Platinum End

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Japanese: プラチナエンド

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Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 24

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Oct 8, 2021 to Mar 25, 2022

Premiered: Fall 2021

Broadcast: Fridays at 01:28 (JST)

Producers: Pierrot, Dentsu, Pony Canyon, TBS, Magic Capsule, Medicos Entertainment, BS11

Licensors: None found, add some

Studios: Signal.MD

Source: Manga

Genres: Drama, Supernatural, Suspense

Themes: Mythology, Psychological, Survival

Demographic: Shounen

Duration: 24 min. per ep.

Rating: R - 17+ (violence & profanity)

Statistics

Score: 6.06¹ (scored by 123,693 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #8577²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #591

Members: 366,849

Favorites: 2,537

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6.06

Ranked #8577Popularity #591Members 366,849

Fall 2021TVSignal.MD

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Episodes: /24

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Synopsis

Ever since he lost his family in an explosion, Mirai Kakehashi has lived a life of pain and despair. Every day, he endures abuse at the hands of the relatives who took him in. As his anguish steadily chips away at his will to live, he is eventually pushed to the brink. Prepared to throw it all away, he stands on the edge of a precipice and takes the leap. However, instead of falling to his death, he enters a trance where he meets a winged being who claims to be his guardian angel. Named Nasse, the angel offers him two priceless abilities and convinces him to go on living.

When Mirai experiences the marvel of his new powers firsthand, he gets a taste of the freedom that was locked away from him for so long. Armed with Nasse's gifts, Mirai is flung into a showdown with 12 other individuals, one of which will be chosen to become the next God. In stark contrast to when he wanted to end his life, Mirai is now prepared to do whatever it takes to protect his bleak chance at happiness, lest it be wrenched from his grasp forever.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Episode Videos

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Platinum End
Other:	Koufukuron

Maeno, Tomoaki
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Oowada, Tomoyuki

Producer

Chino, Takatoshi

Producer

Ueda, Tomoki

Producer

Kise, Kazuchika

Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation, Chief Animation Director, Animation Director

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Opening Theme

"Sense " by BAND-MAID

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Ending Theme

	"Koufururon (降伏論)" by Yuu Miyashita (宮下遊)
	2: "Last Straw (ラストストロウ)" by Kuuhaku Gokko (空白ごっこ) (eps 15-24)

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Reviews

Mar 24, 2022

SingleH

Not Recommended

Spoiler

*spoilers in a marked section*

In my experience, anime fans have absolutely no conception of what good or bad directing looks like. To most of them, “directing” is just a buzzword they can throw around in forums as a compliment or an insult toward a show they have nothing intelligent to say about, hoping anyone who reads their post will be similarly ignorant and think they actually said something substantive. Indeed, when most people like or dislike a show specifically because it was well directed or poorly directed, they’ll often attribute their like or dislike to other factors. Two of the best anime films ever made, ... K-On! The Movie and Tamako Love Story, are both held in significantly higher regard than the TV shows from which they’re derived. Some of this adoration must be attributed to the fact many people who didn’t like the shows (and who would therefore dislike the films similarly) would not stick around to watch the movies, but in these cases, the increase in praise is significant enough for other factors to be at work. Whenever you ask around or read critique, many say the films are better because they’re better written, tell more satisfying and emotional stories, or are simply better produced and have movie-quality animation which the TV shows don’t, but both of these films have the exact same creative staff as the shows, and while the animation quality is certainly stepped up, I refuse to believe any majority in the anime community has enough appreciation for high-quality production values for it to significantly effect the score of any entry on MAL. After all, we collectively awarded Steins:Gate 0 with an absurdly high score, and that shit looks like a Bee Train show. If you ask me, whether they can put it into words or not, people are being moved by Yamada Naoko’s powerful directing, not the sometimes nonexistent improvements they’re claiming to have any appreciation for.

