Darwin's Game

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Japanese: ダーウィンズゲーム

Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 30

Chapters: 121

Status: Finished

Published: Dec 12, 2012 to Oct 12, 2023

Genres: Action, Mystery, Suspense

Themes: High Stakes Game, Survival

Demographic: Shounen

Serialization: Bessatsu Shounen Champion

Authors: FLIPFLOPs (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 7.56¹ (scored by 18,259 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #2741²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #342

Members: 54,054

Favorites: 1,071

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7.56

Ranked #2741Popularity #342Members 54,054

MangaBessatsu Shounen ChampionFLIPFLOPs (Story & Art)

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Volumes: /30

Chapters: /121

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Synopsis

When high school student Kaname Sudou receives an invitation link from his friend to play a brand-new mobile game called Darwin's Game, he has no idea that it would change his life forever. At first glance, the game looks like a regular fighting game. However, it has a dark truth—the battles are fought one-on-one, and the loser dies in the real world.

Not long after joining the game, Kaname is abruptly matched up against his first opponent. The odds are against him, yet he miraculously comes out victorious. Afraid of his new reality, Kaname attempts to find ways to exit the game and return to his daily life. However, the only method seems to be winning all the given battles. Kaname must now figure out how to stay alive and try to find allies he can count on.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Characters

Karino, Shuka

Main

Sudou, Kaname

Main

Kashiwagi, Rein

Main

Sui

Supporting

Souta

Supporting

Maesaka, Ryuuji

Supporting

Liu, Xue Lan

Supporting

Banda-kun

Supporting

Hiiragi, Ichirou

Supporting

Kyouda, Hiroyuki

Supporting

Reviews

Dec 15, 2025

hexashadow13

Recommended

Darwin’s Game is one of those manga that involves people suddenly being given supernatural powers and then forced to duke it out. Darwin’s Game is a mysterious smartphone app that gives its users a supernatural ability known as a Sigil. They then fight each other for points that can be exchanged for cash and prizes. Battles can be initiated through simply running into another D-Game player and triggering a battle through the app, but there are also major events where players are mass teleported to a location and then given some sort of objective. The game is not purely a death game as it is ... possible to lose without dying. However, the game does involve fighting with supernatural powers so deaths are pretty common.

The protagonist, Kaname, has a Sigil that gives him the ability to summon anything that he’s familiar with. That may not seem all that impressive considering that others Sigil wielders have powers like controlling water or teleportation. However, Kaname is adepts at tactics and mind games which allows him to use his Sigil very effectively. As a result, he ends up somewhat overpowered, but almost entirely through skill rather than through pure power, which makes his fights really interesting and satisfying. He also has a good character arc in the first third or so of the manga, though he doesn’t seem to grow much after that. Still, at that point he is a likable character with a good amount of depth, so he’s a pretty solid protagonist throughout the manga.

The clan that Kaname establishes, Sunset Ravens, makes up the majority of the supporting cast. They have a pretty good variety of powers and work well together so that keeps the larger scale conflicts interesting. None of them are fleshed out all that well or have much character development. However, they have a good group dynamic, so holistically they’re still interesting as characters. There’s also a romance between Kaname and a girl in the clan that isn’t all that deep or anything, but is still pretty cute and satisfying to watch progress. In terms of antagonists, the manga strikes a good balance between ones that are cartoonish villains that are just awful people, and more complex characters with complicated circumstances behind their actions.

The plot overall flows well. The focus is initially is on Kaname fighting in single matches, but quickly shifts to larger scale events and battles. These were well designed and had a good number of twists and turns. Something I think the mangaka is really good at is knowing when to call it quits. A lot of arcs felt like they ended abruptly, but most of the time this was quite welcome because the arcs were dragging on and getting kind of dull. Thus, the pacing is generally pretty good. As is the case with most all death game manga, the plot jumps the shark and becomes incredibly grand scale eventually, at which point the plot becomes somewhat convoluted and somewhat hard to follow. Still, it’s easy to understand the broad strokes even if the finer details are perplexing, so the plot is still exciting and the manga overall is smooth to read.

The ending unfortunately is really rushed and drops most all of the minor plot threads and glosses through key aspects of the major plot threads. It is believed that this is because the mangaka was having health problems, which is certainly understandable. Furthermore, while the execution of the ending is certainly heavily flawed, the ending itself is great. Thus, while certainly not perfect I was pretty satisfied with it.

