Satsuriku no Tenshi

For over a decade now, the anime industry has been producing one series a season that deserves the highly appreciated title of ironic masterpiece. This time around it's a show about suicidal loli and a massmurderer who refuses to kill her. And it has everything. When I say everything, what I really mean is e v e r y t h i n g, and I have been laughing my butt sore since episode 1.

Our story starts off in a spooky hospital where security cameras garnish the walls every 3 inches, doors close behind people's back like it is Ghost Hunt, and possessed typewriters ... are the ones asking all the questions that matter since our characters don't even bother trying as they are too busy planning to kill themselves. It's bad? No, it's the peak of self-awareness.

The actual events focus around some floor master shit fights because the entire series is based on a video game that was created with goddamn RPG Maker's free trial edition. Need a better prove of quality? That's what I thought. The entire story is real mysterious and apparently everything in it symbolizes some religious nonsense hence why all the 3 different English titles of the show have the word "Angel" in them. Essentially this is lot like Evangelion except fun to watch because the mc only has one mental illness and one of the characters has a pumpkin as a head.

Our cast is beyond incredible. Rachel is surprisingly non-annoying for a 13 yo child who is in angst (even if her every 3rd line consist of the word "kill" and "me"). Isaac Foster is the perfect representation of a generic horror psychopath from any horror game you play on easy and the murderer is an NPC. He also owns a cool scythe and I laugh similarly as he whenever he does anything. His laugh is real sick, reminds me of Orihara Izaya from Durararararara. +1 for seiyuu work. Daniel Dickens is the best character. I have had a blast using the phrase "the plot Dickens" when ever he does anything. MVP material right there.

The art is also beyond incredible. Especially the tight and dark spaces really do add to the overall atmosphere. I mentioned Ghost Hunt earlier and that was favorite horror comedy before this one became a thing. The best arc from that anime takes place in a building highly similar to the architecture in which the entire story of Satsuriku no Tenshi takes part in except more floors this time around. Some of the floors really do offer that video game feeling where the series is its own thing and that manages to serve the immersion the work has to offer.

To me, this Satsuriku no Tenshi offered genuine entertainment. Some of it can be seen to be silly, but I found all of that just add to the overall experience. For example, the dialogue and angst that is best shown in the repetition of the two lines "kill me" and "no" is nothing less than comedic gold, and such lousy cliches as memoryloss were taken exactly as seriouly with this series as they always should be dealt it. Meaning not seriously at all.

J.C.Staff has been fixing their reputation their best since the Rie Kugumiya's loli tsundere era, and thus far, Satsuriku no Tenshi is yet another show from them that looks mediocre, but is everything but. Don't let the criticism ruin the fun as this is what entertainment truly means.

*I have only watched the anime, not the manga or game. Thus, this review will be based on the anime alone*

After having completely finished the anime, I can safely say that Satsuriku no Tenshi is one of the most frustrating horror animes I’ve ever watched. From the very start of the show, there have been a myriad of flaws involving plot, dialogue, and character development, all resulting in a trainwreck of a show, which is really a shame because it had such an interesting premise.

Plot (1/10): The plot to this anime is one of the worst I have ever seen and most of its issues ... begin with it’s progression, or rather, the utter lack of it. Right from the beginning and up to halfway through the story, we can see this show following a typical formula: villian shows up -> zack does something stupid -> Rachel finds a solution -> more talking about killing and then not killing. The ‘mystery’ in the show is awfully boring, with the clues being vague and pretentious, constantly talking again and again about ‘sins’ and ‘god’ but adding nothing to the story. Actually that’s the perfect word to describe this shitty show. It’s vague. Really vague. It always felt like it wanted to impress the audience by being ‘intelligent’ so instead of slowly revealing things to the audience (like a good thriller should), it keeps on sprouting ambiguous and often nonsensical details. In my opinion, this show would do better if it was more straightforward so the viewer would get engrossed in the mystery and its progression.

Another big problem I had with Angels of Death (and probably the most noticeable one) is its repetitive, boring, and edgy dialogue. Basically, it goes something like this:

Rachel: I want to die. Can you kill me?
Zack: Your expression is boring. I’ll kill you when we get outside.
Rachel: Can you kill me?
Zack: What the hell are you talking about? I said I don’t want to kill you.

OMG. JUST KILL HER ALREADY!!

