Death Parade scores its first perfect 10 with Chiyuki’s wondrous ice skating scene, which combines the series’ trademark beauty with enchanting music, top notch animation, and wordless story telling. What’s more, Nona and Oculus finally come to a clash and Ginti’s judgement of Mayu (and Harada?!) comes to a dramatic close.
I dare say, Mayu’s sub-plot nearly steals the spotlight. It’s brutal, emotional, and mind bending that DP’s creators did more with it as a side story, spread over so few episodes, than their master-plot in 11.
Why was Mayu’s plot so effective? In a nutshell, Mayu is a simpler, yet more rounded character than Chiyuki and the smaller, but more clearly defined plot around her has more obvious stakes.
Mayu loves Harada, and owes much of her life’s inspiration to him. More importantly, after death (and their failed judgement) Harada increases Mayu’s devotion by revealing that her letters did reach him and that he was inspired by her.
So we understand the characters’ connections and feel the burden when Ginti offers Mayu a choice: if Mayu chooses to send another soul to the void, Harada’s soul will return with her in reincarnation.
It’s obviously a trap, and even Mayu knows her decision will be wrong (morally) but what elevates the plot from trivial side-tragedy to masterpiece, is how the mean-spirited Ginti’s hell-vision of the void proves so wrong.
Plummeting down the elevator, sensing that she’s been betrayed, Mayu embraces Harada. Then his eyes open, they embrace, and their skin/souls are wrapped apart in a final instant.
The implication is clear: they will never return to being, Mayu and Harada end eternally together. And the arbiters clearly know nothing at all about what is going on…
Meanwhile, Chiyuki’s backstory is revealed in flashes while she skates Quindecim’s new ice rink. It’s simple but has to be so since it is delivered without dialog: her love of skating began when her mother read Chavvo, continued through school and eventually lead to a professional career… but abruptly ended with an injury and eventual suicide.
The slightly silly reason Chiyuki eventually gives Decim for killing herself, which relates to the impossibility of people understanding one another, is thankfully besides the point.
Yes, I get that it ties her life directly into the greater Chavvo plot, but the real point is that her life makes Decim think, and that the length of time they are together and the amount of questioning she does, makes him think harder about what is going on.
And Decim thinks that judgement, like life, needs to include the living (or at least the lived) lest it be hollow. Then he offers Chiyuki a final drink…
and slips her a mickey.
I don’t know where this is going next week but I love it as an unexpected twist.
If I had any gripes at all this week, it’s the Nona/Quin/Oculus plot. Rather, I don’t think the plot has enough build up to make for an engaging conflict over-which Decim and Chiyuki’s love must triumph next week.
But that’s next week and I can’t hold that against this week. This week was emotional resonant for four characters, illustrative of the differences between soul-less and soul-enabled Arbitors, advanced the master plot, tied up a side plot, and was lovely lovey lovely to hear and look at.
Show not tell for the win!
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