Deadman Wonderland is a Japanese manga series by Jinsei Kataoka and Kazuma Kondou, later adapted into a television anime, about a boy framed for mass murder and sent to a privatized prison-amusement park where inmates fight with blood-based powers.
The manga ran in Monthly Shonen Ace from the June 2007 issue, released on April 26, 2007, to the August 2013 issue, released on July 26, 2013.
It was collected in 13 volumes by Kadokawa Shoten under the Kadokawa Comics Ace label.
The series was temporarily on hiatus from the April 2012 issue to the February 2013 issue because of Jinsei Kataoka's pregnancy and childbirth.
By July 2013, total circulation had exceeded 5 million copies.
Its official genre label was consistently prison survival action.
Compared with the creators' earlier manga adaptation of *Eureka Seven*, this work is much darker and more violent, with several homage elements to that earlier project.
A television anime produced by Manglobe aired from April to July 2011.
A comedy spin-off, Another Deadman Wonderland, also appeared between 2011 and 2012.
Ten years after a catastrophic disaster devastated Tokyo, Ganta Igarashi lives an ordinary life in Nagano with his classmates.
That normal life ends when a mysterious figure called the Red Man appears at his school and massacres his entire class.
Although he is the sole survivor, Ganta is somehow blamed for the killings.
He is falsely convicted, sentenced to death, and sent to the privately run prison known as Deadman Wonderland, often shortened to DW.
Inside the prison, Ganta learns that the Red Man implanted him with a red crystal that awakened a strange power called the Branch of Sin.
This makes him one of the prison's special inmates, known as Deadmen, people who can weaponize their own blood.
As Ganta struggles to survive the prison's brutal games, he reunites with his childhood friend Shiro, a strange white-haired girl with extraordinary physical abilities.
He also becomes entangled with other Deadmen, anti-prison rebels, and a conspiracy tied to the prison's true purpose.
Over time, Ganta discovers that his forgotten childhood, the Tokyo catastrophe, and the identity of the Red Man are all connected.
The story grows from a prison survival thriller into a tragedy about memory, guilt, identity, and love.
Ganta Igarashi
Ganta Igarashi is the protagonist, a 14-year-old boy who becomes a Deadman after the Red Man shoots a red crystal into his chest.
In the anime, he is voiced by Romi Park.
His code name is Woodpecker.
His Branch of Sin lets him fire his own blood like bullets, first as the Ganta Gun and later as the stronger Ganbaru Gun.
As a child, Ganta lived with Shiro and his scientist mother Sorae Igarashi at the institution that later became Deadman Wonderland.
After witnessing a horrifying incident involving Shiro, he lost his memories of that time.
At first, Ganta is terrified, angry, and desperate to prove his innocence.
As the story progresses, he becomes more determined, more capable in battle, and more willing to fight for others.
He eventually realizes that his feelings for Shiro go far beyond friendship.
That emotional bond becomes the center of the final conflict when he learns that Shiro and the Red Man are the same person.
After the collapse of Deadman Wonderland, Ganta is declared innocent and begins living in an orphanage.
Even then, he remains torn between love for Shiro and a desire for revenge, until he finally chooses to face her directly and protect life rather than destroy it.
In the end, he loses the ability to use the Branch of Sin.
He returns to school and regularly visits Shiro, who remains in a coma in a medical prison.
In the anime version, his conviction is reinforced by a fabricated video created by Bundō Rokuro at the request of Tsunenaga Tamaki.
That fake footage portrays Ganta as a cheerful sadistic killer and turns public opinion against him.
Shiro
Shiro is the heroine, a girl with white hair, red eyes, and a childlike personality.
In the anime, she is voiced by Kana Hanazawa.
She calls herself Ganta's childhood friend and behaves with cheerful innocence, but she lacks normal social awareness.
She also possesses astonishing physical strength and feels no pain, making her seem almost superhuman.
Shiro loves using overblown attack names taken from Aceman, a superhero show she and Ganta watched as children.
This quirk gives her an oddly playful edge despite the tragedy surrounding her.
