Death Parade – 11

So we are reaching the final conclusion and things are coming to a head. Chiyuki’s memories are restored and we find that in life she was an ice skater. An odd choice but it did lead to a rather beautiful scene of Chiyuki skating on Ice as she recalled her past. Admittedly I did try to ignore the obvious reasons as to why the camera avoided looking at her feet (Those feet skating movements would have been tricky to animate.) as I found the nature of the scene poignant and picturesque. Though Chiyuki’s backstory was rather underwhelming.  While it is true that considering Decim’s inexperienced standing as an arbiter that he wouldn’t get someone with a extreme past but when the series has been eluding that her past held some deeper meaning it’s rather disappointing to find its not really that significant. An ice skater who got an injury that prevented her from skating anymore and killed herself. I find the nature of her suicide somewhat strange as it didn’t look to me like she was all alone in this. Is it a Japanese thing to remain passive and hope they pull themselves out of their depression? Despite it being one of the worst things you could do in that situation? Really when she considered herself worthless after losing her ability to skate, I think leaving her be afterwards only confirms that thought.

Yet the best part of this episode was with Ginti and of all people, the girl from episode 6. With Harada’s soul going to the void, Ginti presents the choice to sacrifice another to save his soul. The person to be sacrificed just so happened to be a cameo of Light Yagami from Death Note. In that case you really should have pushed that button Mayu. Yet despite Ginti’s attempts to get her to reconsider, Mayu decides to go to the void together with Harada. This is a really well done scene that I would applaud in normal circumstances. But it rather falls apart when you take into account that she is quite literally going to hell for a boy band member she obsessed about. A boy who she barely knows anything about. Not the love of her life or a dear family member. Just why was this character given such a great scene? Episode 6 just destroys what could have been a powerful scene. I like the meaning behind Ginti being unable to push Mayu into showing her inner darkness. That an arbiter that took sadistic joy in judging couldn’t make up his mind about how to judge one girl. But I think this was the wrong character to do this with. Mayu didn’t deserve main character treatment in this matter. So we have one more episode to push things to a close. I must admit that much like Ginti I have trouble judging this. When taking in the show as a whole I could define it as half-great. The weak and strong moments of the show are in equal measure. But an ending can change everything.