Plot – 7/10 - Close 8, a few major plot holes (SPOILER FREE)
Yuuichi Katagiri and the friends he holds dear are utterly inseparable and from the start it is clear that they will do anything for each other. However, when the class’s 2-million-yen school trip funds are taken from Shiho Sawaragi’s locker after a short trip to the faculty office, an extended leave of absence follows. When Yuuchi, Shiho, Tenji, Yutori and Shibe can only wonder why a letter has appeared at the footstep of their doors addressed from one or the other promising details. Reality strikes. They are kidnapped and awake in a blank room where a funny looking fella promises to remove the groups debts if they play his game… one problem – none of them claim to have debts. What ensues after this is a series of children’s game where friendships are tested and debts are deepened or lifted, traitors are found and common sense is very much challenged in the occurring game of wits. You say it sounds familiar? What are you talking about? What is this “Squid Game” you speak of? Here in the Tomodachi Game the only thing you’re going to be losing is your mental state and your pride after having a know-it-all main character absolutely destroy you while acting innocent as can be. Will we ever find out why there’s 3 characters observing the groups every move? No. Will we ever find out why this isn’t under federal investigation? No. I can certainly say the plot isn’t perfect, but with enough plot twists to keep you on your toes it certainly is an interesting one.
Characters - 8/10
This could be a more controversial category. The show focuses on the 5 “friends” and how their friendship is affected by each game they play together. The main character is a know-it-all wit battler and essentially can see through every single front, portray his emotions as he wishes and deduce the situation from what little information he can obtain. He IS ready to starve out and potentially kill his friends and allies for the slightest bit of leverage in the ever long mind-chess that this show aims to be and unlike other characters popping into your head he does actually have a personality switching between Ayanokouji, innocent, mentally ill and deranged murder – he’s quite a range to say. Tenji is an ever-loyal man with the same personality of his glasses, but I’d be lying to say he isn’t interesting or important at all. Shiho is a character whose sole purpose originally is to be fought over by the 3 males but she manages to stay believable and show the signs of not being neglected love interest 1, she also definitely has 0 importance to the story whatsoever. Yutori is there to bolster the numbers and show that even the character with some real great “plot” also isn’t written to be the equivalent of a brick. Shibe is... there until he gets some real great developments during the second game leading onto the ending sequences where he seems to be involved in his own unhinged story. Theres a few girls on the “Management Team” who give insights to explain the battle of wits for any incredibly slow individuals, unfortunately they aren’t explained much. Interesting characters, I suppose. Useful characters, not for now. So, summarising this block of text – the characters all have more than meets the eye and give some nice foundation for half the script to be someone thoughts.
Art & Animation - 7/10
Very standard animation – truly nothing special. Literally becomes 8 or 9/10 during the little animation in the intro, but that’s most shows.
Music & Sound 8/10 - One of the best openings I’ve heard
Starting off with the strongest thing piece in this category. The opening is amazing – the song it’s great and the animation goes along with it very well. 9.5/10. The background music is alright it fits well when it needs to. The sound effects in general are pretty standard.
Closing Thoughts
It’s quite the plot-twist heavy show but it shines through during the brain-chess and makes a very entertaining watch. This show isn’t actually a squid game copy by any means – started before anything like that was released and it holds 1 or 2 similar aspects, make sure to get that preconception out your head. I can say it holds it ground as a good psychological show and one to enjoy if being a stuck-up-know-it-all is your thing.
Score – 8/10