Platinum End has been sold to us as the spiritual successor to Death Note, and those are some big shoes to fill, because Death Note, according to this lovely website, is among the most popular anime ever made. But why is that? Its animation is shoddy. Its art design is good, but given the subpar animation, many of the beautiful characters are often off-model anyway. The background art is utterly hideous. The voice acting is good, but since many people unapologetically recommend the fucking ENGLISH DUB, they must not have any real appreciation for it. The concept is incredible and makes for an exciting story, but the execution ultimately boils down to any other shounen battle manga only without the action scenes, and the final twelve episodes of the show are widely seen as complete shit. I could go on, but you get the point: most aspects of the show aren’t exactly what you would expect from one of the most popular anime ever made. So then why is Death Note considered one of the greatest anime thrillers of all time? Well, the answer is in the question. It’s extremely well directed. Tetsuro Araki is a visionary who’s able to get you on the edge of your seat just by watching some asshole write names down in a notebook or—quite famously—take a potato chip and eat it. Death Note is exciting because its shots are so well timed, its transitions are so cleverly planned, and because Araki and his team knew exactly how to storyboard shots with maximum energy, even when the scene had little to no movement. You’re going to read a lot of people complaining about Platinum End’s story, and its characters, and its animation, and a bunch of other bullshit, but I want you to know most if not all of these complaints can also be accused of Death Note. The real reason Platinum End feels so thin and forgettable is that it has no gravitas. It’s just poorly directed.

All those other complaints are still totally valid, though, because Platinum End is a complete clusterfuck. Name recognition can certainly do a lot to secure a show’s success, but for a show which seemingly lives and dies on its connection to Death Note, nothing about it ultimately has the same appeal, no matter what superficial similarities they may share. Like Death Note, Platinum End is a death game plot centered around angelic/demonic beings bestowing powers upon humans they deem to be worthy in some thematically relevant fashion, and those who receive the powers fight each other for some nebulous prize, which in this case is to become God. However, what made Death Note interesting was the characters and their memorable personalities. Light Yagami was a legendary, unforgettable, absolutely irreplaceable leading man, but Mirai, the protagonist of Platinum End, is just some boring sad-boy. The competition between Light and L was intellectual, yes, but it was also ideological. The angel arrows (this show’s equivalent to the Death Notes) have mechanics which the characters have to work around in mildly interesting ways, but when it actually comes down to their motivations and convictions, they just scream a bunch of uninspiring platitudes at each other and navel-gaze about nothing. To this day, people still debate whether or not what Light did was wrong, because Death Note was able to convincingly raise genuinely challenging moral quandaries for the audience to ponder. Platinum End just feels so obvious and—I hate to say it—pretentious. If you want to watch an embarrassingly edgy, incompetently adapted, pseudo-intellectual piece of trash with a hideously inconsistent production, boring and confusing characters, and one of the most bizarre non-endings I think I’ve ever seen, then I guess you have my recommendation.

This paragraph is going to contain MAJOR SPOILERS, because I want to talk about this show’s infamous ending. In the anime community, the act of calling something "pretentious" has itself become pretentious by definition, because it is the ultimate act of putting on a pretense to appear smart. By saying it, people are saying the anime didn't fulfill their intellectual needs, when in fact, they simply didn't understand it. It offers zero analysis or genuine criticism while putting on airs of superiority. Platinum End, however, truly is pretentious. At the end, the emo kid wins, and when he becomes God, he kills himself, so everyone dies and the world ends because God is dead. That’s it. What I think happened was Tsugumi Ohba tried to cram multiple ideas into one story, but it just came out totally disjointed with the death game, sentai parody, and philosophical floundering all clashing together. At first it was probably supposed to be more action oriented, but after declining manga sales, they did a major pivot to try and make it more like Death Note, defaulting on all its old thriller scenarios, only in a way that felt totally contrived in absence of all the proper set-up. After that, both the author and the artist lost their steam, so Ohba just pontificated their half-baked philosophies while rushing toward the finale. Ohba must be some kind of edgy nihilist or something, because this isn't the first time they’ve written about how “nothing matters” and the world is rotten, and the ending directly contradicts the opening statement at the start of the manga. It isn’t depressing or bleak, because it doesn’t come across as being written by someone with actual depression or a particularly bleak outlook on life. It just feels empty and pointless. On second thought, even attributing this to nihilism is perhaps giving them too much credit, because while I guess you could say this was evident in parts of Death Note as well, “nihilism” isn't even a proper definition for this.
>God made humans and all life on Earth, but aliens made God, because they want to die.
Uhhh…I’m sorry, but what the fuck kind of philosophy is THAT supposed to be?

This show was honestly really interesting to watch and wonder how all these ideas were originally supposed to coalesce, but the final product is a total waste. I’m usually very forgiving to bad shows so long as they were trying to do something interesting—which this clearly was—but maybe just read the manga, because while a few scenes had effort put into them, the vast majority of this anime feels so fucking lifeless. A production that, seemingly, was only organized out of the producers’ desire to cash in on the name recognition which its once-famous and questionably relevant authors may or may not even deserve any longer.

