I read this one. By itself,it almost killed the modern day gladiator/reality TV show goes lethal genre for me.

And I grew up in the days when "Bloodspot" was being rerun constantly on TV.

Because I keep thinking of the logistics of it and the reasoning behind it and it almost always falls flat on its face due to sheer stupidity. Everyone's apparently bought the Hollywood version of what Rome did and ignored the truth of the matter (IE: Survival Rates), their reasons behind it, how it developed over a long period of time and social structure needed to support such a system and so on.

I also think about the society they think is around them and making such biting commentary on with the classic "We're just a few steps away from Gladiator contests!"

Without realizing that people have been killed in combat sports in the past and the cultural collective reaction was the exact OPPOSITE of what they are supposedly commenting on. It takes a LOT to build up people's appetites for Gladiatorial Games. One Syrian ruler fell in love with the games, but when he held his own the people were HORRIFIED. He had to wean them onto the idea over time, deliberately.

But this is not just gratuitous, it's mind numbingly STUPID.

This is almost as bad as the Manwha "Freezing" where the people give girl and boys super powers, tell them to work as a team to fight an alien threat and then install a ranking system based on a multi-person free for all melee held ONCE.

Oh, wait, that's exactly what they're doing here, except they make it an annual showing of stupidity, running the same generation through the ringer again and again to see who comes out on top, without a new supply to refresh it!

At least Freezing pretty much exists to give excuses for interesting fights, hints at sinister behind the scenes reasoning (to the point of further stupidity) and glorious amounts of fan service (as well as a lead character whose default modes of dealing with other characters are (in order of general use) "Ice Queen" and "Stabbity" -- going into moe-moe nervous paralysis when neither of those works/is an option that I find hilarious.)

But this? I just see "Hero rises above corrupt system, showing he's better than average society while fighting impossible odds."

Which might work if his villains had more to grasp on than hollow cliche that falls apart under scrutiny.

Edit: cleared up a sentence, changed icon.