That 48 minute premiere is a mugging. You watch a guy in a panda suit gut Kyouda in a subway station and suddenly the app on Kaname's phone isn't a gimmick, it's a countdown, and eleven episodes vanish in one sitting. Yes, it lifts the phone-as-death-sentence from Future Diary and hands Kaname a Sigil that borrows other people's powers on contact like a Fate protagonist with better instincts, and it does not care, because it moves. What actually sells it is that Kaname stops flailing fast: he kills Banda in the first hour, talks Shuka down from her wires instead of dying to them, then builds Sunset Ravens out of a wheelchair-bound information broker and a little girl swinging a blade bigger than she is. Nishikawa's OP hits and you're already three episodes deeper than you planned. Then it ends on Shibuya with nothing resolved and no season two, and you sit there genuinely annoyed, which is its own kind of compliment.

Kaname Sudou is an ordinary high school student until an invitation arrives on his phone to try Darwin's Game, a mysterious mobile app. When he opens it, a green snake springs from the screen and bites him, and he is soon drawn into a game where players battle one another using superpowers called Sigils. With no explanation for any of it, he finds himself hunted by powerful opponents and realizes the game is a brutal fight for survival. The series blends action, mystery and sci-fi thriller elements as Kaname struggles to stay alive.