As the story unfolds, it is revealed that she was an experimental subject at the National Medical Ward, where she was subjected to brutal dissection and testing because of nanomachine research.
Those endless torments shattered her mind and led her to develop a second personality.
That second personality is Wretched Egg, also known as the Red Man.
It was created to bear the unbearable pain that Shiro could not endure.
Shiro's life is defined by contradiction.
She loves Ganta deeply, resents him for forgetting her, wants to die, and wants to be saved, all at once.
She is ultimately revealed to be the one who caused the Tokyo catastrophe.
She also killed Ganta's classmates when she went to see him and was overwhelmed by jealousy and rage.
Despite her immense destructive power, Shiro is one of the series' most tragic figures.
Her final battle with Ganta ends not in simple victory or defeat, but in an emotional confrontation over whether she deserves to live.
After the final conflict, she falls into a coma and is confined in a medical prison.
The story ends as she finally begins to wake up.
Wretched Egg
Wretched Egg, often called the Red Man, is the destructive alternate personality inside Shiro.
This persona is considered the Original Sin behind the Tokyo catastrophe.
Its Branch of Sin compresses blood to extreme density and can erase matter.
Wretched Egg exists as the embodiment of Shiro's trauma, rage, and longing for release.
Deadmen
Senji Kiyomasa
Senji Kiyomasa is a 26-year-old Deadman inmate with the code name Crow.
In the anime, he is voiced by Masayuki Katou.
He is a battle maniac who loves strong opponents and treats prison life as a chance to test himself.
His Branch of Sin, Crow Claw, forms blood into scythe-like blades.
He later develops a high-speed finishing move called Invisible Black.
Although he initially fights Ganta, he soon becomes one of his most valuable allies and even names Ganta's techniques.
Before imprisonment, Senji was a police officer in the lawless ruins of post-disaster Tokyo.
His hatred of violent criminals comes from losing his colleagues to a gang attack.
After the prison closes, he struggles to adapt to ordinary life.
He later returns to the ruins of DW to help stop the final crisis and loses his right arm in battle.
In the ending, he is shown attempting rock climbing without using his powers.
That image fits him perfectly: stubborn, reckless, and always pushing forward.
Minatsuki Takami
Minatsuki Takami (Hummingbird) is a 17-year-old Deadman inmate.
In the anime, she is voiced by Iori Nomizu.
She appears shy and delicate at first, but her real personality is violent, unstable, and deeply mistrustful.
Her Branch of Sin, Whip Wing, turns blood-infused hair into a whip.
Her emotional damage comes from childhood trauma during the disaster, when her mother abandoned her.
She later killed her abusive father and was imprisoned for it.
She fights Ganta in the Carnival Corpse, where he defeats her with a headbutt rather than a blood attack.
After that humiliating loss, she gradually becomes more honest and emotionally open.
She has previously lost organs as punishment in prison, including a kidney and part of her stomach.
Her story balances cruelty, vulnerability, and dark humor in a memorable way.
After the prison's collapse, she is transferred elsewhere, then later joins the effort to stop the final threat.
In the ending, she lives with her brother Yoo Takami and studies veterinary medicine.
Choppurin Sugakawa
Choppurin Sugakawa is a 32-year-old Deadman inmate with the code name Peacock.
He is an openly flamboyant and maternal figure who helps hold the other inmates together.
His real name is Masaru Sugakawa, but he becomes furious if anyone uses it.
His Branch of Sin, Peacock Peak, creates a storm of sharp blood spikes.
Before imprisonment, he lived as a company worker and hid his identity while living with a male lover.
When that relationship collapsed and he was mocked as ugly, he snapped and killed the lover's girlfriend.
After prison, he hates the plainness of ordinary incarceration and joins the later return to DW.
In the ending, he becomes a stage director.
He does not appear properly in the television anime.
Only a glimpse of his power is shown in footage of the prison games.
Idaki Hitara
Idaki Hitara is a towering 77-year-old Deadman inmate known as Condor.
He is a sleepless old man with dreadlocks, headphones, and an eye mask, and he often says that his daughter is speaking through him.
