Story: Story takes place before World War 2 where several intelligence on other countries' social and economic situation has become a valuable asset. As a result, Japan, has established a new spy organization known as the "D Agency" to obtain this weapon. While the history has no connection what so ever to the story, they made it like it was real. The general expectation from an anime series is the story starts from episode one and continuing the same story throughout the series but in this series that hasn’t happened, rather every episode’s story are different from the other with different spy on the mission except for 2/3 episodes and finished within that episode. But each of the events is bringing the main focus here and that is how “D Agency” operates their mission no matter what the obstacle is. The stories are pretty much unique and complex.
Characters: You can basically sense from the plot section that with different spies operating in different episode there is no main protagonist but there is and his name is Lieutenant Colonel Yuuki who is the mastermind behind the spy organization. So, basically with different spies are showing different episodes every spy individually gets the spotlight but the bigger spotlight was on Yuuki who strategize everything behind the scene. So, overall character development was good mainly on protagonist side. The only problem that I can see is that there is no main antagonist.
Art & Animation: Since Production I.G has produced it has to be good but on honest perspective it was very good.
Music & OST: I am not sure this section is one of the strong part of this series but the opening and ending was on good level, inserted ost’s I don’t think so (hear one ost over and over again).
Final Thoughts: Joker Game might have gone underappreciated for various reasons. Number one, though it’s a spy based anime, there is also history and drama which doesn’t draw the casual audiences. Number Two, it doesn’t have that broad storyline that will leave mark on the viewers (even the sequence of events are not in order). Burt here’s the thing that Joker Game does bring out even though it has its limitations. One, the direction is very clever and impressive. Two, the stories are pretty unique. Three, on a ideology basis this series was one of the most successful out there that has expressed the ideology almost perfectly (A spy doesn’t kill neither they are willing to sacrifice). Overall, I think Joker Game has just edged past many other series on the spring list and gone at the top.
