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Naka no Hito Genome [Jikkyouchuu] (The Ones Within for short) tells the story of Akatsuki Iride and seven other fellow gamers who are caught by a guy (who for some reason is covers his head with an alpaca one) and are forced to play different games or else will die... figuratively, because that's the first problem of the series. Although throughout the series, Paka (and the anime in general) tries to make us feel worried about the safety of the protagonists, it fails miserably. Because, although The Ones Within is supposed to be a game of life or death, there are few moments when the characters are really in danger. I mean, they are obviously in dangerous situations in almost every game, but none of these situations feels this way for the viewer too. Being a series that tries to mix mystery and comedy at the same time, it's not surprising that one of the genres intercepts in scenes that it shouldn't, and therefore the scene doesn't manage to create the atmosphere that it wanted (mostly, comic themes in scenes that try to be serious). Although I could give examples, I wanna try to use spoilers as few as possible.
On the other hand, another serious mistake made by the adaptation is to skip all content of the manga related to the context of the kidnapping (the goal of the game's existence, the actions of the participants' family after discovering their disappearance, Iride's past, etc.). Because of this, the anime became much simpler than the story really is, leaving in its adaptation only the games in which the characters participated and maintaining an episodic formula. Therefore, it's not surprising that the ending is unsatisfactory, leaving many loose ends for a second season that will probably never come (at the time I write this there is an OVA to be aired, but being an original story it doesn't change the anime's current state so much). However, not everything is mistakes in The Ones Within, only its structure.
Most of the characters, however, do work for their purpose. Each of the eight gamers is a specialist in a different genre of video games, but I won't touch on this subject because it's almost never important in the anime, with small exceptions. First we have Iride, who is the main character and the worst in the octet in terms of development. Throughout the anime, a mystery unfolds about Iride's past and his person, which never comes to anything. Although I understand that even the source (the manga) isn't over, I'm sure there are better ways to deal with a mystery of this kind that simply presenting it and hoping for people to read the manga to know the answer. Thanks to this, Iride has no evolution throughout the anime unlike the other participants. On the other hand, characters such as Onigasaki, Roromori, Oshigiri and Kudou do develop throughout history, which causes one as a spectator to become fond of them to a greater or lesser extent. Finally, we have characters like Karin, Aikawa and Paka himself, who are only "there" and maintain a static personality state during the course of the series.
However, aside from what I have said, I must admit that the series IS indeed enjoyable. If you put aside those problems with Iride or the characters that do not advance, each episode is entertaining. In fact, although I said that the fact that we cannot feel fear for the safety of the characters is a problem, it's also a plus point. By this I mean that, since we know that the characters always end up safe and sound, the viewer can relax and enjoy the show for its comic side.
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Although Naka no Hito Genome [Jikkyouchuu] failed to satisfy the expectations that the mystery tag entails, its charismatic cast and simple humor makes it a fun watch.