His Branch of Sin, Condor Candle, creates flames from blood.
He has not slept for 32 years.
Before prison, he was a middle school teacher.
His greatest regret concerns his daughter Yuki Hitara, a young actress with whom he failed to communicate honestly.
Her disfigurement after the disaster and her eventual suicide left him emotionally broken.
That grief shaped his detached and eccentric behavior.
After release, he works in agriculture for a while, then later returns to assist in the final conflict.
At the end, he removes his mask and headphones and returns to teaching.
Masu
Masu is a 23-year-old Deadman inmate constantly obsessed with eating.
He consumes anything he can find, including metal and walls, and his mouth has been sewn to limit its size.
He had worked as a clown in a circus before imprisonment.
His code name is not clearly given, though a pelican appears on his bonus character card.
After the prison closes, he continues his strange eating habits in another cell.
In the ending, he becomes a competitive eater.
Toto Sakigami
Toto Sakigami is an 18-year-old Deadman known as Mockingbird.
In the anime, he is voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro.
He was once considered the strongest Deadman and had even won the Carnival Corpse.
His Branch of Sin, Love Labyrinth, lets him copy the blood powers of other Deadmen by licking their blood.
However, the person seen in the story is usually not Toto himself.
His body has been overtaken by Rinichirou Hagire, who uses memory transfer to possess stronger hosts.
The real Toto had become emotionally numb after his sister died protecting him during the disaster.
He later found a reason to live through his bond with Yosuga Mitsuzaki, whom he treated like an older sister.
His story is one of the series' strangest and saddest identity twists.
When Hagire finally dies, Toto briefly regains himself only to perish with the ruined body.
Yosuga Mitsuzaki
Yosuga Mitsuzaki is a 17-year-old Deadman with very low stamina and a flat, quiet way of speaking.
Her Branch of Sin creates an umbrella-like blood weapon used for defense and blunt attacks.
After losing everything in the disaster, she wanted to die and felt little attachment to life.
Her relationship with Toto gradually gave her a reason to keep going.
Later, after the prison's fall, she joins the anti-Wretched Egg operation.
But in one of the story's cruelest turns, she is killed by Hagire after begging him to return Toto's body.
Scar Chain
Nagi Kengamine
Nagi Kengamine is the gentle and intelligent leader of Scar Chain, the group dedicated to exposing and destroying Deadman Wonderland.
In the anime, he is voiced by Daisuke Ono.
His code name is Owl.
His Branch of Sin, Owl's Eyeball, creates explosive blood bubbles.
Before his imprisonment, he ran a kimono shop.
His deepest trauma came when he was forced to fight his pregnant wife in the Carnival Corpse.
He deliberately lost to try to save her, giving up his vocal cords in punishment.
But the prison broke its promise, killed his wife, and preserved their unborn child in formalin.
Nagi's mind sealed away that memory, leaving him with the delusion that his child was still alive outside.
When the truth returns, he collapses into rage and despair.
He ultimately dies after regaining his sense of comradeship and hope.
His final act helps Ganta keep moving forward.
Karako Koshio
Karako Koshio is Scar Chain's vice leader and one of the toughest fighters in the series.
In the anime, she is voiced by Kumiko Itou.
She speaks in a lively Kansai dialect and has romantic feelings for Nagi.
Her Branch of Sin, Gamefowl, hardens blood over her body like armor and boosts her close-range combat.
Before prison, she was a nurse known for violently subduing abusive patients.
After Nagi's death, she leads surviving members to escape and reveal the prison's crimes.
Later she works under Makina and helps gather Deadmen for the final operation.
In the ending, she returns to nursing.
Bundō Rokuro
Bundō Rokuro is Scar Chain's intelligence specialist, but he is secretly a spy for the anti-Deadman unit called the Undertakers.
In the anime, he is voiced by Jun Fukuyama.
His Branch of Sin forms a shield-like barrier from blood.
He helps orchestrate major betrayals and, in the anime, also creates the fake incriminating footage used against Ganta.
General Prisoners
Yoo Takami
Yoo Takami is Minatsuki's older brother and a general inmate rather than a Deadman.
