Poll: Should this show feature blood?

Personally I enjoy the preservation system since it’s also a plot device

@ominous_writer The preservation system doesn't make sense from a realistic point of view, because of that you can just replace the cotton with blood and then have the show easily explain that the characters are able to get their limbs or health back by.... I dunno using the health potion from the resident evil games to reattach their limbs I guess?. it's not like show explains how the preservation system works exactly (yet).

This way you can just have the preservation system plot device intact while having blood.

@MightyHawk come on sir, we are watching animes, not real horror movies, don't be serious and let your imagination playing a little bit.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot.

I agree with previous comments about liking it because of its plot capabilities. Also, it allows the horror to remain in this more tense psychological state rather than gore based horror. They still experience excruciating pain and can die, so I can use my imagination, I don’t need to see the blood. And I haven’t read the light novels (please no spoilers for those who have) but I wonder if things will change in the future like the preservation system gets messed up somehow, which would alter the stakes. Or if in another game they’re given a time limit for how long the preservation system will last, etc.

*SPOILERS BELOW FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN’T WATCHED*

In the first ep, we couldn’t have had the interesting communal decision they made to dismember themselves without the cotton treatment. If they just had blood, that moment would’ve just become a murder fight or all the girls bleeding out, which is much less interesting. And having that communal amputation decision made the final moment of killing the girl she went out of her way to save hit so much harder.

In this recent ep, it’s becoming a key point between our MC and the others, since our MC’s personal code is to save people, even if they’re blown up, but the other characters are abandoning the blown up girl.

The stakes are still high, the preservation treatment just allows for a wider range of options these characters can make.

Episode 1 and 2 spoilers

Besides the many arguments people here mentioned for the preservation system, another one why I like it is the psychological effect it had on the girls on that scene on episode 1, but sadly that the anime went through so fast that it didn't have the same impact. Using spoiler tag just in case but I'm talking from the very same scene in the LN:

.

I not only love the preservation system, I feel that it is the cleverest detail in the anime till now, since it works on so many different levels. Even though at the most basic level it is a censorship tool to hide the blood in the death games from us, it is so much more than that.

From a plot standpoint, it allows the contestants to do things that they would die from in normal circumstances. In episode 1, they would not have survived the blood loss from all the dismemberment if this treatment did not exist. It also allows them to participate in future games intact even after losing body parts in a game. Finally, it allows them to not die from "boring" deaths like from blood loss, giving it a purpose in the actual games.

On a deeper level though, it acts as a censor in universe to the 'viewers' watching these games. It highlights the irony of viewers wanting to see cute girls fight and die in death games, but not wanting to deal with anything guilt or trauma inducing like gore or blood. Not only that, but the cotton-like appearance literally turn the girls into doll-like beings, distancing the girls from feeling too human to the viewers. We know Momono, or the pink girl in the first episode, did not recognize the cotton-like blood and needed Yuki to explain, so we can infer that this treatment is specific to these games and this is not something that their blood normally does in their world, further supporting the creators of the games specifically creating and performing these treatments for the above reasons for their viewers. It even contributes to the world building of the story by portraying the advancements in sciences in their world, letting us know this is an advanced enough world where where such a treatment that coagulates blood into cotton-like material on contact with air exists.

On an even more meta note though, it acts as a commentary on how cute girls are often reduced to being 'dolls' in these sort of edgy death game stories, made to be toyed with and discarded. The intent of the long and wide shots where the girls' facial features disappear, only leaving them as 'cute girls in cute dresses' is not lost. Neither is the function of having all the girls be in similar outfits/uniforms to erase any singular or distinct personalities. The anime consistently makes choices to distance the girls from appearing too 'human' and the preservation treatment is the pinnacle of that.

And of course, this plot device it is extremely unique and makes this story stand out in a sea of death game stories.

When a single plot device is able to perform so many functions, I think it would be a real disservice to try to remove it and replace it with standard blood splatters. Especially as, in my opinion, anime blood makes scenes a lot less disturbing. This is just my personal opinion, but seeing those cotton spread and shred about makes me a lot more disturbed than just normal blood since it leaves even the blood scenes to the imagination where they can be much worse than what would have been animated.

Looking through this thread there’s a sad lack of people not commenting on the fact that the lack of blood is dehumanising.

Within the context of the show the girls are clearly doing this for the entertainment of others, acting as dolls in a horrific playhouse. The use of stuffing as blood further takes away any sense that the people watching this are doing anything bad, “it doesn’t matter if their arm gets ripped off, we can just sow it back on” etc