Angels of Death ep 9 – Gods and Monsters

• Genre : Josei, Horror, Mystery, Psychological Thriller
• Studio: J.C.Staff

Guys, I just want Zack to be O.K. again. I’m tired of him being all wounded and slow and bleedy. I want him to be fine and full of energy. I want him to get annoyed and amused for reasons only he understands. He’s already bled out at least 3 times the total amount of blood that should be in his body, obviously he doesn’t need it. make him all better already!

In case that opening paragraph didn’t tip you off, Rachel did not yet find the miracle cure to patch Zack up. She did however find his knife. Useful! This episode basically served to deepen the relationship between the two main characters and establish Ray a little better.

As much as I dislike “voice of God” characters (isn’t that a particularly fitting expression for this anime), I found it rather satisfying to hear the padre spell out everything I’ve been saying so far. First he called Zack “honest and pure”, echoing Ray’s own insistence that Zack is the innocent one. It’s funny, we always immediately associate honesty and purity with kindness, or for lack of a better term, goodness. If we take the story so far at face value, Zack has been completely open about all his motives, and unwavering in his goals. He is by far the character that’s been most true to himself. He’s certainly been honest, to a terrifying degree.

As for pure, well it has a few definitions:

• without any extraneous and unnecessary elements;
• not mixed or adulterated with any other substance or material;
• free of any contamination;
• wholesome and untainted by immorality, especially that of a sexual nature.

I assume most people will think of that last one in the context of Angels of Death. The rub is, morality is a generally subjective concept. As long as Zack doesn’t act against his own personal ethics, he could be considered pure no matter how gruesome his actions. We often call small children pure and we know they haven’t yet developed a moral compass, which is why they can also be so cruel. In many ways Zack is like a small boy. A fact that’s been repeated over the last few episodes ad nauseam.

But more interesting to me is the padre’s heavy handed exposition on Ray’s lack of empathy and morality. It was a bit clumsy and it’s always insulting when the narrative feels like it has to explain every little detail. We would have picked up on it, we’re not that thick… However, just the fact that they want us to really keep this in mind lends credence to my original crazy theory.

Besides, I think one of the most (only) interesting parts of Rachel’s character is the fact that she is not simply good. The narrative is leaving the door open for her to be very very bad in fact. I suspect there was always only one monster in this story…

Along with the constantly repeated theme of God, Sin and Lies we know have Judgement that seems to come up at least once an episode. Also there were a lot of snakes this week. Both imaginary and realish. Oh I should have called this post “Snakes in a Tower”. Such missed opportunities. I hope this isn’t an omen for the series as a whole.

I’ve mentioned once or twice that I have no religious upbringing. Zip. I find a lot of Religions very interested and have been telling myself I should look into it more for years. Sadly, for now, I still don’t have a firm grasp on the symbolism of different world religions. And having a lot of them deformed in popular media isn’t helping. point is, with all the talk of God (singular) and Sin and the images of snakes, I have a faint feeling that there’s something catholic going on. This is all a metaphor for something that may be really obvious to someone else but I’m just waiting for apples over here.

Once again, this episode felt like a build up. Like we’re all waiting for something.  In a way it feels a bit like we’re at a standstill but I can’t say I hated this episode. Reuniting Zack and Ray for a bit was nice. And I did enjoy their scene together although the end felt a little anticlimactic. I always enjoy seeing Ray loose it. She has been doing so more and more frequently and I’m curious to see the depth she can sink to. Man, now I sound like a monster. I’m really not that bad guys…

The actual title of the episode is “There is no God in this World.” The implication of that sentence are too many to count. Maybe the world is all in someone’s head (imaginary). Maybe it’s a hellscape or purgatory. It could simply mean that there is no reason or divine plan to the events taking place. If there is no God, does that mean there is no Devil? Why have I been capitalizing certain words? I’m not sure… I also give direction by saying up or down instead of left or right despite there being no inclination.

I think that title is a lie! There most definitely is a God in Angels of Death’s world, and a monster. We just haven’t been told which is which yet!

I did get a few caps this week. Visually it was a bit dull though.

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