In the anime, he is voiced by Yuuki Kaji.
He is clever, good-looking, and extremely skilled at theft and lock-picking.
He originally enters the prison to find and save Minatsuki.
Yoo spends much of the early story pretending to support Ganta while secretly serving Tamaki to earn points.
After learning the truth about the prison and reconnecting with his sister, he genuinely becomes Ganta's friend.
After DW closes, he works under Makina and later helps in the final operation.
In the ending, he lives together with Minatsuki and Kincho.
Azami Mido
Azami Mido is a kind and strongly moral general inmate.
She had a harsh childhood marked by neglect and once led a biker gang.
She was imprisoned after taking the blame for a large accident to protect a friend, only to be abandoned by that friend and even her lawyer.
Inside DW, she survives by performing tricks with her pet armadillo Kincho.
Azami befriends Ganta soon after his arrival.
Later she is turned into a test subject for the artificial Deadman project.
Although Ganta frees her from control, she is eventually killed by Hagire after trying to help save him.
She is an important manga character but does not appear in the television anime.
Kincho
Kincho is Azami's pet three-banded armadillo.
He is smart, loyal, and good at performing tricks.
After Azami's death, he is taken in by Yoo Takami.
He remains with Yoo and Minatsuki afterward.
Kouzuji Kazumasa
Kouzuji Kazumasa is a violent and arrogant general inmate and a former taekwondo gold medalist.
In the anime, he is voiced by Takeshi Maruyama.
He cheats during the prison's dog race event and abuses weaker inmates.
In the manga he is sent to solitary punishment, while in the anime he dies after falling into a field of spikes.
Chan
Chan is an information broker among the general inmates.
He helps Yoo investigate Minatsuki's whereabouts.
The anime changes his appearance and simplifies his role.
There he is credited only as an information broker.
Tsunenaga Tamaki
Tsunenaga Tamaki is the promoter and true showman behind Deadman Wonderland's cruelty.
In the anime, he is voiced by Junichi Suwabe.
He treats inmates as toys and turns murder into entertainment.
He is also the man who poses as Ganta's lawyer and engineers his false conviction.
Tamaki is deeply interested in the Red Man and in creating something capable of defeating Wretched Egg.
That obsession leads him to support grotesque experiments such as the creation of the Ningen.
Before the disaster, he was a shut-in addicted to online games.
After losing his old world in the catastrophe, he reshaped his life around defeating what he saw as the great demon behind it.
Eventually he learns that he has only been a pawn in Hagire's larger plans.
Driven insane by that realization, he kills himself with a gun.
Makina Fluegel Kiwako
Makina Fluegel Kiwako, usually called Makina, is the prison's chief guard.
In the anime, she is voiced by Takako Honda.
She is strict, disciplined, and harsh toward inmates, but she is also fundamentally sincere and commands the loyalty of her subordinates.
She despises Tamaki's disregard for rules and gradually begins investigating the prison's hidden crimes.
Makina initially knows nothing about Deadmen, the Red Man, or the true purpose of G Ward.
Once she uncovers the truth, she forms the DW Special Task Force with former military contacts and launches a coup against Tamaki.
She fights using a blade equipped with Worm Eater, a substance that neutralizes normal Branch of Sin abilities.
After seeing Wretched Egg's overwhelming power, she is officially tasked with organizing the mission to stop her.
In the ending, she returns to the Self-Defense Forces as an instructor.
She is one of the few adult authority figures in the series who remains genuinely admirable.
Kyoko Kasuga
Kyoko Kasuga is a prison guard and one of Makina's loyal subordinates.
In the anime, she is voiced by Chika Horikawa.
She helps investigate Tamaki and later joins Makina's new task force even after being told to leave for her own safety.
Her role is small but steady and dependable.
Urara Takashima
Urara Takashima is the prison doctor working under Tamaki.
In the anime, she is voiced by Mina.
She is both sadistic and masochistic, reveling in pain whether suffered by others or imagined for herself.
She conducts Deadman research and helps create the Ningen.
After the first artificial unit is defeated, she is killed by Wretched Egg.
