Death Parade 1x12 "Suicide Tour" - reaction & review
Added 2024-11-22 13:39:18 +0000 UTCHey everyone! Here it is - my reaction to the twelfth episode of Death Parade! WOW you guys, what an emotional ending!!!! The stuff with Chiyuki and her mom just broke my heart!!! But I've gotta say, I think both she and Decim learned a lot from this situation, and Decim is gonna be a better arbiter for having known her! The smile at the end broke me!!!! I'm happy she made the right choice!!! All in all, I'd say this was a pretty positive ending, focusing on the importance of life. Great stuff! Enjoy! ~ MH
Comments
It is Mai Hime (also called My Hime), a 26 episode original anime from 2004, my absolute favorite, it's a school life/romance/drama/magical girls/mecha, yeah, it's a lot of things at the same time but none feel that they don't belong here. There is a lots of characters to love, I can already say that if you watch it, you will laugh, cry, scream, being maybe a little embarrassed for some scene and you will groove to the ost too. I can link you two song from the ost to give you a teaser of what to except, an emotional one and a more action based one. https://youtu.be/aP6QpzOza58?si=kUQac--aSBIX3mRr https://youtu.be/4mKU4ZhTUt4?si=FEGFZx741gNdMSDn But don't worry, I can wait for you to have time for it, I know that with the baby, you have other priorities :). With Leonie, we also talked about Skip Beat and the fact that she wanted for you to see it too, so maybe you will go with this one before.
Spadeas
2024-12-05 12:09:42 +0000 UTCThank you!!! It was definitely a deeper one but I really enjoyed it and got into it a lot!! I'm so glad you enjoyed my reactions to the finale! I loved Decim and Chiyuki and their dynamic - and the fact that while it was still an emotional ending, it wasn't full of despair or anything. Ugh, the scenes with her mom were just gut wrenching!! I agree that Decim was testing her. Oooh good call about the callback to ep 10!! Seeing Decim smile was so emotional!! I think you're right about Decim, maybe showing her the mom and all that wasn't quite necessary to get a good understanding of the person she was, and I agree that using sympathy would have come in handy for Mayu/Harada's judgment. I guess there's a balance lol. This show really does make you think a lot! About what life means, how the way we live affects others, what's waiting for us when we die, etc. I agree that Decim and Chiyuki were great characters, and it would've been really cool to see more of the supporting cast fleshed out a bit more!! I guess they didn't have that many eps to do that, oh well. The games were so thoughtful and well done, each one really does fit a theme that's meant to be thought provoking!! I agree about the tears!!! Those were all great ones! There's so much to think about after watching this series...one thing I found interesting was the very concept of what it means to be a good or bad person. Does doing good things make you good? And same with being bad? Is there more to it than just that?! What's the limit on how much we can "allow" the world around you to affect your decisions until it's ultimately your responsibility in how you handle them? Etc.!! I'm glad these decisions don't have to be made by me - I'll leave it to Decim :)))))))) Thanks again for choosing this one, it was a huge hit!!!!!!!
Melissa Moore
2024-12-05 09:58:10 +0000 UTCThis is def a good discussion series!! The tissue thing is for sure on me lol. That's a good point, it's less about a goal and more about analysis. I can definitely see what you mean about suicide, and seeing the effect it had on her mom was what it took for her to realize that. It looked like he was becoming human when his eyes cleared for a second, but yeah, I think they were just showing understanding. Oh so that was even more temping then, that they'd forget about her death and she could just go on living. Thanks for clarifying about Mayu. I still fail to see how the fourth rule will really stand up but I do think it's a good thing to take more than just hard facts into consideration during judgments. That cat was outta there!!! What a shame!!
Melissa Moore
2024-12-05 09:50:55 +0000 UTCIt really was! I know, his desire to be better and better is inspiring! That's a good point about Ginti, in the end I don't think he was pursuing a deeper meaning to it like Decim was. This just happened to be a tricky situation. The cat was not having it!!! Yeah this would be great on a rewatch, I'm sure there's a ton more to notice! I think the experiment worked too!!
