Alternative Character Interpretation : Fans can't seem to decide if Shiro and her Wretched Egg personality truly were one and the same, or if Wretched Egg was indeed a case of a Superpowered Evil Side being played straight, eventually resulting in a Split-Personality Merge. Fans have been clamoring for the Word of God to finally put this debate to rest, but so far, to no avail.
A very small minority of fans have started shipping Rokuro with his calculations. And even smaller one ships him with the wall he punches in episode ten.
Genkaku and his guitar due to the fact that he holds a funeral for it after Shiro breaks it.
Tsunenaga Tamaki, formerly a reclusive and indifferent otaku, becomes a tyrant who cares for absolutely nothing but himself and his games. When the Great Tokyo Earthquake occurs, he leaves his mother to die so he could find a backup generator. He is also responsible for designing the prison and forcing prisoners to participate in Death Games by poisoning them upon arrival and only awarding antidotes to their winners. As a sadist who sees defeating the Wretched Egg as a game, he also creates the Forgeries, prisoners who are turned into artificial Deadmen and brainwashed into obeying Tamaki's orders.
Rinichiro Hagire, the prison's real director, is a sadistic sociopath who will do anything for his research. Using Shiro as a guinea pig for research on how to improve a person's immune system, Hagire becomes obsessed over his subject's ability to regenerate. From crucifixion to vivisection, Hagire grows fond of conducting brutal experiments on her and becomes directly responsible for her becoming the Wretched Egg. He also manipulates Chan and En to use their Branch of Sin to invade and override other people's bodies and personalities when he's on the verge of death, and cannibalizes the remains of defeated Deadmen.
Rei Takashima is a sadistic surgeon employed by Deadman Wonderland. Happily removing the body parts of any Deadman who loses their fights, Rei is enraged when unable to harm one young girl. Rei also creates countless artificial Deadmen sapped of free will, and when hero Ganta gets in her way, tortures him to her own arousal.
Diagnosed by the Audience: Rokuro Bundo's neck-cracking tic, and obsession with calculations, to the point where in the original Japanese version his initial meltdown resulted from them being "destroyed", rather than the bomb not killing the remaining Scar Chain members as seen in the dub could be used to indicate that he has something else wrong with him other than just being another run-of-the-mill psychopath.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: While the manga remains popular in Japan, the anime was not received well by Japanese audiences during its original run. Meanwhile, the anime had become a Sleeper Hit in the United States and rivaled Bleach as the biggest draw for the recently revived Toonami, while the English manga release withered to do poor sales and was discontinued after only 4 volumes. Although given the anime's high ratings in the States, it's little wonder why Viz Media has decided to crank a Network to the Rescuefor the manga. It should be pointed out that Bleach was currently airing the Zanpakutou/Sword Beast arc in the U.S. along with Deadman Wonderland, but Americans loved the sadistic prison anime nonetheless.
Ganta's fake confession becomes a whole lot scarier with the advent of deepfakes in real life, allowing people to paste your face onto a different person's body in real time, or simulate your voice, meaning that a false recorded confession could actually be used to frame you for a crime you didn't commit in the near future.
All of Shiro's antics and childlike behavior throughout the anime adaptation and a big chunk of the manga become these once Chapter 55 was released. It turns out that there was no Split Personality in the first place, proving that both her bubbly, kind persona and her bloodthirsty "Wretched Egg" persona were fake. In reality, Shiro is a jealous, violent Yandere that wants nothing else than for her childhood friend and lover Ganta to kill her.
SHINY SHINY note Taken from the upbeat ending theme. Placing the words over a particularly violent/gruesome moment from the episode or playing it over said moments.
G-Cup titties. note In Episode 1, when an inmate asked what Makina's breast size was, she simply said "I'm a G".
"DON'T MESS WITH THE HUMAN CALCULATOR!" note In Episode 10, during Rokuro's massive freak out, he tells Senji this when said person's branch of sin doesn't work.
