LogFAQs > #967466897

This is how I planned to handle character write-ups. We won't get too many in the bottom half, but they're all over the place in my top 100 so if you have any suggestions about formatting or how to better hide spoilers without being hard to read, please let me know!

204. Death Parade
https://myanimelist.net/anime/28223/Death_Parade
Winter 2015 (12 episodes)
My Score: 3/10, MAL Score: 8.16/10
Best Character: Kurokami no Onna

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca5Tf5BDSYI

Premise: When two people die at the same time, their souls are judged in the afterlife. Arbiters force them to play high-stakes games, with one soul reincarnating while the other is cast into the void.

The Good: I love the OP video, its like every ounce of the animes fun is concentrated there. Also, congratulations to Death Parade for being the lowest-ranked anime to have someone in my top 100 characters! Ill talk more about Kurokami no Onna in her write-up below, which will contain significant spoilers.

The Bad: When I read the premise, I hoped Death Parade would be an introspective anime about helping the recently deceased come to terms with their fate. Instead, it reveled in being meanspirited and bleak, forcing people into torturous situations for the explicit purpose of breaking them down. All of this is ostensibly to expose the truth of their souls, but I have philosophical problems with the whole idea of judging people this way. I dont believe people are inherently good or evil, for starters, but if they are I question whether an intense game of darts is the best way to filter them. It all felt so simplistic, like a childs idea of morality. You got angry fastest after being hurt, therefore you are evil. Since I wasnt getting anything out of the philosophical angle, Death Parade was basically torture porn.

Overall: Death Parade was largely an episodic series, and a few of the stories they told werent bad. However, most of them had confused morals and simplistic themes. I refuse to accept that this judgment system could last more than a day before collapsing under the weight of its flaws. Without Kurokami no Onna, this anime would've ranked a whole lot lower.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/2/5/AABz_zAADlkl.png

CHARACTER: Kurokami no Onna (Death Parade)
https://myanimelist.net/character/82037/Kurokami_no_Onna
Voiced by: Seto Asami
TOP 100 RANK: 33rd

SPOILERS FOR DEATH PARADE

VIDEO LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBNseHHJAoA

Since character write-ups contain spoilers, Im going to drop the awkward Kurokami no Onna right away and just call her Chiyuki. I mentioned in my Death Parade write-up that Id hoped the show would be about helping people come to terms with their death. Thats what Chiyukis arc was, and it was great.

She spends most of the show calling out the flaws in the judgment system. If you put people in extreme situations theyll react in extreme ways, whod have thought? It doesnt necessarily say anything about their souls. Even a murderer couldve been a good person if they were born into radically different circumstances, which presumably reincarnation would provide. Chiyuki said a lot of the things I was thinking, which endeared her to me early on. Its dumb that Death Parade wasted so much time figuring out the obvious, but thats not Chiyukis fault.

As for her arc, I loved everything about it. The slow reveal that she was a dead human too, the life she led, the reason she committed suicide, the impact it had on the people left behind, it was all hauntingly realistic and really resonated with me. Decim dealt with her the way he shouldve been handling everyone. He helped her accept what happened and move on to whatever comes next. The scene of Chiyuki ice-skating that I linked to above is a beautiful example of visual storytelling. It tells pretty much her whole life, right up to the moment that changed it forever.

The fact that the writers handled Chiyukis arc so well annoys me, because it showed they were aware of the flaws in the judgments. They were capable of doing something like this, but they still went for grimy torture porn instead. Chiyuki is a shining beacon of amazing in an otherwise bad anime.