Her presence adds a particularly twisted flavor to the prison's science wing.
Rinichirou Hagire
Rinichirou Hagire is the prison's official warden and one of the story's most chilling masterminds.
In the anime, he is voiced by Hiroshi Naka, and when using Toto's body he is voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro.
He was once Sorae Igarashi's superior at the National Medical Ward.
A psychopath and mad scientist, he became fascinated by Shiro's abnormal abilities and devoted himself to reproducing and exploiting them.
Hagire is himself a Deadman.
By using the powers of Chan and En, he transfers his memories into the bodies of other Deadmen, effectively hopping from host to host to survive.
The Toto seen in much of the later story is actually Hagire in Toto's body, his third host.
His entire plan is driven by a warped desire to understand love through conflict with Wretched Egg.
He ultimately fails.
After a final confrontation with Ganta and the others, he dies without ever truly understanding the thing he claimed to seek.
Chan and En
Chan and En are Hagire's twin attendants.
In the anime, they are voiced by Shouhei Kajikawa and Yuka Saitou.
Their Branch of Sin, Hollow Swallow, creates tendril-like blood structures that can link to brains and machines for control.
They were born with severe disabilities and remained in a vegetative state until Hagire took them in and gave them mobility.
Because of that, they worship him as a father even though they understand he does not truly love them.
They eventually sacrifice themselves to protect him.
Azuma Genkaku
Azuma Genkaku is the leader of the anti-Deadman execution unit called the Undertakers.
In the anime, he is voiced by Toshiyuki Morikawa.
He is a weaponized monk obsessed with rock music and death as salvation.
His signature weapon is a guitar-shotgun named Flying V Nirvana.
Before the disaster, he endured brutal abuse in a temple while seeking enlightenment.
After witnessing mass death during the catastrophe, he concluded that death itself was the only true salvation.
He murders Nagi's wife and becomes fixated on Nagi as a fellow being touched by destruction.
He later goes berserk and is defeated together with Nagi.
Hibana Daida
Hibana Daida is a small girl and one of the Undertaker officers.
In the anime, she is voiced by Natsumi Takamori.
She carries a huge segmented sword designed more for crushing than cutting.
Raised by a murderous mother, she killed a boy as a child and buried his body in a flowerbed.
After Genkaku's defeat, she encounters Toto and dies in battle.
Her mix of childishness and brutality is especially unsettling.
Gazuchi Mouzuri
Gazuchi Mouzuri is a large and powerful Undertaker officer.
In the anime, he is voiced by Minoru Hirota.
Abandoned in the mountains as an infant, he was raised by bears and later killed multiple hunters and dogs.
He relies on monstrous physical strength in combat.
He dies after being sliced apart by Senji.
His savage backstory fits the Undertakers' role as broken products of extreme punishment.
Doukoku Shinagawa
Doukoku Shinagawa is an Undertaker deputy officer with grotesquely long nails.
He once murdered many women and made clothing from the skin and hair of their heads.
He is also killed by Senji during the clash with Scar Chain.
His inclusion underlines how horrifying the prison's "correction" system really is.
Ningen are artificial Deadmen created by Tamaki's side as weapons.
The name implies a fake human made for human purposes.
Unlike real Deadmen, they all share a common blood-serpent ability that injects a compound causing blood vessels to rupture.
Their masks also stimulate the brain's pleasure centers, reducing them to obedient puppets.
The project was originally meant to create anti-Wretched Egg weapons.
However, because the data used was false, their abilities do not work properly against her.
The Alpha Unit
The Alpha Unit consists of the completed Ningen, each of whom develops a stronger individualized poison-based power.
Their masks are nailed directly into their faces, but unlike lesser Ningen, they retain self-awareness.
Madoka Shishitō
Madoka Shishitō is a mild-looking but deadly Alpha Unit member.
He speaks nervously and often says "probably."
As a child he was bullied, and his view of the world became twisted around the idea that one person's misery equals another person's happiness.
His Branch of Sin, Beastly Heart Suicide, forms clawed blood weapons laced with neurotoxin that can manipulate the victim's senses.
