天下制覇

I'm really bothered that the dude with the giant scarf never revealed his head wasn't attached.

This was an hour long preview, but unlike Darwin's Game, was actually numbered as episodes 1 and 2.

Impressions:

To start out, because I've seen lots of people tittering at the serial killer's name translated as The Perforator, in Japanese, the word they use is アナアキ, which is, among other things, a pun/portmanteau on holey and anarchy. It's also a line of costumes in Splatoon. Don't ask how I knew this. So yes, the nickname is awful in any language. Be thankful they didn't go with Mr. Driller. The real miracle is that they didn't imply any sexual violence. Then again, maybe they should have. A dude with a hole in his head calmly holding a drill doesn't raise the tension all that much, and especially not when you've got another dude buddying it up with a bunch of quasi-eviscerated people in a dreamscape with a disemboweled corpse. Let's just go full Buffalo Bill here, guys. Do something to add some tension to the scene at least.

This mostly falls flat for me though, and it does for the same reason that most Japanese 'detective' shows do. It's not about finding clues, pursuing leads, meeting a bunch of different people, chasing red herrings, twists, turns, etc etc. No, it's about a dude in a room who issues forth a spewing torrent of exposition. Okay, so in this case, it's a few dudes in a couple different rooms, but a lot of the exposition doesn't make much sense, in or out of context. Why are they explaining this thing they've seemingly done and are all familiar with to each other? What exactly brought him to the conclusion that he's a genius detective and why does he keep repeating that? This stuff comes unprompted out of thin air and for the benefit of nobody but the audience, yet is also supposedly what drives them to the next action… except that there is no next action. They go "Hmm, that's interesting. What other factoids does this mean?" Your premise is a literal dreamworld. How can you not come up with any better way to convey information? The closest it ever comes was something like "he thinks everyone is broken, so everyone here is broken." That's all you could come up with? Really? Really? For a show about exploring the boundless psyche of twisted human minds, I would think you'd want to come up with some actual nightmares.