and more irrelevant as it goes on.
Not only the protagonist is a generic character but also the supporting cast has no remarkable traits and merely consists of annoying children and other bothersome characters. There are anime where you cannot decide who to root for because both sides have understandable reasons to win. In this case, it is similar with the unfortunate exception that you want both sides to lose because of how horribly written every character is. While it is interesting to see what varieties of abilities they have, you do not feel connected to them since they lack any form of characterisation and the viewer consequently does not sympathize with the characters when they die.
That being said, thanks to decently entertaining battle scenes, the fights between the characters are somewhat enjoyable, but still very predictable. In most cases, they end due to someone developing super human strength for no apparent reason.
As mentioned above, the soundtrack is remarkably good. Not only does the background music fit the anime very well but the opening theme has to be one of the catchiest songs there is. Since Romi Park and Hanazawa Kana voice the anime's main characters, there is nothing one could complain about in the cast either. The animation is also very fluid and the art style fits the setting without a doubt.
In other words, if you want to watch an anime with cringe worthy, melodramatic moments that heavily relies on shock value and has hardly any positive characteristics other than its soundtrack, you might enjoy Deadman Wonderland. However, since this probably is not the case, I ultimately cannot recommend this anime and suggest that you watch something else instead.
