Joker Game is a pre-World War II where a group of spies known as D-Agency will send in their newest spies to the world in the brink of a World War.
This anime was by in large one of the hardest anime for LA to keep track on merely for the confusing plot underlayed with constant amnesia and constant betrayals. However this anime does make good use of the amnesia trope and even gives the plot twists a run for it's money making the D-Agency a company not to take lightly.
Where this anime hardly has a focus would be on it's characters but that's because Joker Game takes more of an emphasis to the changing tides of the plot and the character actions more than putting the characters in detail plus for the fact that many of these spies goes through the "amnesia" trope that trying to dig deep to these spies or think this anime is a character piece is not the best way to look at Joker Game. Narrative cohesion in this anime is even harder to keep track on with every episodes following a different spy or Colonel Yuuki himself and putting them with mystery and heavy red herring backstories making the cohesion just that hard to keep up. Sure plot twists' loosely brings in the narrative cohesion but if anything the plot effects towards the plot twists or "plans that are achieved" are ALWAYS on the background, the only exception is when D-Agency as a whole is on focus.
The only character that seemed to get some semblance of character and focus goes to the Lieutenant Colonel Yuuki but like the complexity of the plot and plans of this anime, his character development is rocky and vague and hard to get "know" him, his power over others and his precognition/planning abilities however is shown in full force however.
The plot twists does somewhat come out of nowhere and some of these plot twists do come out of nowhere a la "just as planned", however some if not most are justified as Joker Game subliminally gives you information to solve what the spy in question does to achieve their plan thus the plot twists if not are done well.
The animation by Production I.G did a top notch job for an effective spy game anime, from the character designs to backgrounding to the more tense moments, the animation is above average, typical of Production I.G
Joker Game is a complex anime filled with betrayals, amnesia in a pre-World War II era and sure the characters aren't as fleshed out but that's not what Joker Game is about, it's about deceiving your opponents and getting the upper hand with your personal information hidden thus moving the plot or plan forward. If your taking a low blow to this series as World War II propaganda, sure take it as a bit of jingoism, but for an anime about spying and using the amnesia trope well AND well planned plot twists, Joker Game "maybe" a hidden gem of Spring 2016 but it's definitely a complex spy thriller nonetheless, you just might need to see in broader range to see it.
