Platinum End ep 19- False Prophet

Posted on by Irina

Is it just me or was this episode of Platinum End kind of ugly? It wasn’t dramatically different from the rest of the show but the character models seemed to have lost a lot of integrity and they looked really odd to me in some scenes. On top of that, there was very little visual variety in this episode. I ended up taking a lot fewer caps than usual as a result. Still too much but…

On the other hand, the score was fun. t got very weird at one point but I think that was my favourite part of the episode. Just how bizarre and intrusive the music was. I hope they score the rest of the season like this!

Last week, I ended up speculating in my comments section that the angels were just basically screwing with the candidates. Like there either wasn’t really a god spot available or maybe the “god” in question would have no real power and that this is just a little game the angels play among themselves ever so often to pass the time. And the problem was that O actually liked that theory so much that anything else was bound to disappoint me.

This week was probably the big reveal

of the show. We got to find out more or less exactly what all this candidate business was about, courtesy of Dr. Yoneda. For me, it was sort of a non-reveal reveal. I mean yeah, I didn’t know that was going on and I didn’t exactly see it coming but it also doesn’t really change anything for me. Like I’m not going to reframe my impression of the events up until now or how I feel about any of the characters or anything really. And honestly, I didn’t give Platinum End much serious thought so I might have figured it out if I tried. It wasn’t that surprising either.

Don’t get me wrong, the fact that it wasn’t surprising isn’t a bad thing. Actually, there is some consistency here so I’m going to give Platinum End points for that. The way this show has been going, it was conceivable that they would just pull some random explanation out of nowhere that had nothing to do with anything that happened up until then. This at least fits well with the rest of the show. 

O.k. so now I’m going to spoil everything, you have been warned. Professor Yoneda’s big gotcha revelation that was going to change everything is that god, in that universe, wasn’t exactly the god of the Christian bible, but rather a being of great (potentially infinite) power created through the “energy” of human belief. Since human belief in god is waning, this creature is losing power and created the god candidate scheme partly as a marketing campaign to refresh people’s faith and partly as a way to prolong its existence through a new god. It’s sort of implied that whoever becomes god would no longer be human and instead be a wavy purple energy guy and I guess that was the only part that I think had an impact on the story.

I don’t know if I should admit this, but my reaction to the news was identical to Yuri’s. So what if god was created by human imagination and belief through prayer? It’s still clearly an entity with a will of its own and immense power. It made angels, it gave these normal humans incredible powers. It’s a god. Why do we care so much about lineage at this point? Sounds a little petty to me.   

Also, Platinum End has been hinting that we are talking about a Christian god here. The appearance of angels and even the simple existence of angels, the weird suicide is sin rhetoric that comes back yet again this episode and they even mentioned Adam and Eve this week. But like Yuri said, there are a lot of gods. Christianity isn’t the only religion out there. To my knowledge, it’s the religion most founded on proselytizing which may explain why it’s the most widespread one, but there are tons of faiths and they all have different notions of god or godliness. 

So why would the god described by Yoneda be false? And why would humanity no longer have a need for such a god, to the point of wanting to actively destroy it? Oh yeah, I didn’t mention that part. Yoneda wants the god candidates to essentially refuse to participate and instead convince everyone not to believe in order to destroy heaven. Except he just said there’s this being of illimited power that exists if you pray to it so… 

Oh and I think the government killed Susumu. I mean we’ll see next week but I’m pretty sure they did. That kind of bummed me out. But they sort of implied that he had been bought by the NRA at the beginning of the episode so I guess it was to create poetic irony. I’m just babbling now.

I have to admit, I don’t know what they’re going to do for another 5 episodes. Maybe it’s going to become a government against candidates story?

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2 thoughts on “Platinum End ep 19- False Prophet”

  2. Heh, well, after the show’s afully shallow about suicide, it’s now time to be awefully shallow about God. Oh, and while we’re at it “science”. I’m not sure how what Yoneda’s saying leads to any sort of proof. I mean, if I had this theory that there’s a God and that human belief made it and it’s that powerful, surely the most interesting thing about this all is how belief influences reality? All this metaphysical mumbo jumbo? Let the ideologues puzzle that out. I’m going to build a miracle machine, hook a few believers into it, and – I don’t know – cure cancer? I mean, isn’t science primarily about how things work, and what their metaphysical implications are? (I’m guessing it’s the same process that gives shounen-friendship its power-up function; or creates tsukumogami over time. Of course, if I harness that power “for good”, I’m very likely an anime villain/tragically misguided hero, and I’ll create some monstrosity I can’t control everyone else has to fight in the final two episodes.)

    Also, I may misremember, but I think you’re right about this not being the best-looking episode this season. I think I’ve seen quite a few off-model character shots, for example, and it has to get pretty bad for me to notice such things (normally, people mention it online and I think, wait, really?).

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