He nearly kills Shiro and Ganta.
He is finally defeated after Shiro severs his arm and Ganta blasts him with the Ganbaru Gun.
Akatsuki Ikazuchi
Akatsuki Ikazuchi appears in the original animation episode and later material as a masked Alpha Unit fighter.
He once thrived in lawless Tokyo and was responsible for killing Senji's fellow officers.
His Branch of Sin, Chaos Body, uses a scorpion-tail form to inject himself with a blood-based doping agent.
He is eventually killed by Senji in a fierce duel.
The Mikawa Twins
The Mikawa twins, Hajime Mikawa and Ichi Mikawa, look like children despite being over 30.
They once tricked kind adults into helping them, then robbed and killed them.
Their Branch of Sin, Twin Wheel Peerless, acts like blood tongues and carries a powerful sleeping drug.
They are killed when Idaki Hitara ignites the blood spilled during their battle.
Sumeragi Uzume
Sumeragi Uzume is a vain and elegant Alpha Unit woman who adores beauty and rejects anything she considers ugly.
Her Branch of Sin, Seven-Colored Butterflies, creates hallucinogenic blood butterflies.
She uses illusions to make enemies attack each other.
Minatsuki and Sugakawa ultimately defeat her together in a savage counterattack.
Members
The DW Special Task Force is assembled by Makina to stop Tamaki and confront the prison's hidden horrors.
It includes guards loyal to her and trusted allies from her military days.
Makina Fluegel Kiwako serves as leader.
Kyoko Kasuga joins as one of her closest subordinates.
Kaidou Ekou is a war journalist and Makina's acquaintance who gathers intelligence and procures weapons.
He is lecherous and annoying, but also practical and sensible when it matters.
Toraichi Gashima is a small, aggressive former comrade of Makina.
He uses twin handguns and has a gun built into his prosthetic left leg.
Bomb is another former comrade, notable for his burn scar and love of explosives.
He speaks flatly, says odd things, and treats throwing bombs like casual greetings.
Sorae Igarashi
Sorae Igarashi is Ganta's mother and one of the most important unseen figures in the story.
She was a researcher at the National Medical Ward, the facility that later became Deadman Wonderland.
At first she was cold, obsessive, and willing to use human subjects for nanomachine research.
Ganta himself was originally intended to be such a test subject, and his name was derived from the word for a human experimental specimen.
However, once he was born and she held him, she changed.
She chose to protect him by sending him away and using another child, Shiro, as his substitute.
Even after developing genuine love for both children, she continued participating in the experiments on Shiro under Hagire's influence.
That guilt drove her to create both the Mother Goose System and the Anti-Wretched Egg crystal.
When forced to deactivate the system, she refused and instead died by suicide.
Her decisions are morally painful, but they shape the entire plot.
Mimi
Mimi is one of Ganta's middle school classmates and one of his closest childhood friends.
In the anime, she is voiced by Megumi Takamoto.
She looks forward to the school trip with Ganta and Yamakatsu, only to be murdered during the Red Man's massacre.
In the anime, her father appears and becomes one of the adults who hates Ganta for the crime he did not commit.
Yamakatsu
Yamakatsu, whose real name is Katsuya, is another of Ganta's close classmates.
In the anime, he is voiced by Shouhei Kajikawa.
Like Mimi, he dies in the school massacre that begins the series.
His death helps frame the scale of Ganta's loss from the very first chapter.
Domon
Domon is Senji's superior officer during Senji's police days.
In the anime, he is voiced by Unshou Ishizuka.
He is one of the officers murdered by criminals in post-disaster Tokyo.
His death becomes part of the trauma that defines Senji's worldview.
Akira Shindō, Momoi, and Toshiro Kan
These three are fellow police officers connected to Senji's backstory.
All are killed in the attack that leaves Senji alive and burdened with survivor's guilt.
Deadman Wonderland
Deadman Wonderland, usually shortened to DW, is a fully privatized prison built in Tokyo.
It combines a prison, detention center, and amusement park, using inmate suffering as public entertainment.
