Star Crossed Anime

So Onna name is finally revealed and newly christened Chiyuki plays a game of old maid with a storyteller. Death parade, you are doing it again. You are drifting from what should be the focus of the series and really pushing this ongoing plot thread. So we learn a number of things. One, that Chiyuki’s time in quindecim is limited and soon she will return to being a dummy. As for what happens to her soul…well it’s not specified. That Decim is starting to want to abandon his role as arbiter as he respects humans lifes too much to judge them. That Nono is getting Quin to retrieve Chiyuki’s memories and Oculus has learned of the whole scheme after doing….something to the elevator operator. Well if you are going to push this on me then fair enough, I will give this my full attention.

If I was to describe my feelings for these developments I was say I was apathetic. This could be attributed to the fact that I care more for the games than this ongoing plot. However I believe there is another reason why I do not care for this. Simply put, I do not know the stakes. So Oculas finds out that Nona put human emotions in a arbiter. So what? Is he going to kill her? Fire her? Congratulate her? And if this is so risky then why is Nona trying to do this? I understand that it’s not good to spoonfeed everything to the audience and that keeping a person’s intentions secret is used to promote intrigue and thought. But we do not have the slightest idea of even how this world functions. We only have a vague understanding of how the arbiter process works. I said before that it’s good to keep things in the dark but if you are going to go this route then at least show a basic understanding of what’s at stake. For I cannot fear for these characters lives if I am not certain whether they can die. So how does them getting in trouble a threat when essentially they cannot be punished? Well besides being separated but I don’t have the attachment to the characters to really feel for them. I like Decim and Chiyuki is alright but I don’t really know enough about them to form a big attachment. That I believe is the real reason that I do not care for these developments. I am just too much in the dark to see how these things affect these characters.

While things may speak to the contrary, I don’t hate this plotline. I can find myself getting drawn in if it was more clarified. However this is at odds with the death games as a majority of those are now mostly filler. They may have affected the characters slightly but the main goal of making Decim question the system was really the only matter that needed to be driven home. So with regards to the main plotline the death games are…time fillers. I do not like this. The game in this episode is a prime example of that. The game of old maid didn’t bring any new revelations to the characters besides Chiyuki learning her name. I don’t see the reasoning as to why Nona would bring this guest as she didn’t provide anything the audience didn’t know and her life didn’t serve to do much besides affirm Decims beliefs. Which is counterproductive when Nona is telling Decim to continue to judge as an arbiter. So how is this old woman supposed to change his mind on the methods of judging? This is exactly why I keep saying the focus on the games. Because unless you can answer these questions satisfactorily this plotline will end weakly.

Well the end of the episode did get over melodramatic but still, a very good episode. It is rather amusing to see two people bond over a shared goal of revenge. Their thinking slowly edged towards a dangerous outlook it became clear that one of these two is not on the same wavelength as the other. The detectives attitude throughout the game became worse the more he remembered and when the two remembered their sins, he was the one stating that they were not wrong. In truth, is he right? Murderers and rapists are not the kind of people who you can just chuck into a jail cell for a couple of years and hope they learn the error of their ways. You cannot force someone to change their thinking. The person themselves needs to recognise their own mistakes. Of course, even if you were to get three ghosts of past, future and present to show them the error of their ways chances are that they would be completely apathetic to it. So perhaps we would be better off without these kinds of people. However then the problem with this kind of thinking rears it’s head in this episode. When the detective got his revenge he lost his goal and when that happened he took of the role of what could be described as a living arbiter. He watches peoples sins and then judges them for it. Thus the problem is this, when you adopt the methods of a killer in order to remove scum from society then you in turn become scum. You cannot judge without being coloured by those you judge.

So in this death game we have a practiced serial killer and a impulsive killer. Both motivated by revenge for a loved one. The detective in turn egging on the young man to finish his revenge and giving him determination. The ultimate poetic justice comes that he has already taken his revenge and did so by pure stroke of luck. For the second person who just watched and didn’t lift a finger to help his sister was the detective himself. I find the logic somewhat flimsy as I think attempted rape and assault is more than enough reason for the detective to intervene. The reasoning that the person needed to commit an act first when he had very intent to do so just seems to be here to make the detective more villainous. In fact that would be my problem with this episode. The detective just changed to a villainous persona and started taunting the young man. For someone who was cold and indifferent that’s an odd change. But it did lead to an interesting development. The opportunity for the young man to take his revenge a second time. With the detective inciting him to do it and Onna begging him to put it aside. Even going as far as to spill the beans about void and reincarnation. I am not sold on Onna’s outburst here. I understand that she had misgivings about the process as a whole but I didn’t get the impression that she was this opposed to it. On the contrary I thought it was more than she didn’t like when the arbiters manipulated the process and not the process itself. So was sighing a bit seeing Onna attempt to convince the young man not to take his revenge and succeeding…nearly. Though the effect she had on Decim was fascinating with how she got him to question the very nature of his role. So I now see the pattern of this show, a death game is always followed by an intermission episode. I am not happy about it as the background dealings of the death games are significantly less entertaining than the death games themselves. With the amount of time left in this series I would prefer if these plot threads about the storybook and Nona hiding things from the boss be abandoned in favour of focusing on it’s strengths.

