Death Parade : Death Arcade

“Desu Ākēdo” (デス・アーケード)

Another two people walk into Quindecim…

We walk away from the sweet and go back to the more troubled humans.

This week we have Yousuke and Misaki. He’s a gamer she’s a reality TV star. They don’t know each other, they haven’t even died together, they just died at the same time in two different fashions.

She was abused most of her life, ended up with five kids and seems to jump between loving them and hating them. Or at least she seems to love the youngest one and resent the older ones.

His mother didn’t want him and left when he was a kid, he has been unable to readjust to his father remarrying and hidden himself away.

I always knew that Yousuke would be reincarnated, both came to the table (or the arcade game) with troubled stories, but his seemed the more grounded. He was rejected by his mother and became distant from the world around him. It happens all the time, you see it all over social media every day, kids losing their connection to the rest of the world and distancing themselves. He ended his life but he seemed to really regret it when he realised what he had done, not only that but he honestly seemed to feel bad that he’d never accepted his fathers new wife. Or even if he’d accepted her not let her close.

His story was sad and he went along with all Misaki’s plans and plots and just seemed a genuine human being.

Misaki on the other hand was the complete opposite of Machiko in the first episode.

I’ll start by saying I agree that her story was sad, I feel sorry for anyone that gets themselves stuck in abusive loops. Having five kids and no one to look out for them must have sucked. The whole time though it built this resentment towards her kids and aimed back at her by them.

Her death wasn’t a tragic accident or suicide. She was murdered. And to be fair it was quite easy to see why, she hits her assistant who must have had to deal with this all the time and just snapped.

It was weird because it flashed between this genuine loving character and then back to this evil character. When she was asking for help her kids came to her rescue but because they didn’t take much health off of Yousuke she called them useless.

The moment I was 100% sure she HAD to go to the void was when the top of her joystick fell off and she missed grabbing hold of it. Instead of rushing to get it back she smashed Yousuke’s face into the game console. No matter what else she did I would not have accepted that she’d be reincarnated. It really felt fake. And I think that was the point. The abuse and all that might have been real but the fame of being on TV had got to her and she’d become the abuser. She had abused her assistant and she obviously emotionally abused her kids, or maybe just the older ones who didn’t seem too happy with their mum. Everything about her became fake. I didn’t believe she was upset about what she’d done to Yousuke and after he woke up instead of admitting what she’d done wrong and giving up the game for him she carried on fighting.

There was something about Machiko where I always thought she was innocent. Until I learnt that the flashes of their lives were actual memories given to Decim I thought the flash of her in bed was either with Takashi or a fake clip. Even in the second episode where we learn it was a affair before the Assistant said anything I looked at the picture and went “One night stand, regret.” NOTHING about Machiko made me feel like she should have been sent to the void and I didn’t need the second episode to tell me that I was right.

Misaki on the other hand from the moment she walked in was a bit too confident, a bit too self absorbed. She didn’t panic like the rest deciding right away that it was some sort of TV show. She used the fact she was a mother to try to get sympathy from them all.

I liked the little bit of humanity in Decim were he hugged her and told her she’d done good because to be fair she had. She’d raised those kids whether they resented her for it or not. You just had to look as Yousuke to see how messed up those kids could have been if she’d walked away from them. I don’t think she was ever really a bad mother on purpose but she seemed very much to love the attention. For a split second my heart went to my mouth and I worried she’d be reincarnated. She didn’t though. And another split second and I knew she couldn’t be. The elevator at the end I think says a lot about them as characters.

If anything (and I’ll probably go deeper into this some other time if anyone is interested) you see a lot in their final moments.

Takashi had to be restrained and kept from attacking anyone and everyone in the room. Machiko was solemn looking at the floor and completely lost. Just before the doors shut her brows furrowed like she knew she’d done the right thing.

Mai and Shigeru both went happy. They’d gotten to do something they’d never really gotten to do in real life regardless of how long they’d been friends. They’d actually gotten to know each other and go out on a date. They went knowing they’d spent the last moments of their “life” fulfilling them.

Yousuke looked completely done. He had no emotion on his face, everything had just ended on him. He looked like a man that had realised just what he’d done. Misaki on the other hand had a extremely unpleasant look on her face and when she lifted her head before the doors shut AGAIN it was the polar opposite of Machiko’s brow furrow.

It was a good episode. I’m not sure what I’m expecting with the next episode if I’m telling you the truth it looks like it’ll be another one exploring the people of this world and not another game. I think I might actually miss the games.

 

 

 

Two things to round off this blog.

1/ I think it goes to show the strength of this anime that I found it easy to write over 1000 words on a 20+min episode (I could have talked longer trust me) whilst I struggled to write half as many for a 50+min drama (Musketeers.)

2/I have one review of Assassination Classroom coming out tomorrow. I was going to do the same as what I’d done with Death Parade and review the first three but I’ve only seen the first two and haven’t gotten around to writing the review of the second one yet. As it is I’m at work tomorrow and its already late as I write this so the second episode might not be reviewed until Sunday or Monday and the third might have to wait till later in the week. I do apologise.