Officially, it exists as a recovery tourism project after the Tokyo catastrophe.
Secretly, it is a containment facility for Deadmen, with a hidden underground sector called G Ward.
The complex was built over the former National Medical Ward as if to seal away Wretched Egg.
After internal rebellion, exposure of its crimes, and Wretched Egg's rampage, the prison is destroyed and shut down.
The Tokyo Catastrophe
The Tokyo Catastrophe occurred ten years before the main story and left nearly 148,000 people dead or missing.
It submerged much of Tokyo and turned the area into a lawless slum.
The disaster's true cause was Wretched Egg.
In the television anime, this event is reimagined as a gravity anomaly called the Red Hole rather than a conventional earthquake.
Cast Points
Cast Points, abbreviated CP, are the prison's internal currency.
One CP is equal to one yen.
Prisoners can buy daily necessities, luxury items, and even reductions to their sentences.
Deadmen, however, are excluded from sentence reduction because they are treated as living research material.
Candy
Candy is an antidote given in the shape of a piece of candy.
Deadman death-row inmates wear collars that inject poison, and without this antidote every three days, they die.
The first piece is provided, but each later dose costs 100,000 CP.
This means the prisoners are effectively being executed a little at a time.
Deadmen
Deadmen are people who can use the Branch of Sin.
The phenomenon appeared only in the Kanto region after the Tokyo catastrophe.
They become Deadmen after a red crystal made from the Nameless Worm, essentially Wretched Egg's blood, enters the body.
Even inmates originally sentenced for lesser crimes are treated as death-row subjects if they are identified as Deadmen.
Branch of Sin
The Branch of Sin, also called Voluntary Blood Disorder, is the power to manipulate one's own blood.
It requires bleeding to activate.
The stronger it is used, the more heavily it strains the heart.
Overuse can eventually lead to death.
Mother Goose System
The Mother Goose System is a control mechanism designed to suppress Wretched Egg.
It works by broadcasting a lullaby through a network of speaker-like units called Chorus Blocks.
These devices are filled with minced Wretched Egg tissue.
The system was created by Sorae Igarashi.
Carnival Corpse
The Carnival Corpse is a deadly one-on-one Deadman tournament.
It is presented to wealthy spectators as a grotesque private show.
The winner receives CP and candy.
The loser must undergo a punishment game in which a body part is selected and removed for donation, sometimes resulting in death.
Each participating Deadman is assigned a bird-themed code name.
This is why the cast includes names like Woodpecker, Crow, and Hummingbird.
Necro Macro
Necro Macro are security robots used in the prison.
Some versions fire energy shots and missiles, while smaller types release sulfuric acid.
A later improved model is used by the Special Task Force and can be piloted manually.
Despite their heavy design, they are fast and dangerous.
Aceman
Aceman is the superhero program Ganta and Shiro watched as children.
Its absurdly long attack names inspired Shiro's own dramatic combat style.
According to young Ganta, "Ace" is the family name and "Man" is the given name.
That joke captures the series' occasional weird charm.
Scar Chain
Scar Chain is the rebel group led by Nagi.
Its goal is to expose Deadman Wonderland's illegal operations and bring the system down.
Most of its members die during the clash with the Undertakers.
However, the surviving members succeed in publicizing the prison's secrets.
Undertakers
The Undertakers are a special anti-Deadman execution unit made from heavily modified humans.
They are recruited from criminals deemed impossible to rehabilitate and survive an extreme correction program.
Their brains and bodies are altered to remove normal limits.
After many of their leaders die, the Ningen project takes over their function.
Worm Eater
Worm Eater is an anti-Deadman agent used by the Undertakers and later by Makina's forces.
It oxidizes the Nameless Worms in blood and neutralizes most Branch of Sin powers.
It works on ordinary Deadmen and on Ningen.
However, it fails against Wretched Egg because the data used in its design was false.
Publication
The original manga was published by Kadokawa Shoten in Monthly Shonen Ace.
It began in the June 2007 issue and ended in 2013.
It was released in 13 collected volumes.
Volume 11 also had a limited edition bundled with an original animation DVD.