Why do you do this to me death parade? You dodge your true potential and instead focus on background exposition or, of all things, comedy. Then just as I was about to lose interest and give up, you present the best episode of the series so far. Now this, this is what I was talking about.  A death game between a detective and a young man with one of them being a murderer. I was hooked from the very first minutes. This episode really worked because it focused on the core characters. Namely Decim, Onna and the players. No distractions. No off tonal moods. Most importantly, no boy band fangirls. The detective was clever in gauging the situation and the young man’s dilemma of speaking to a cop when he had a severed hand in his bag made the conversations tense. What I truly loved was they changed over the course of the game. In the beginning neither of the two looked like killer material and both seemed to be good people. But then they’re memories started coming back. More and more reasons why these two could kill came up and their personalities did a turn as they remembered. The light-hearted detective turned cold and determined and the young man desperate and anxious. Truly it is a scary thought that one memory changes someone so much.

A few bad notes however. While this was minor, it’s the first part of a two part episode. While that’s fine it was disappointing when the episode ended just as things were heating up. Another thing is that game they played wasn’t very interesting and felt like an afterthought. The added “pain factor” was really just a rehash of the first games(and death billiards) gimmick. Finally the greatest offender was the after credits scene. I was having a lot of fun speculating as to who of the two guests was the killer. But then Onna goes and says the answer. Why did Onna have to spoil the surprise? This twist have been more effective if it was unveiled in the next episode. I don’t get the reasoning of revealing it here. While I am still interested in how this will play out, one of the things that made this episode so engaging has been removed. But negative points aside, colour me surprised. This episode is a great set-up for the next episode and hopefully a turning point in the series.  You have my attention again Death Parade. So please don’t mess this up.

Why is the girl from the last episode still around? This episode brought up three rules about arbiters. The third rule, about arbiters not having emotions, Is odd to me. For the arbiters we have been introduced to are very emotional. They state that Decim was given human emotions yet he is the least emotional of the arbiters. So are the others faking emotion? Is is a guideline and not a reinforced rule? Are the feelings they have not really emotions? Is this a logic plot hole or a philosophical inquiry? Well in either case I don’t like it because I am not watching to debate what is truly real. I am here for the death games.

There was one in this episode briefly though it was more an afterthought as the episode focused more on the arbiters. Admittedly seeing how Decim became an arbiter is interesting and insight as to why he has the hobby of building dolls. Though this brings up the question of if the guests bodies are dolls then how is it that they can drink, spit, bleed, etc. I suppose you can just say that it’s the afterlife and that’s just how these things work. But that’s why I oppose explaining it’s process or applying a sense of logic to it. Because if you apply logic to this part of it you must also have to apply logic to the whole process. That my friends, is where plot holes and inconsistencies raise their ugly heads.

Alright I think that’s enough complaining. This was a better episode than last week’s train wreck.  There are intriguing elements to the direction this show is taking with this subplot of sorts. Its clear that Nona has violated the rules and is trying to keep the leader from noticing that Decim has an assistant that he clearly shouldn’t. The new character, who I mistook for a boy from the opening, is a nice foil to the straight laced, business only Nona The end of the episode even teases a death game between a trousome pair normally given to more experienced arbiters. I welcome a return to what should be the focus of the series.

Death Parade in a risky move has taken things in a new direction. A daring adventurous move that no one expected. And it is…absolutely terrible. Death Parade, what happened? Did no one read over the script and do a shaft head tilt in wonder? Was there not an Animator who said “Excuse me sir. But I was under the impression that this was a psychological thriller. Not a slapstick comedy.” This is just one of those creative decisions that just has me baffled. To think that a team went over this and thought it was a good idea is something I have difficulty comprehending. But well here it is. This weeks Death Parade attempted to be comedic with a game of twister between a boy band member and one of his rabid fans.

One good thing to come out of this was seeing Ginti’s style of judgement. It definitely seems less professional and more sadistic than Decims methods. The boy band fellow also had potential in his past. I like the idea behind his guilt but find his death to be ridiculous.  A girl getting revenge on him by first sleeping with him and blowing him up with a heart shaped bomb. I think poison would have been more cost effective and wouldn’t require you putting your incriminating DNA all over him. But then there was the main problem of this episode. The girl who is apparently so important that she’s in the opening for a few seconds. A girl who sports the dumbest death in the series so far(slipped on and bar of soap in the bathroom and cracked her head) and the most pointless backstory. A girl with a personality so aggravating that she deserves to be sent to hell just so she can be removed from existence entirely. At any point when the episode looked to be improving this girl just needs to say a line to drag it back down.

There was tonal whiplash everywhere. For example, at one point the girl was going to sacrifice herself and the boy was distraught over it do to his past of driving a fan to suicide. It could have been a moving scene but the only reason the girl is giving up is because she’s too ashamed of pissing herself in front of him. It jumped from comedy to serious business.  Not certain whether it wanted to make us laugh or get emotionally invested. The final insult is that this episode was pointless. It could be removed and nothing would be lost. True the series is only half over but besides an introduction to two characters I wish to never see again we learnt nothing new. With the series half over I can only see Death Parade as yet another premise with wasted potential.  Unless the last six episodes are consistently great this is likely to be a testament of misguided direction.