Our protagonist, Akira Shiroyanagi, has been abducted along with several other people and forced to participate in a death game in which the players have superpowers.
Tropes;
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: Madoka's ability, "Blade Master", is to "turn a stick into a sword that can cut through anything".
- Arc Villain: Masaya and Hajime, seeing as a Big Bad Duumvirate for the third part of the exam.
- Arm Cannon: The superpower of Mion. Also, the first ability that Akira makes use of.
- Awesomeness by Analysis: Akira is able to determine the strengths and weaknesses of other players by observing their abilities in action.
- Berserk Button: Yuuri really hates the entire concept of "random chance" and coincidences.
- Betty and Veronica: Ringo and Yuri are this to Akira's Archie respectively.
- Big Bad: Mion, the game's organizer.
- Big Damn Reunion: The season finale ends with Yuri reuniting with Akira in the real world.
- Blood Knight: Hajime Oogami, the leader of the Red Team, thrives in battle and being able to unleash violence onto his enemies.
- Cat Girl: Also Mion.
- Characterization Marches On: Initially, Rin is portrayed as entirely Faux Affably Evil- complete with a short-temper in juxtaposition with her dissonant mask of flirtatious indifference. Afterward, during the third battle, she's portrayed much more Affably Evil- with her temper being downplayed and her flirtatious yet dangerous side as an Aloof Ally being played up more.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The opening is sung by Akari Kitou, who voices Yang.
- Dragon-in-Chief: Played With. Initially, it's assumed that Hajime, while the leader of the Red Team, is merely the muscle to Masaya- the strategist of the two, however, in reality, they're more of a Big Bad Duumvirate with Hajime managing to prove significantly more dangerous- outlasting Masaya.
- Evil Old Folks: Naoharu Kamui, an elderly member of the Red Team, is able to corrode victims with his chemical-based powers.
- Faux Affably Evil:
- Rin, at least initially. She gives off the air of a seductive, lazy person, but reveals herself to be a short-tempered, sadistic sociopath. In her later appearance, this is downplayed for a more Affably Evil behavior, especially against her well more openly evil counterpart, Renka.
- Renka, Rin's Evil Counterpart- though downplayed as Rin is still a sadistic sociopath who helped the heroes briefly, though not nearly as bad as Renka- disguises her behavior as a cutesy girl that masks her obvious brutish behavior.
- Freudian Excuse: Both Masaya and Hajime grew up in an orphanage that enforced the idea that they owe the head of the establishment for taking them in and that they're inhuman. While the former reasoning is shown through their treatment of their organization, the latter is more nuanced- hinting that they consider themselves not human, so they can justify being as inhuman as possible to anyone.
- Guile Hero: Akira prides himself on his intellect and problem-solving skills and uses them to great effect.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: While it is technically true Ringo can copy a power at only 1/10th the power, it means the copied ability is much more precise and versatile. For example, when Ringo copies the Arm Cannon, the result is an arm-machine-gun that fires with 1/10th the "charge up" time.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: Akira's ability, "Sophist", allows him to have any power others believe him to already have.
- Power Copying:
- Downplayed with Ringo's power, which is to copy someone else's ability at 1/10th of its power. Naturally, she initially sees this as Blessed with Suck.
- Akira's power is an unorthodox and esoteric version of this, with the power being able to manifest whatever the enemy thinks his ability is. The catch is that it needs to be parties engaged in combat with him currently. Initially, it seems to be just copying the other participants' powers, but gradually it expands to abilities outside of this, including shapeshifting, etc- anything that the enemy thinks it, though people mostly think the cannon is the main one.
- Power Nullifier: The players are forced to wear braces that function as power dampening handcuffs when activated.
- Sadist: Mion is this in spades.
- Secretly Selfish: Akira is perfectly polite and humble when needed, but is secretly enjoying the game and isn't above manipulating enemy and ally alike.
- Story-Breaker Power: While most of the abilities have reasonable limitations. Others have much fewer restrictions and very powerful, abusable powers.
- Rin's power, Iron Maiden is able to turn her body fluids into torture devices. With its versatility, it can turn her hands into weapons, generate shards for ranged attacks, traps on platforms, and so on. The only limit seems to be her imagination.
- Masaya's ability, Loan Shark, is being able to enslave anyone that owes him something to repay back, giving them a collar that forces them to obey him. It initially seems limited, but the specifics for what is owed is varied, and it can also restrict his opponents with generated chains- with the implied hint that the enslavement can vary to Masaya's own imagination.
- Super-Strength: This is Yuuri's superpower. More specifically, her power (called "Wrath of God") is "the ability to quintuple your physical abilities", and it turns out to not just be limited to strength.
- Tamer and Chaster: Downplayed since skimpily dressed characters are still front and center, but the anime removes every blatant Panty Shot from the manga.
- Unskilled, but Strong: Downplayed with Yuuri, who can quintuple her physical abilities with "Wrath of God." She's not a trained martial artist, but she is still skilled enough at controlling her own body's movements so that she doesn't hurt herself with this ability. When Akira tried copying it, he struggled to adjust to the quintupling effect.