Guidebook
An official guidebook titled Deadman Wonderland Official Guidebook: The Irrational World was published on August 10, 2011.
It provided additional character data and world details.
Another Deadman Wonderland
Another Deadman Wonderland is a spin-off manga drawn by Mizunomoto.
It ran in 4-Koma Nano Ace from March 9, 2011, to April 9, 2012, with a guest chapter in Altima Ace.
This version transforms the grim original into a lighter four-panel comedy.
The violent and tragic elements are mostly removed, and the cast is exaggerated for humor.
Shiro is especially reimagined in a smaller, more childlike style.
The spin-off was collected in a single volume released on May 25, 2013.
Deadman Wonderland Complete Edition
A parody one-shot titled Deadman Wonderland Complete Edition appeared in Monthly Shonen Ace on May 26, 2011.
It was drawn by Jigoku no Misawa and turned the series into a comic parody in his distinctive style.
Novelization
A two-volume novel adaptation was published under the Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko label.
It was written by Hikaru Mutsuzuka with illustrations by the original creators.
Because it adapts the anime version, it covers roughly the material from manga volumes 1 through 5.
The upper volume was released on May 1, 2011, and the lower volume on August 1, 2011.
Anthology Contribution
The series also appeared in the charity manga collection Party! SORA, released on August 5, 2011.
Its contribution was titled Deadman Wonderland Galaxy Days Summer Version.
Television Series
The television anime adaptation of Deadman Wonderland aired from April to July 2011 on independent stations and other networks.
It ran for 12 episodes.
Because of broadcasting restrictions, violent language and imagery were often censored with audio muting and visual edits.
The anime ends around the Scar Chain escape storyline and does not adapt the full manga.
Staff
The anime was directed by Koichi Hatsumi.
Series composition was handled by Yasuyuki Muto.
Character design was by Masaki Yamada.
Mechanical design was by Takayuki Yanase.
Music was composed by NARASAKI.
Animation production was handled by Manglobe.
Theme Music
The opening theme is One Reason by DWB feat. an unnamed vocalist marker as listed in the source material.
It is not used in episode 1.
The ending theme is Shiny Shiny by DWB feat. Nirgilis.
It is not used in episode 12.
A lullaby sung by Shiro, voiced by Kana Hanazawa, appears as an insert song in episodes 1 and 12.
Its lyrics were written by Jinsei Kataoka and Kazuma Kondou.
Broadcast
The anime aired in regions including Kanagawa, Gifu, Fukuoka, Hyogo, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba, and Mie, and also on BS Nippon.
Some broadcasts added further censorship beyond the base television version.
It was also streamed online through services such as Nico Nico Channel.
A later run aired on AT-X in 2012.
Home Video
The television anime was released in six Blu-ray and DVD volumes between June and November 2011.
Each volume contained two episodes.
An original video animation episode titled The Red Knife Wielder was included with the limited edition of manga volume 11, released on October 8, 2011.
It was not broadcast on television.
The story is set two years after the Red Hole and focuses on Senji during his days as a police officer.
It expands his backstory and his fight against gang violence in ruined Tokyo.
OVA Characters
Keigo Ugachi is the leader of a gang posing as a vigilante group called Goreless Peace.
His Branch of Sin, Wire Liar, manipulates blood like spider threads.
Hinata Mukai is a woman caring for orphans in an abandoned school building.
She is killed when the gang attacks.
Izuru Tsukiyoshi is one of the orphans living there.
This character is also killed in the assault.
Several character song CDs were released in 2011.
These featured songs performed in character by cast members.
The first release focused on Ganta Igarashi and Senji Kiyomasa.
The second featured Minatsuki Takami and Yoo Takami.
The third featured Azuma Genkaku, Bundō Rokuro, and Hibana Daida.
The fourth centered on Shiro.
In May 2011, a mobile dress-up application based on the series was released through Mobile Newtype.
It supported services for major Japanese mobile platforms of the time.
A pachislot machine titled Pachislot Deadman Wonderland was introduced by Kitac on October 19, 2015.
This extended the franchise into amusement gaming.
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