Rokuro in general is starting to become this. note Rokuro's over the top mannerisms and narmy animations which are very similar to Higurashi in style coupled with how many funny lines he has in the English dub have led to this.
"DEATH IS ROCK AND ROLL!" note During Episode 12, Genkaku's line in the English dub is switched from "DEATH IS SALVATION!" to said line. It's pretty obvious why.
"Heyooh fahking guyz!" note Genkaku's Engrish in Episode 9 right before shoots and kills some of people from Scar Chain.
"I WANNA LIVE!" note Ganta screams this in the first episode. Usually this is said when someone's playing a video game and they keep on dying.
Misaimed Fandom: Ganta punching Shiro was meant to highlight the parallels between Nagi and Ganta. Once the both of them lose hope, they lose all motivation to go on, and hurt the people closest to them, regardless of the reason or how they feel now. However, due to the alteration and removal of several scenes building up to that scene, for several fans, Ganta went from the Base-Breaking Character to The Scrappy in less then 5 minutes.
The bleeps in the English broadcast tend to make serious conversations absolutely hilarious. The best is when Kozuji's line of "Someday I'm gonna fuck you in half" is almost entirely bleeped, creating:
Watch Episode 6 in the English Dub and just try to take the rant Minatsuki has about her mother abandoning her for the flowers seriously.
Ganta walking out from his court sentence would've been sad, if not for the fact that someone just decides to up and egg him while he's being escorted away.
Rokuro's Villainous Breakdown / Freak Out in Episode 10. It was supposed to be unsettling, we think, but since his craziness went that far, came literally out of no where, with almost no hint that he actually like this, and the fact that both voice actors, Jun Fukuyama and David Trosko, are clearlyhaving too much fun during it, cemented the scene's status into this trope forever.
No Yay: A subset of the fanbase ships Genkaku with Nagi. Genkaku killed Nagi's pregnant wife in cold blood, as well as torturing him and making him remember that his unborn child was dead. He then stabbed his friend, and then killed him. Most fans love the pairing regardless.
Paranoia Fuel: A mad bomber/slasher/whatever busts into your third-story classroom through the window and kills everyone in your class except you. You wake up injured to the bloody mess left behind as the murderer gloats by showing you your girlfriend's severed head. You pass out and wake up in the hospital where you are then arrested for the murders. You protest your innocence, but everyone who could corroborate your story is dead, and no one, not even people who have known you your whole life, believes you - you aren't even sure whether or not you believe yourself. You're sentenced to death for a crime you didn't commit, and your friends' parents have to be restrained to keep them from beating you to death on the spot, only for your cell phone to drop out of your pocket and reveal a video you know nothing about incriminating you by showing you bragging about the murders to your lawyer. The frame-up is so convincing you start to believe you're insane.
Squick: Chapter 43 of the manga treats us to the sight of Wretched Egg laying on a bed, naked, casually going over a summation of her recent fight with Ganta. Cue Hagire touching her naked body. To make matters worse? Wretched Egg doesn't seem bothered by it. At all. To recap, this is a guy that has put her through hell, to the point where he's responsible for that side of Shiro even existing, and she's apparently so used to him molesting her that she doesn't even think to resist or even object.
Superlative Dubbing: The dub was seen as good for it's time (Despite a few inconsistencies) that it managed to cause the anime to become a breakout hit in America with many people wanting to see it get a second season. It added a lot more humor, and witty dialogue, and the voice acting is very good, and some would argue even superior to the original.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: After Genkaku was revealed to have survived Ganta's Ganbare Gun, he is never mentioned again. Quite a few fans didn't appreciate being teased that an Ensemble Dark Horse could have made a comeback in the future but were left hanging, and will now probably never know his ultimate fate.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Despite the graphic nature of the manga, and the foul mouthed nature of the English Dub, Deadman Wonderland actually ran in Monthly Shonen Ace, a magazine with less restrictions than a weekly manga anthology.
, is nothing short of badass, fitting the show's dark, violent, and heart-pounding nature. For crying out loud, the video for theme alone has over 40 million views on YouTube!