Melissa Moore
2024-12-05 09:46:38 +0000 UTCHi Spadeas! :) Oh that sounds busy! I hope it all went great! Yes, it may not have been conventionally happy but it was really well done and ultimately pretty hopeful in its message! That's such a great point, putting people at their worst isn't really the best way to judge their character. Chiyuki made a tough decision but the right one. Oh I could see how that was a bit of a mistake - where she asks Decim to do it in her place. Maybe they were trying to show that she was tempted, but ultimately made the right choice? Lol it was quite a deep show! Oh sounds good about the show, which one was that again? :)
Melissa Moore
2024-12-05 09:45:03 +0000 UTCHi Hime :) The last two weeks have been hectic, especially the weekends (first a convention and the second a comics book festival), but I have finally finished watching your reaction to Death Parade. What a show. Like you said, it wasn't a happy, rainbow and sunchine kind of show, it touch some heavy topics, but so is life, and in a show about death, life is as important. In the end, that is the lesson for me, the better way to judge someone is not how he act under pressure, but how he lived his life and why he lived it like that, a way that couldn't be impartial, that need a "human touch" and why making Decim have emotions, feeling, will make him a better arbitrer. We've seen a lot of people, some had horrible life, making them piece of poo, but other stayed good people even when they had horrible life, it's not the condition that your in, but what you make of it. We see it with Chiyuki at the end, even dead and with the possibility to come back, but only if another one die for that, she still continue to be kind en choose not to do it, even if she break and ask Decim to do it instead. This scene by the way, could be analysed itself, because asking Decim to do it, it's like fleeing your responsibility, she will still knowing that someone die in her place, but she will not be the one pressing the button, it's a little f-up in my opinion. But it's truly human, in a moment of despair that we will turn to someone, deities or other, to do what we aren't capable of doing, that doesn't necessary make us bad, just human. That why I like that just after, seeing that she broke Decim, she become again the kind and empathetic girl she was, comforting him and saying that "it's ok". Even trying to the end to improve him while saying that he should smile. But yeah, for a show about death, it have many depth too (pun intended). Oh, and if Léonie read me, I recovered recently one of the show I talked with her, in VA with english subtitles, I need to look if it's good quality wise and maybe have to rearange the sub if they're not correct ect ect, but they're is one show to go, in case, because I don't know if this one is in any sort of stream service anymore (it's from 2004 and it's birthday was not long ago ^^).
Spadeas
2024-11-27 13:42:52 +0000 UTCWow what a beautiful way to end it. This was a heart wrenching but a very heartfelt one. I love getting to see Decim breaking through and being able to feel as much as it also hurt to watch him in pain. 🥲 But at least he can take that back to do a better job like he wants to. I love that he always strives to do better with arbitrating. And it’s sweet he also has her there in his presence. He took a lot from her being there. It’s sweet how much he cares for people. My thoughts on Ginti: im not 100% sure if he was really interested in getting to know how humans operate or learning if there was a further purpose to understanding humans. I believe he was in a place where he really couldn’t tell where to place someone. He asked around to see if there really was something more to consider when placing someone in the more appropriate spot. Still he had no qualms with the actual process and decision making, just this girl was tricky. And likely had she gone to Decim, he may have seen something in her devotion to Harada and send her to get reincarnated. But Ginti didn’t think it was so heartfelt, just more a hassle and illogical than sweet. Arbitrating is treated more like homework to him. He’s not thinking anything about it till he just hit a real stumper and had a tougher time placing this person exactly where it needs to be. Which is a hint that there are some things to consider. We see him struggling a bit but to understand but is it really what we think it is, or is he just trying to make sense of it to finish the job? All I know is the cat wasn’t happy with him after this decision. 😾 This is definitely a good series to rewatch. It definitely makes you think. And I think the experiment was a success and because of it Decim is going to be the starting point standard for a more in-depth approach to judging. 🍸
Manny
2024-11-27 11:35:52 +0000 UTCI feel like this is one of those shows that would create a lot of week-to-week conversation around the water cooler. This isn’t anyone’s fault here but the schedule kind of defeated the opportunity for us to really dig in with you episode to episode, and I think that might’ve taken away some of the theorycrafting that might have been in place if we were doing it weekly as it was being released. No one is to blame here, you have to record when and how you’re able to, but hopefully what I’m saying is making a degree of sense too. As for not having tissues, I do feel like there was some people warning you about the finale who knew… but you know, that’s reacting for you. But I mean - shouldn’t you have like Amazon restocking those daily at this point? XD I think this anime was rather unique in the story it’s trying to tell because it’s not about achieving a goal but rather reflecting on one. I believe that Nona’s insistence on getting the arbiters to understand emotions as well as Decim’s curiosity about them led to a unique convergence that couldn’t have been taken advantage of in a different setting. She definitely wouldn’t have gotten this far if she tried to do this with Ginti. The thing about someone who commits to taking their own life is that they’re thinking pretty selfishly in the moment. I went into a long description last time trying to size up their mental state and praising its depiction. There is also a flip side to that coin in that the person in question is not really thinking about what their absence would cause for the people around them. In this case, Chiyuki’s mother is the catalyst that makes her daughter realize the weight of her actions. Trying to understand another person or how they feel is not an easy thing - heck, my parents have been married for quite a while and they STILL don’t get everything about the other - but that doesn’t stop them from trying. I would say there’s a similar dynamic going on between Decim and Chiyuki here in that Decim was actually finally able to grasp what an emotion feels like. I do have to correct you in saying that he was becoming human - he isn’t. He just got a more