"Death Parade" Review

Tell ya this much, I'm dying to see just one short of Light Yagami being judged by Decim or Ginti. Probably be one heck of an anime special. 

Ah, Death Parade. Much as 2015 has brought us some lackluster anime, with little to nothing (barring sequel series) original coming out, it has also brought us some of the weirdest series I've gotten the pleasure to view. Virgin witches fighting battles against the French and British while being judged by God. An octopus creature capable of destroying the Earth teaching a class of roudy students to become professional assassins. Robots from Mars and Earth being piloted by various youth with a rocking soundtrack. And who could forget the continuing adventures of a whimsical little wizard guild doing on all sorts of fun things, and going on magical journies full of friendship and wonder and happiness! 

So whimsical. 

Among these series, though, is one that was a big hit out of the summer, Death Parade. In an effort to review many of these 2015 series that I have not yet seen (being gone for the summer didn't help that...and I'm spacing these out with older series so I don't get completely bored), I've decided to check this one out. 

Not that I wasn't going to anyway. The premise is very interesting, so we'll start there! 

The show takes place mostly in a bar-style area known as Quindecim (pronounced quinn-deckum), headed by a bartender named Decim...or in some instances another named Ginti. Each day, mostly, two people will arrive via elevator, with no memory of their lives prior to arriving. There they will play a game, or suffer possibly fatal consequences, in which their memories will be restored throughout. The reason for this is so that the bartenders, known as Arbiters, can pass judgment on whether or not their soul should be sent for reincarnation or the Void, a place of endless falling and darkness. 

You can probably tell that much of the series is not serialized, and you would be correct. Barring the joint opening two episodes (showing the same thing from two different perspectives), a two-parter, and the final three episodes, each episode exists to tell a single story, though each one furthers the atmosphere of Quindecim by showcasing various games and rules for such games to aid Decim or Ginti in passing their judgment. 

It's tough to say who our main character is, though I think it's safe to say it's Decim. He is joined by a black-haired woman, whose name I cannot say as that is actually a spoiler believe it or not, that assists him in explaining the rules and making the guests more comfortable. While Decim is the character that does most of the action and explaining, the black-haired woman serves sort of as a gateway for us sympathize with the other characters. 

See, the catch with the woman with black hair is that she is actually human, whereas Arbiters are not. I won't get too much into the details of how this works, but just know that this situation is not normal, and is essentially frowned upon. It makes for a very interesting relationship between her and Decim, as the latter has a more robotic and stoic sense to him while she is human, carrying the various human emotions and questions with her. It's easier to sympathize with her character more than anyone else's as she struggles to recall her memories of who she was before. That's not to say that Decim has no sympathetic moments. 

The duty of an Arbiter is to judge if a soul is worthy of returning to life, in some capacity and in a different form, or spending eternity in darkness, constantly falling to black. It's a very tough choice and in most cases Arbiters only have so much to go on before they can make their judgments. Each game is given a time limit, therefore the Arbiter only has that amount of time, barring some extra dialogue, to figure out how they will judge the pair. 

The downside to this is that in some cases, the episodes can get a very repetitive feeling to them. Pair arrives, Decim greets. They start a game, we get a slight hint at their past, then more is revealed, then they discover the truth, and the moral of the episode is given. It's always delivered well, but this process got a slight bit grating, saved only by the varying characters and personalities that we saw. The couple from the first episode was very different from the one from Episode 3 or Episode 6, so changing that up did help out. The one time that there was a pairing to stay over, it was also an episode in which Decim and the woman with black hair were trying to discover a deeper meaning to their judgments, so it was an episode that provided character development for them as well. 

The cast of Death Parade is rather small and few characters run together in the same way. I've already explained Decim and the woman with black hair. The tertiary character for the show is Nona, who is running the whole gig there, overseeing how memories are formed and who gets sent to whom for judgment. She also selects Arbiters and where to go. I like Nona. She's the boss and she knows it, not taking anything from anyone. She's confident in her decisions but to a level of cockiness, as she knows what she is doing is the most efficient way. While not running a business, she has a business-like attitude about her, while also acting like a pretty fun boss at the same tie. 

