Angels of Death ep 15 – Stairway to Heaven

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

I have no clue what’s going on here. Not with the episode I mean, with me. Also with the episode… This was a gibberish filled non episode brimming with melodrama. You know, everything I don’t like. Except for gibberish, in the right circumstances it can be delightful. These weren’t the right circumstances. Objectively, the episode just wasn’t good. But I didn’t hate it…and I don’t know why…

We start off exactly where last week left off. Running away from the self destruct sequence. Don’t you love how things always gradually self destruct in movies and shows. It’s never one swift explosion along the foundation and on the weight bearing beams to bring the whole thing down swiftly and efficiently. And this one seems to be destruction by slow moving, potentially sentient fire? It was not too smart. I also kind of liked it.

Not only because the artificial threat kept things moving for the first part of the episode, but also because they decided to add some type of falling sooth in certain scenes only and I mistook it for film grain. For a second I thought they were going to show us that it was all some sort of amateur movie made for a school festival by a bunch of students in their movie club. I really wouldn’t have minded that. Even the music just before the op, switch to a corny show tune to really make it look like an old timey silent film.

Like I said, most of the episode was drivel. Zack and Rachel race up the stairs. There’s stuff in their way but Zack breaks it through the power of positive reinforcement(?) Then they make it to the top and SPOILERS (I forgot the P when I typed this and considered leaving it at “soilers” but I figure it would be overpromising) of course still alive Danny shoots Ray. Blah blah blah, Drama, feelings, stuff I’m not sure I was even supposed to understand, then Danny does another execution type shot. It was actually a pretty good gun shot animation the second time around. Very visceral in the movements. I felt that one.

The the Padre appears out of nowhere and shoots Danny with a crossbow, because of course he does… I guess the padre is on Zack’s side now. I dunno…maybe… In any case he protects Zack from Danny and tells him that Rachel’s not dead and to just get out quickly. That he’ll understand everything once he gets out. If he does, I hope he explains it to us.

In the very last seconds, we see Danny flustered expression as Zack is getting away turn into a satisfied smile. There are more than a few things in this episode that directly contradicted earlier events. Danny clearly states that he set off the auto destruct when last episode pretty heavily indicated that the Padre did. Danny speech basically admitted to having brought Ray to this place and having protected her all this time, fed her and so on, that he had desperately wanted to keep her alive, yet he tried to kill her in the very first episode.

The Padre never cared for Rachel at all and made it pretty clear that he did not want her to leave. There is absolutely no reason for him to have changed that stance.

I also found it an odd choice of words to refer to Zack as a “human”. The way the banter went, it made it sound as if that would be an unusual trait. As usual for Angels of Death, the episode piled on another bunch of questions without nary an answer in sight (in scythe? – put a pin in that…). Next week’s grand finale better have some impressive answers up it sleeve if it’s to live up to any of this mess. And yet, I still want to know.

Sure this is probably more an object of my curious nature and my need to justify the 15 episodes worth of time I’ve already dedicated to Angels of Time. Still, I do want to know, which is more than I can say about certain shows.

O.K., you can take that pin out now. And speaking of Scythes. This is the second time I’m going to mention this Ikea commercial on my blog.

I’ve always loved this commercial and I appreciate anything that reminds of it. This is why Rachel’s lingering and emotion farewell to the broken scythe felt like a much needed little comedy reprieve in the middle of all the nonsense. I can’t wait to see the next episode. Not only to finally solve the mysteries of this show, but to actually figure out what this series was to begin with. A bloody action adventure? A surreal comedy? A psychological thriller. The fact that I can’t even answer that 15 episodes in is…  I don’t know. Good? Really bad? Proof that I should learn how to watch anime? Sign that I drink too much?

For better or for worse, we are finding out next week!

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