The mangaka’s is a great artist in terms of style and quality. The character designs are only decent, but the art uses them very effectively. Unfortunately, the artist’s health seems to have had an impact on the art as well. It peaks at around 2/3 into the manga. After that the quality goes up and down, and though there is certainly still some great art, overall the quality is noticeably lower. The fan translation for most of the manga is pretty good, though the translation of the last couple volumes has major issues.

tl;dr: A battle manga with a great protagonist and great pacing, though a pretty rough final stretch.

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Dec 17, 2025

Asy_

Mixed Feelings

Darwin’s Game is a series that does a great job playing out a premise until conclusion and writing situations where the sole deciding factor is tactical know-how and strategic thinking rather than just overwhelming force.But endss up not really sticking the ending near the end. The after taste of finishing the series isn’t bad but not its not really anything to have you remember either.

The MC is given an initially weak ability from the game he’s bean put into, and it’s through refining it over the series that he learns the true strength of the actual ability. For example, in early fights, since he hasn’t ... fully grasped the wide rage of use of his abilities, he’s often using buying items from the store mid fight to either find ways to escape encounters, or when he does choose to face them head-on, he tries to plan their actions ahead to create traps to get out ahead. And ash the series progresses, he gets a grasp on his powers and is actually able to go toe to toe in firepower, but when he does, he still keeps that smae mentality of using his ability as minimally as possible to try and find a way out, which is nice since it doesn’t feel like he becomes a different person, just because he’s only been fighting semi compenet players.

Also, the actual action in the series isn’t bad either. The fights are nice and you do a solid job having it play out, and you never really struggle. The only gripe with the action would be that a lot of the scenes and panels almost felt bland and muted. I understand that that is a large part due to the art style, but often throughout the series when you’re seeing two players face off against each other, most panels feel relatively still and not very dynamic with barely any real movement from the players or whatever objects they are using.

The story, however, was well written for the most part. The major overarching plot/idea is the conspiracy behind the actual D Game and who’s in charge of it,. Which makes sense for or a normal superpower death game series, that seems like a fine premise. However, the series only keeps that premise for atmout 60–70% of the way into the story, and once it’s revealed it feels like the entire genre of the series changes.

You go from high-stakes, “death-is-around-every-corner” style death game series to suddenly some sort of time travel/sci-fi/fantasy MCU-level plot. Having a series change its direction after an arc or major reveal in and of itself isn’t a problem, but it feels like the writer stopped writing for a few months, forgot what the series was about, and then started again trying to write it into a blank slate from scratch mid storuy. I wouldn’t have had a problem with the story telling shift, however there wasn’t a single chapter at any point or any mention/breadcrumbs that would allude to the story taking the massive change in direction it did into a time travel sci-fi multiverse story, and that’s honestly the biggest turn off in the series for me when I was reading it.

I personally don’t hate it, but reading through the series it’s a great and fun read up until the main reveal, and after that high point much of the narrative honestly feels like a slog at times. Overall the series just felt “meh,” and after reading it feels like I honestly just kinda passed forwards in time a bit, with nothing of the story really memorable or of note left after finishing.

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Apr 5, 2023

cyyyber_wuw

Not Recommended

Preliminary (98/121 eps)

well i didn't like it
I came to read to find out about the second season and like, at first it was fun, but it started to have a lot of unnecessary details and the reading got very boring. I basically finished the manga, I didn't read the last chapters as I didn't think so, but I can pretty much assume ...

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Aug 14, 2023 7:32 PM by DatRandomDude | Discuss (9 comments)

Manga 'Darwin's Game' Receives TV Anime Adaptation

The wraparound band on the 16th volume of FLIPFLOPs' Darwin's Game manga revealed on Thursday that the series will be adapted into a TV anime. Aniplex simu...read more

Nov 7, 2018 7:32 PM by Vindstot | Discuss (36 comments)

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Poll: Darwin's Game Chapter 104 Discussion Hegar - Jul 24, 2022	6 replies	by -Arhael- »» Jun 4, 2025 10:16 AM
Poll: Darwin's Game Chapter 81 Discussion ThatDutchOtaku - Feb 9, 2020	9 replies	by Zteffe »» Apr 22, 2025 2:40 PM
Poll: Darwin's Game Chapter 25 Discussion Natrius - Nov 12, 2015	4 replies	by Lasya_ »» Jan 9, 2025 3:53 AM
Poll: Darwin's Game Chapter 93 Discussion MegamiRem - Apr 7, 2021	11 replies	by shidothejapan »» Nov 3, 2024 9:15 AM
Poll: Darwin's Game Chapter 121 Discussion MegamiRem - Nov 4, 2023	9 replies	by michciusan »» Sep 11, 2024 1:38 AM

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