The second major bartender/ Arbiter that we meet is Ginti. He's essentially the complete opposite of Decim, and it makes for great interactions between the two when they meet. Whereas Decim takes great pride and understanding in what the Arbiters do, Ginti views the job as simply a task that they have to carry out, as it is their purpose and they don't have time for connections. He's a bit of a cynical man and possibly a sadist (pretty much torturing Mayu and Harada when he judges them) but has a good side to him as well. I only wish we could have delved more into his character. I found it difficult to sympathize with his character like I wound up with Decim, but still found myself enjoying his presence. It was a nice change of pace to have a more aggressive personality clash with Decim's constantly calm demeanor. 

Of the other characters--Clavis, Castra, Quin, and Oculus--only Clavis and Oculus really stand out in my mind. Clavis mostly stands out because he is the elevator man and is just always hanging out in the backgrounds, never getting into a fight and just being there, while Oculus is a sneaky old man that almost seems like he wants to usurp power from Nona but never makes a move to do so. It's implied that he's some sort of godlike person when he's introduced--aided by the visual of him playing pool with the solar system spheres as billiards--yet it's tough to find truth in that as he is a bit conniving. Has he been corrupted? Oculus is the most interesting character that we learn little about. Nona hardly goes to him for advice and he never interacts with Decim or the woman with black hair. 

Like most twelve episode series, the show did slow up a bit in the middle part, but really not by much, as I still found myself enjoying the various characters and stories that were going on. It was the new characters that really helped to keep everything afloat, and finding out how they were connected was an enjoyable mystery to keep someone engaged with the episode's events. The first episode is probably one the better first episodes of an anime that I've seen in a long time, with probably Attack on Titan having the most memorable in recent memory (duh). The guests were great, we were introduced to our premise and rules of the series, and I found myself engaged in what was going on, as well as giving us hints at the struggles of judgment that were to come. 

The strongest part of the series came as the show was winding up for a close, making for a very memorable and touching finale. It's one of the better endings to a series I've ever seen, wrapping things up perfectly in terms of its story and our two main characters. I feel that, while the show did dip slightly into a repetitive nature, it was slowly building to be better and better with each succeeding episode. Everything that we'd seen so far in terms of development and little moments for the characters came to a head in a very meaningful and engaging way. I didn't want to see the series go, but understood that there was not much story to tell without it getting repetitive. The final image, too, just left a warm smile on my face, it was really moving and showed incredible development for Decim. 

The animation for the series was pretty good, but it was really nothing out of the norm for this year. It isn't the best I've seen so far, and at some fast-paced moments it seemed to fall apart, but I overlooked it. There were some still images that were good and the backgrounds of the Quindecim and other areas around the tower were marvelous to behold. There was also a wide variety of colors used to help the visual experience, so it wasn't a drag on the eyes. 

The opening was one that had to grow on me, and I only really enjoyed it toward the end. It's tone does not necessarily match the actual show but it was still visually beautiful and the song itself is a little catchy. It was just weird to see certain characters singing and dancing. And to see Mayu in the opening, that was also kind of weird given her role but whatever. The closing was pretty good, and the visuals would occasionally change to match some of the memories of some the characters--this usually done in the more emotionally charged episodes and final episode. 

I watched the show in English Dub, as it was available for All-Access Funimation subscribers, and I thought that there was a very good job done on it. All of the main characters sounded and acted great and it was awesome to hear good roles for the episodic characters. It's great to know that the actors weren't just phoning it in and gave it their all even for just one episode of the entire series, particularly when they have less than a week to get it all done, since this was a Broadcast Dub. I still love what Funimation is doing with Broadcast Dubs and hope they continue (Gangsta.'s dub is great too, by the way, but we'll get to that in a later review...;))

Overall, Death Parade is a good series that has a very interesting premise and bears looking into. If you're not into episodic-type series this may not be the one for you, but if you're looking for a quick series with great characters and to just have fun, this is probably a winner! I had a great time watching it, and I hope you check it out for yourselves as well. 

And seriously, that had to be Light Yagami from Death Note in Episode 11. Look it up and tell me I'm wrong! How cool would it be to see a crossover?!

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