complete grasp of how a human feels. I’m going to go ahead and Pat myself on the back for calling that the arbiters were made out of the void soul remains. Perhaps why that’s why they appear to have traces of emotions even if they’re not specifically trying to gain them. Also, see my last comment on Ginti’s move and then pair it here with the choice Decim presented to Chiyuki. Slight clarification: he said if she pressed the remote her loved ones would forget about her death and she’d return to living, the implication being that life would go on without her taking it in the first place. The reason Mayu’s soul was deemed “voided” is the same reason that Chiyuki passed - unlike Mayu, she wasn’t willing to place the value of another soul above hers, regardless of who it might be. The arbiters are still dummies, and they cannot be human. The fourth rule was put in place so that another judgment involving a human’s thoughts would not affect the outcome. You’ve already said several times you don’t want to be in that position, case in point. However, there is value to understanding emotions and the meaning behind them for the arbiters - much the same as someone should understand the value of life, both before and after their death. Perhaps if that’s the case, people might be a bit more thoughtful about not just themselves, but those around them. Because no life exists in a vacuum without affecting others. Now that my rant is over, I’m sorry to tell you there are no cat videos, because the cat has left Ginti’s bar. Oh well, it has nine lives to deal with all this, so it’s got plenty of more chances. 👀
Tyler Stobbe
2024-11-22 23:41:55 +0000 UTCHey Melissa, now Death Parade is also coming to an end. On the one hand, I'm sad that the show is over, but on the other hand, I'm really happy to see that you really enjoyed Death Parade overall. I was worried that the show might be a bit too dark for you, but I'm really happy to see that you understood the themes of the series very well and that you made your own theories based on them, which I thought was very cool. I had already warned you that the last two episodes would be very emotional and sad and your reaction didn't disappoint me. You felt the same way about Chiyuki and Decim as I did. I actually expected a series like Death Parade to have a very dark and sad ending, which makes you almost depressed, but I didn't expect such a rather thought-provoking ending. The conclusion was really very good. The scenes where you see Chiyuki's mother dealing with her death was really heartbreaking. I think any mother would go through these feelings if their beloved child took their own life and of course doubt their ability to be a mother. Of course you blame yourself that you could have seen the signs earlier and done something about it. I also think that Decim really wanted to test Chiyuki, to see what kind of person she was and to find out whether she understood the job of an Arbiter during the time she was with him. It really made me sad but happy at the same time to see Decim trying to show emotion and smile. That was a good callback to episode 10, where Chiyuki said that she likes to smile as much as the girl in the story book. In the end, we sort of learnt the lesson that to truly be able to pass judgement over humans, you must understand their pain and suffering. Decim did just that, and then was able to fully pass judgement over Chiyuki. Although I agree with this assessment of the judgement process of the arbiters, I also think that Decim didn't necessarily have to go through all of the trouble that he went through in order to reach the answer of reincarnating her soul. As well, most of the judgements given in the series we see are generally what I would consider to be the "correct decisions". Ultimately I think that having to understand the human experience is a tool that can aid in the judgement of people's souls, but one that isn't necessary in a lot of cases in order to pass a judgement that is sufficient. The show DOES show us instances where the arbiters could have used sympathy with the humans they were judging, such as when Ginti was determining where to send Mayu and Harada. So it is something that I think isn't one hundred percent necessary but it it something that can help a great deal in certain situations with certain types of people. Overall, Death Parade is a story that makes you think about a lot of things. It causes you to think about your own life, your death, how your loved ones would react to your death, the value of your own soul, if there is an afterlife, and ultimately if there is one, where would you end up? It also calls into question what type of being is even suited to judge other people's souls. In this way, the show constantly has you thinking, or least it had me thinking quite a bit. The cast of characters in Death Parade were...mostly good. Decim as the stoic but also cute arbiter was a good protagonist, although I would have liked if his emotions were shown a little more spread out throughout the show instead of being mostly contained to the final few episodes. Chiyuki was also a really great character who's human emotions contrasted nicely with Decim's matter-of-fact behaviour. These characters get the most development in the show by far. In contrast, the rest of the characters (Nona, Quin, Ginti, Oculus, Clavis, and Castra) comparatively do not receive much development at all. Nona, Oculus, and Ginti all get a little time for us to understand a bit of their characters and personality, but I feel as though they could have been more fleshed out, especially Clavis and Castra. Although, I'm not sure if increasing the episode count could have alleviated this, because I'm not too sure for how many episode the premise of this show is sustainable for. Each of the games contained within the show are done expertly, I don't have any complaints with the execution of them at all. Each one touches upon a new dynamic and a different facet of of human emotions and relationships. Themes such as trust, revenge, love, family, and more are explored in these games. They really make you think about your own life situation and the ways in which your life has unfolded, the things that you would leave behind if you died. I can't believed the amount of times the show made me tear up! Some standouts to me include the darts, bowling, arcade, and the air hockey two-parter. I think Death Parade is a beautiful anime. It's a show that make you think about life and death, and the many ways in which people can form relationships with one another. It makes you think about your own relationship with living and dying and how you would feel if you died. Are you a good person, or a bad person? Do you deserve to be reincarnated, or sent to the void? These aren't questions meant for us to answer though. That task, is up to the arbiter on the 15th floor of the tower, at the bar named Quindecim.
Leonie2003
2024-11-22 15:53:22 +0000 UTC
