A little hiccup has come between the five friends, that being love. Tomodachi Game Episode 3 seems to come with a lot of bad blood between the young adults. Let’s find out more in this review!
Tomodachi Game Episode 3 Overview
Tomodachi Game, or Friends Game in English, is a psychological strategy anime belonging to the Death Game genre, a kind of anime that pits several characters against each other in a bid to make one of them outlast them all. It is based on a manga written by Mikoto Yamaguchi and illustrated by Yuuki Satou. This episode of the show is also referred to as Friends Game Episode 3.
The anime adaptation is developed by Studio Okuroto Noboru, a studio with only two full-length anime adaptations in its catalogue, Special Training in the Secret Dungeon and the second season of How Not To Summon A Demon Lord. The show is directed by Hirofumi Ogura, the director behind several well-known shows such as Black Butler and Cells At Work. You can read our review of the previous episode here!
– Friends Game Episode 3 Review does not contain any spoilers –
Tomodachi Game Episode 3 Review- The Villain Revealed
This is a troubling show for multiple reasons, the biggest of them being its name and what that implies. Our main characters are supposed to be a well-adjusted friend group who like each other and appreciate each other’s company and what they bring to the table. On the other hand, each episode portrays them as people who know about each other but don’t trust or like each other very much. Their friendship isn’t believable because they turn on each other on a dime, despite knowing the harm it’s going to cause them in this game.
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The games are also quite disconcerting and mystifying. While not being overly familiar with Japanese culture might be a cause for not knowing how some of the details work, all you need to know to understand how cumbersome they are is to notice how much time the show takes to explain each of them. There are full minute long monologues dealing with the rules of the game, and even them, a lot is left to be desired when the amount of money is brought into play. The show plays fast and loose with the amount of money in question, as it matters sometimes and doesn’t some other times.
This episode was a slow one, dealing with one character and their sad backstory. It was a heart-rendering tale of bullying and losing oneself because of it, and the show did a decent job of showcasing that. However, on the exact opposite end of the spectrum, there was a lot of talk about a girl’s virginity and how the overall societal norms look upon that. While the show talked a big game about how the society was wrong in thinking the way it thinks, what it portrayed leaned towards the opposite end of the conversation. Still, the issue was treated carefully and not used as a way to slut-shame anyone, which is good.
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The infighting between the group is a lot more predictable now than it was at the start. While most of the group comprises competent and tolerable characters, none of them is particularly likeable or worth rooting for. Tomodachi Game Episode 3 did some work in making two of them much better than the other three, but while doing it, it made a clear distinction between the “good” and “bad” members of the group. Maintaining this charade until the end might have been beneficial for the show in the long run, but doing so now also affords it a ton of opportunities to do something good with this information.
Speaking of charades, Tomodachi Game Episode 3 also did something thoroughly unexpected towards the end of the episode. It revealed who the perpetrator of this has been all along. We now know who was it that stole the money, brought the friends to this game, and is trying to break all their friendships up. One would assume that this would be saved for later on in the show, but apparently not. This came out of nowhere at this point and can only be seen as a good thing as the show now has a million different ways to take this story. A much-needed twist, to say the least.
Verdict
Tomodachi Game Episode 3 was unpredictable and full of twists that did a lot in carrying the show’s narrative forward and making it interesting. The human emotion conveyed was well executed, and its future looks rock solid.