Platinum End ep 18- Playing God

Some of you already know this. I create the gifs that I use as headers for my episode reviews. I particularly like using animated gifs as header images with this blog template. I think it works well and creates some interest on the page. But of course, when reviewing an episode that has just aired, it’s not always easy to find gifs online d I do like to choose something that is at least a little significant to the post.

It’s because of this exercise that I know that Platinum End is a very still show. What I mean by that is that finding moments of nice fluid animation I can use for a gif, is actually rather difficult. A problem that does not exist for the other anime I review. In fact, I sometimes end up making multiple gifs because there are just too many good options. For this show, I occasionally add in some extra animation by adding frames or speeding up what’s happening. Aside from the few episodes at the end of the Metropoliman arc, there just isn’t very much actual animation here. I mean, just look at the fleeing crowd at the end of this episode. It was a simple camera pan over a stationary image. And I think that lack of resources is hurting the show. The story needs all the help it can get, and some impressive animation would have gone a long way. In my opinion.

I noticed that there was a disclaimer at the very beginning of the episode. It said that the show was for “mature audiences”. Maybe I hadn’t been paying attention, but this is the first time I’ve noticed it. Nothing unsavoury or gory happened this week. Compared to some of the previous episodes, it was a tame little setup for events to come. The most exciting part was Yuri’s escape in the first scenes and although people had guns no one fired them or anything. Not so much as a paper cut or a swear word. If this is really the first time a mature warning has been added, I really have to wonder why. Is something happening? I noticed that Crunchy has really expanded its library. I think Sony is finally doing some crossover between the FUNimation and Crunchy platforms. I’m not sure if there’s some type of internal restructuring that’s also why we’re getting disclaimers in the last few episodes of a series. 

ItMs always a good sign when I spend the first 3 paragraphs of an episode review pointedly not talking about the episode. Isn’t it? Well, actually, I’m still on my deeply confusing run of not hating Platinum End. As I mentioned, not all that much happened but the episode set up a series of questions for the series to answer in the final arc. And some of those questions were even kind of interesting. 

Sure the writing is still off. While the god candidates were all debating who should become the next god, you just had to go with it because none of their points made much sense. Or rather, they had no follow-through. 

They find out that whoever becomes god will be removed from humanity and go to heaven. Despite not asking what heaven is like or whether they can go back to earth if they want to visit, everyone immediately doesn’t want to go there. Saki doesn’t want to be separated from Mirai so now she doesn’t want him to be god. But can you take someone with you to heaven? I don’t know, no one asked… 

Anyway, depressed kid Shuji volunteers because he doesn’t like living on earth anyway. OK, I’ll accept that. Despite the fact that they are all acting with great conviction on what is clearly woefully incomplete information. But then that resparks the debate on whether euthanasia is morally right or wrong (and I’m pretty sure the show wants us to think it’s very wrong) and that debate doesn’t get resolved. At one point, Mirai just sort of forgets about it and decides Shuji is a great candidate. I don’t know why. And that’s sort of how it goes. Everyone either makes up their mind based on information so flimsy it hardly makes sense for them to get any conclusion out of it or has a line of reasoning that just trails off. In the end, we just have to accept that the five of them agree that Shuji will be the next God. “Because he will consider the feelings of the vulnerable”. How do we know that? No clue…

Oh, they also find out that they could keep their wings and arrows after a god is chosen if the god agrees. And Mirai says that no one should have wings and arrows because they gave him hope when he received them. I have to believe that something was lost in translation there. I really can’t figure out what he meant. I’m also really doubtful that Mirai is no longer depressed and suicidal. 

Like I said, the episode isn’t bad. I know I just made it sound like it was. And it isn’t smart or anything but if you go with the flow, there were some nice reveals. The information everyone was going on, was told to them by Shuji’s angel. The show has made a point of telling us that the angels can’t reveal too much. And it does so again this week. If they give away too much info, they get punished in some way. But then, the scene ends with the angels talking among themselves and Shuji’s angel confirming that he didn’t tell them everything. And that’s framed like some big reveal, maybe even a twist but yeah, we know he didn’t tell them everything. Everyone has been telling us from the start, the angels won’t tell us everything. And even without that, he told them next to nothing so duh…

Huh, turns out I actually had a lot to say. I have more. What the episode was all leading to was the appearance of the last angel and candidate. The special ranked Angel of Destruction ( I really liked the design) and the mad scientist-type candidate that could really throw a wrench in the works. He looks a bit like Ryuk. We didn’t see enough of them to get a good idea of what they are like but it seems Gaku (the Ryuk guy) is one of those disillusioned pragmatic types. That’s o.k. I guess we’ll see where it leads.

For my part, I was surprised to find myself thinking that they should let Susumu be god. For two weeks in a row now, the youngest character has proven to be the most rational and considerate one. He diffuses tense situations, cares about fairness even when it doesn’t get him his way and has been consistent in both his attitude and motivations. To think that what I was describing as the worst nightmare scenario is now my favoured option. Sort of says something about the rest of the team…

Previous Episodes

• Platinum End ep 1 – A Messy Start
• Platinum End ep 2- With Great Power
• Platinum End ep 3- Amore
• Platinum End ep 4- How Blasé
• Platinum End ep 5- Everybody Hates Metropoliman
• Platinum End ep 6- Another Fakeout
• Platinum End ep 7- Saki Saves the Day
• Platinum End ep 8- Emotional Baggage
• Platinum End ep 9- Ridiculous
• Platinum End ep 10- She’s an Angel!
• Platinum End ep 11- In the Name of Love
• Platinum End ep 12- Baby’s First Philosophy Class
• Platinum End ep 13- Bad Guy is Bad
• Platinum End ep 14- Tedious
• Platinum End ep 15- Smart Kid
• Platinum End ep 16- The Cat’s Out of the Bag
• Platinum End ep 17- Angel of Death