Thank you for reading.

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Mar 24, 2022

danielsalt

Recommended

To put it plainly, Platinum End is… misunderstood.

There’s a lot to say about Platinum End – its concept and execution, its characters and their quirks and intricacies, its art and animation, its social commentary and outlooks – yet, Platinum End’s biggest flaws are Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata.

The two authors – story and art, respectively – of Platinum End. Chances are that nearly everyone that has read or watched Platinum End did so knowing, or perhaps solely for the reason that these two are the authors of Death Note. Platinum End will inevitably always live in the shadow of Death Note, considering its masterly writing ... and cultural impact - and it simply doesn’t have what it takes to break free from this label. This, however, is not to say that Platinum End should be seen as a successor to Death Note, which is what pushed so many people away from seeing Platinum End as what it is: its own story.

Back on track, Platinum End tells the story of Mirai Kakehashi, our MC, and eleven other god candidates - regular people that for one reason or the other, had given up on life and were on the verge of suicide, only to be rescued by their guardian angels, literally. Before you misread my tone, let me just say that I think the concept of Platinum End is brilliant: 12 people of different ages and contexts, all with their own unique struggles, dejections, and delusions, faced with a predicament of unprecedented severity, as only one of them is set to hold the very future of humanity in their own hands. Perhaps cliché, but brilliantly set up.

As the story goes on, we are presented to more characters and villains, each with different motives and goals, as rivalries and alliances begin to form. Characters like Mukaidou and Kanade give us compelling yet justified perspectives on a convoluted mess, while characters the viewer is more familiar with, like Mirai and Saki, show us a side of the coin which may not be as enthralling, but show a sense of humanity and composure that the average Shonen viewer might not be ready to embrace. Characters’ motivations are often simplistic and one-dimensional, yet they’re cleverly presented in a way that reminds us that humans are simple-minded beings. Nowadays, many shows will try too hard to find glamorous meaning behind characters’ actions, to a point where characters lose their authenticity. However, Platinum End succeeds in telling us an extravagant story, where the characters are nonetheless human.

The category where Platinum End truly fails to bring out its fullest potential, is the animation itself. It pains me to see Obata’s art in Death Note, animated by Madhouse, 15 years ago, look so alluring compared to whatever ‘Signal.MD’ (who?) put together for Platinum End in this day and age. Thanks to Obata, the art and characters in Platinum End look great… as long as they stand still. Not only is the animation subpar, but the studio somehow managed to use every tool in the box to make characters that are on the brink of their demise look even more lifeless than their own rotten souls.

Other aspects of the production of Platinum End are satisfactory enough not to hinder the viewer’s experience. The soundtracks and background art are sometimes somewhat dull, but they complement Obata’s art well enough, and the opening and ending sequences are surprisingly amusing, particularly the opening, with the second ending being an upgrade from the first. The occasional fight scenes are nothing to applaud, but they keep the tension high and are backed by adequate sound effects and soundtracks.

Overall, I think Platinum End deserves credit for giving the viewer a story that surprisingly manages to keep them on the edge of their seat, with well-timed cliffhangers and skillfully maintained tension throughout the length of the show’s run. Some aspects of its production weaken its impression but are backed by solid story writing and well-founded characters and contexts that keep the story fresh, and the viewer engaged.

Story: 9
Art: 6
Sound: 7
Character: 8
Enjoyment: 9
Overall: 8

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Mar 24, 2022

Mcsuper

Not Recommended

It seemed interesting, that’s the attitude I had towards Platinum End when I decided to watch this show. Now that’s it’s done, I’m probably better off to be honest. This had some promise early on, but quickly that sentiment left. Despite having a comparatively stronger second half, the ending does not make it worth it. Unfortunately, there isn’t much good to say about this show, so we’ll briefly go over it.

By the way, were you expecting something as good as Death Note? Ha ha.

My grading criteria: Story: /25 Art: /10 Music: /10 Characters: /20 Enjoyment /15 Thematic Execution /20

STORY: 2.5/25

The narrative started out pretty interestingly, ...

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Poll: Platinum End Episode 24 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Mar 24, 2022	269 replies	by CalemJ43ger »» May 27, 12:58 PM
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