“You have been chosen to participate in a closed stage of The Ones Within-Genome.”
Eight people from Let’s Player stream are sent an invitation to participate in this game. Without knowing, they had been kidnapped into a strange place. One of our main protagonist Iride Akatsuki wakes up in a forest lying next to a girl, Karen Sarayashiki. (At this moment, I thought this would be one of those horror anime/manga like Ousama Game, Doubt, or Real Account where there was a killer in their group). After Karen wakes up, they saw a giant Panda. (Like any normal person you run…) Thinking they were being chased by a giant panda, they ran and met their next teammate, Kaikoku Onigasaki. Akatsuki saw that the Panda wasn’t really chasing after them, so he used his kindness to communicate and show that he means the panda no harm and want be the panda’s friend. The panda and him became friends and the panda left afterwards (When it got to this point, this show felt like a comedy anime).
Then, they met the admin of this game, known as Paka (An alpaca?… This show gets more weird xD but reminds me of Monokuma from Danganronpa personality). He explains that they are given a goal to reach 100,000,000 views in this live stream, and should play “as if their life depends on it”(I felt like something similar to Danganronpa would happen if they did not reach it soon from the way he said it). After all eight members met in the classroom, they did self introduction and we find out each person specialized in a certain genre game like puzzle, combat, stealth, or samurai games. When asked what if they didn’t want to do it, Paka threatens them that they be sent to like cell and basically die there…..
The next part was quite rushed with emotions of sadness and comedy. So Akatsuki and three other members did the first stream where they summoned a spirit and had to grant it three wishes. This part gets a bit weird. During the third wish, Akatsuki was possessed by the spirit and jumped out the window! (-Gasp- uwaah that sounds scary). Then.. it turned out he was saved by the big fluffy panda from earlier! (That’s good that he’s safe, I felt the dark comedy there). The next part was pretty sad. The spirit was in the room and she was a lonely girl who had no friends. Akatsuki held onto her and promised to stay with her one day as she disappears in the flames ( I honestly felt a bit sad at this part when she burns away and asked him to go with her). First mission was accomplished, and they got their view count.
Images from: Nakanohito Genome (Jikkyouchuu). Dir. S Oonuma. Silver Link. 2019.
Overall…
Honestly, I did not know how to describe this show. It was a mix of every feeling in one episode like dark comedy, horror, and sadness, but that made the show quite interesting. I look forward to the next episodes and seeing what path this show leads with eight people and how they will use their individual specialty to win this game.
Disclaimer: I do now own any of the images.
Anime Tokoyo 