Platinum End is the new series animated by Signal.MD and written by the duo that created the hit manga, Death Note, Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata So does it live up to its predecessor? Let’s take a look and find out.
Right off the bat you can tell the tone of this story is different as our protagonist Mirai is about to throw himself off an extremely large skyscraper in an attempt to escape all the terrible things in his life, such as the abuse he experienced from his aunt and uncle that took him in after the death of his parents. His attempt fails, and he is rescued by an angel that gives him two powers: wings and a red arrow. The wings are a very strong representation of the freedom Mirai wants, and simultaneously the red arrow symbolizes the love he hasn’t felt for some time. Upon finding out the truth of his parent’s murder, he quickly learns the dark side of the power of love, and sometimes it isn’t pretty.
Let’s be honest for a second here: angels should be good people according to everything crazy religious nuts tell us. But Platinum End flips that script with the angels purposely influencing their candidates in the game to find a new God, whereas in Death Note the shinigami that follow the owner of the notebook are just observers. Honestly, though, that’s where Platinum End shows Ohba and Obata’s technique the best. There’s more for us to figure out about this world, and things won’t always be what they seem. The concepts of justice and morality are heavy here, it’s almost like they wrote this with Death Note in mind and said “Let’s go in the opposite direction with this.”
I’m sure excited to see what this series has in store and even if the animation seems to be of somewhat of a lesser quality than some other shows that I’ve picked out this season, I still have the manga sitting on my shelf ready to be opened. I have only my fiancé to thank for that as she’s read the entire series minus the yet to be officially released final volume.
There is one thing for certain. I do not believe anything will ever have the same kind of societal impact that Death Note has, but that story is for another post.
Platinum End can be found on Crunchyroll.