Anime Original by Madhouse
Streaming on Funimation
Premise
When two people are summoned to the Quindecim, they must play a game with their lives at stake. A newlywed couple has been summoned, and the games will test their bonds and rock the foundations of their relationship.
Artemis’ verdict: Barkeep, Another!
This might not be the smartest or deepest show the winter anime season has to offer, but it’s certainly a lot of fun – think Hell Girl, only with a bartender in place of a schoolgirl and much faster pacing. The atmosphere is likely to be the main draw for most viewers; energetic and playful, Death Parade wastes no time in getting straight to the point and is positively gleeful in its own creepiness, playing out like some kind of purposefully melodramatic and brutal gameshow. My favourite part of this first episode had to be the opening sequence though, which is wonderfully inappropriate and serves to highlight the very theatrical nature of the title. Some distinctive character designs and striking imagery cap off what is obviously set to be a dark and wholly entertaining series – I’m definitely looking forward to seeing more of what Death Parade will bring to the table.
Iro’s verdict: Goes Down Smooth
This premiere was a nearly scene-for-scene retread of the concepts Death Billiards – the original short – introduced, albeit starring different characters playing a different game. Overall, this isn’t a bad thing, but it also means Death Parade suffers from some of the same issues; most glaringly, characters jump into overblown rants at the drop of a hat, interrupting the otherwise creepily calm atmosphere of the setting. It’s a clearly intentional effect meant to convey their desperation, and I could see myself quickly growing accustomed to such outbursts (depending on how slavishly Death Parade is going to stick to its current format, anyway), but for now it’s a bit much.
Apart from such minor issues, the show is quite well constructed, not asking too much or too little from the audience. While the Quindecim’s status as a sort of purgatory is plainly obvious, there are plenty of unanswered questions to pique our interest (eg. the dark-haired woman from Billiards is seemingly the only employee without crosses in her eyes) and the promise of an episodic format with various games gives the show a bit of wiggle room to keep things fresh. Special mention goes to the wildly inappropriate OP, which oozes with fun and style despite being completely at odds with the rest of the show so far. Overall, I look forward to seeing the twists and turns this parade will take.
Aqua’s verdict: I Like This Place, But The Food Is Awful
I haven’t felt as ambiguous on a show in a long time as I have on Death Parade. I love it for being a fantastic artistic statement, fleshing out the gorgeous setting first presented in the Death Billiards OVA and using its simplistic anthology setup to delve into the darkest corners of the human soul. Yuzuru Tachikawa’s splendid directing effort does a great job at visually putting together pieces of the puzzle, yet it’s his writing that fails to meet up to the standards of maturity a show like Death Parade needs. There is a fine line between psychological depth and sheer misanthropy, and Death Parade‘s nuanced exploration of human doubt and jealousy soon turns into a melodramatic farce walloping in the senselessly tired notion that humanity is inherently selfish and any and all affection is fueled by ulterior motives. In stead of exploring the far more interesting idea of a loving couple being faced with an unfairly cruel decision, Death Parade opts for the easy way out — portraying both participants as manipulative liars few people can relate to.
There’s a sense of smug superiority to it all, almost urging viewers to wash away the intensity of the episode’s brilliant first half with schadenfreude, that rubs me in all the wrong ways. The fact that the woman ends up being the one to be sent to hell — because she cheated on her paranoid, violent, resentful husband — makes me believe Tachikawa is a Reddit regular, and the episode’s final minutes are an overblown farce, as Kazuya Nakai chews the scenery with a voracity befitting of his character’s distorted, drooling visage. Little else turns me off more than the kind of violent, exaggerated melodrama Death Parade shoves down your proverbial throat in its back half. The confusing, inconclusive ending only counts as salt on an already open wound, and that’s truly a pity. Death Parade obviously has some highly talented people working on it, and I’d hate to see for that to go to waste. This first episode felt like an iffy installment of an otherwise good show, oddly enough, so I’ll be returning to Quindecim next week, too.
Euri’s verdict: Dark and Stormy
Definitely the stand-out show of the season so far, for me at least. Death Billiards was a pretty cool OVA on its own, so making a full series out of it was certainly something I was looking forward to. You’re not going to be watching this show for a good time, however, as it looks to be a showcase on the worst of humanity as they try to outplay each other at token games in order to go to heaven. It’s not going to be quite that simple either, as is seen in this episode with the three or four painful twists in the story, and it’s clear that the games themselves will take a backseat to the story revelations from the couples it will focus on. Unlike the Parasyte ED, the jarring opening sequence is actually rather enjoyable, even if it makes the show out to be something it isn’t. Also, I want to point out that the darts game in this episode is basically the ability of the Ortho Siblings in Hunter x Hunter. I’m finding any excuse to talk about that show.
Marlin’s verdict: And Now For Something Completely Different
The Glorio Blog 
My current working theory is that Machiko chose to go to hell, possibly subconsciously. As the winner of the game she’s given the chance to choose what happens to her life. I also get the sense that by the end she ended up lying about cheating in order to get back at her husband or possibly to give him confirmation that what he believed was true, even if it actually wasn’t. The end sequence has a seat at the wedding for Macchi, suggesting that her story before suddenly admitting to adultery was the closest to the truth.
Yeah, I read some other theories that make me believe this theory as well. My major complaint — maybe that wasn’t very clear — is not that the ending is bad, but that it is too ambiguous and as such, makes me assume the most obvious conclusion (i.e. Machiko is sent to hell, ergo her sins are considered ‘worse’ than her husband’) was the intended one. Add that to the somewhat unclear wording — plus reincarnation being generally regarded as a bad thing in Buddhism, so it could very well be that the reincarnation is the ‘Hell’ and the void is the ‘Heaven’ — and it’s a bit of a mess. Had they toned down the melodrama and given the conclusion a few more minutes, all of its problems would probably have been solved. The show did a really good job at showing nuance in its direction (like showing a very clear difference between Takashi’s ‘accidental’ hit and Machiko’s actual accident), so I was disappointed it did a poor job at living up to it. Like I said, I think ‘they both have their dark sides but in the end love each other’ is a far better theme to explore than ‘they are both scum’ and/or ‘one of them is scum and the other a complete saint’ that the two possible interpretations of the ending provide.
I was thinking something along the same lines – I was definitely under the distinct impression that Machiko’s final admission was a lie, and that she purposefully chose her fate in order to get even while she still could. Her outburst just felt too sudden and too angry to be anything but made up.
hahaha oh wow, that opening
The bartender Decim reminded me of Ginko from Mushishi. Anyway not sure if the wife Machiko, was lying or not at the end, but it look like winning the game has little or possibly no effect on where you end up going after it’s done.