Death Billiards

"Death Billiards" has an intriguing premise. An old man and young man, whose names are never given, find themselves in a luxurious, mysterious bar, and must play a game of billiards. It's never revealed what is at stake, only that it's very significant. With comparisons to "Kaiji" and "Liar Game" already swirling in my head, I was immediately engaged.

Unfortunately, the execution is often lacking. The young man is an overly hysterical, ridiculous character, and thus reduces our investment in the game and his fate. If he is neither sympathetic, intelligent, nor even realistic, why should one care? ... The billiard game itself is okay, but nothing special. Considering what "Akagi" was able to get from Mahjong, they surely could have done more here. On the plus side, I liked both the animation and flashbacks. It conveys the atmosphere of this bar exceedingly well. I especially enjoyed the neon lights of the jukebox and the loving way the drinks and cigarette smoke were drawn.

Another weakness is that while I normally enjoy ambiguous endings, doing so here robs the short of any real point or punchline. We don't know what ultimately happens, and can only guess based on symbols that may or may not be relevant.

Overall, this is an enjoyable work I would generally encourage others to see. But it's also nothing special; "Kaiji" and "Liar Game" are light-years ahead of this.

I didn't like this "movie."

This could be good, if it were a series, not a movie. 25minutes is too minimal time for a movie (at least for this movie). Nothing interesting happened, they just played some billiard and the game wasn't even exciting. Also the plot was kinda too simple & stupid.

After the movie, yes I wanted to see more. But as a one episode movie this wasn't so great. Like I said, as a series this might work!

Seeing as this is a 23 minute short for an animation project, you will forgive me if this review is on the shorter end.

Death Billiards certainly does a major part of the entire point of an animation project: It looks GREAT, with a lot of strong shots to show off not only how pretty it looks but some good use of things such as perspective and coloring. I'm not an expert in terms of graphic design so I couldn't go into great detail, but it pretty consistently looked good and used a variety of types of perspective. The sound was also solid, from the voice ... acting to things like the drink glasses and pool shots.

The one shot episode story could have been done better: The young guy (Otoko)'s breakdown scene where he runs around to escape and whatnot for example along with some pointless repetition of exposition, especially of the "I can't tell you anything" kind, probably should have been shuffled around and cut to make room for a bit more of the two pool players interacting or somewhat more in depth flashbacks (perhaps add a minute or two to the length?) as it makes things like the episode's climax or the later breakdown a bit less of a connection.

With only one episode's runtime worth of space there isn't much room, but I could definitely see more being done with it (This is a concept that has certainly been used in a few places, most prominently in my memory The Twilight Zone) and it is therefor no surprise this inspired an anime in Death Parade. On that note, Decim and Onna are well characterized despite being very background characters: The mysterious arbiters of this afterlife in-between, with Decim being the colder one who talks less while Onna is a bit more inquisitive (mostly in the last scene) but has the same level of empathy. It is reasonably well done.

The final verdict is Death Billiards is a good visual showcase, exactly what it was designed for, and a good watch if you plan to watch the Death Parade anime given that is where it started. A reasonably fun use of 23 minutes as well, especially if you enjoy the synopsis.

Death Billiards is the short film that appeared 2 years before the actual series. It is basically only a single Episode. This one would perfectly fit as the 3th Episode.
However, it is also possible to look at it directly at the start, as it could already arouse enormous curiosity and acts as a good opening Episode.


There is nothing new to say about the story or events. It's just not another episode anymore.


In conclusion

You won't miss a thing if you don't look at it. However, it doesn't hurt to add it in the middle, as it simply adds another episode to the series.