(sorry that was me ranting) All of the dialogue in the story is basically 1) stuff that is really vague 2) stuff we already knew. It’s like it can’t even tell the intelligence of the audience. The whole thing feels like it's constantly going around in circles, with no meaning or wittiness. We KNOW Rachel wants to die. We KNOW the doc has a crazy eye fetish. Just tell us something important already!!

Animation (7/10): For a J.C Staff show, the art is surprisingly pretty. It uses a nice color palette and Rachel’s character design was very attractive. Although Zack and the other villains character design do look somewhat generic, I’m willing to give this section a 7.

Sound (5/10): This department is pretty subjective, but I felt the music in this show to be rather average. It’s not bad, but not very good either. I liked the voice actor for Rachel, but Zack’s voice was straight-up annoying and honestly, I felt like punching his stupid face everytime I hear that voice of his. The villains’ voices also felt extremely annoying, with their over-the-top laughter and eccentric attitudes.

Character (2/10): Our female protagonist, Rachel, is the only one in the entire cast who didn’t manage to annoy me. That’s not to say she’s a good character though. In the entire anime she was bland and emotionless and lacked any type of character development. Overall, she’s the classic kuudere archetype but nothing to make her interesting. We learn nothing about her throughout the entire story, only that she wants to die. We don’t know why she wants to die, what was accountable for her 180 in the story, or even her backstory.

The male protagonist Zack isn’t any better, if not worse. Loud, impulsive, and often temperamental, he’s basically your ‘all brawn no brain’ male archetype. He adds nothing to the story, is often very stupid, and is definitely one of the most annoying characters I’ve seen. Not to mention, his ‘tragic backstory’ is one I found to be very generic and a cheap way for viewers to pity him. Overall, it’s not enough to develop his character or make him into a more complex person. Nobody’s expecting an amazing and deep backstory like Kiritsugu’s or even Akashi’s but it’s like this show doesn’t even try.

The villains were all badly made and were all ‘psychos’ with crazy laughs and no personality. They all want to kill the 2 mc’s but for no reason. They were also involved in some stupid plot twist which brought them back to life even though it was stated that they died.

Enjoyment (5/10): I actually enjoyed some parts of the show but most of the time it just felt tedious and uninteresting. Unlike other bad thrillers like mirai nikki or kakegurui, this isn’t very entertaining and is not worth your time.

Mod Edit: This review was originally written for the final 4 episodes which was previously a separate entry and was subsequently merged into Satsuriku no Tenshi.

At the time of my writing this, the main page for Angels of Death is sitting at a 6.92, and the top reviews are either negative or not seriously written. However, this was one of the shows I enjoyed most during the Summer 2018 season, so I wanted to write a brief review on its behalf.

A major contributing factor to these low scores is that people don’t know what to expect from this show. You wouldn’t know this from the ... synopsis above, but Angels of Death isn’t really a horror series – it’s somewhere between a buddy comedy and an otome game, except that all of the suitors want to murder the lead rather than date her (Half of them do still want to date her though). It’s difficult to encapsulate the series in its entirety, but that absurdity is part of the fun.

It might clear up some details if I talk about the source material that this anime is adapting. Although a manga exists, Angels of Death originally started as a freeware RPG Maker game. If you’ve ever played Yume Nikki or something like it (My personal favorite is Irisu Syndrome, which does have a free English translation), you know that these sorts of games can be surreal experiences, and this adaptation absolutely nails that tone while still poking fun at its genre conventions. I haven’t played the game myself, but I’ve been told that the plot of the anime diverges, and I’m definitely interested enough to check it out.

The strength of this series lays in the rapport established between its two leads, Rachel and Zack. The two are an odd couple, but they play off each other really well comically, and it was great to see their dynamic evolve over the course of the show. As they rise through the floors, they go from mutually using each other to actually caring about each other’s wellbeing, and this development is strangely endearing. There was one arc about halfway through the series in which the pair is separated, and those episodes felt empty, but they also made me realize how much I cared about their bond. Despite being a campy horror comedy, Angel of Death’s central relationship is a lot more developed than most anime romances, even if it is founded on murderous intent.

Angels of Death definitely wasn’t the best show of the Summer 2018 season - its middle section dragged on, and it probably would have helped if it had been cut down to a standard 12 or 13 episodes – but there’s nothing else quite like it and I’m glad I watched it. There’s no other show where characters are as likely to get oddly sentimental about their blades as they are to conduct a trial that wouldn’t be out of place in the Ace Attorney franchise, and it was this emotional range that kept me coming back each week. If any of this mess sounds entertaining to you, then I wholeheartedly recommend you check it out.