Very good to all lovers of hive anime, the truth was curious to see this anime because its creator is the same of the death note series and yes, we know very well that the previous work is a milestone that left a mark, so with that reference I wanted to see the first chapter of his series Platinum end.
I add: as soon as I started watching the series, I didn't stop watching the episodes one after another until I finished its 24 episodes in the same day.
There are things to highlight both positive and negative of this series, a negative aspect is that the soundtrack which is not at all epic, does not connect with the audience as did dead note, well (that church choir) ... and the other may be the scenery and character design almost everything is city buildings, but let's go in parts.
Context in short:
The main plot is that if a Japanese man is bored of his existence and tries to commit suicide from a building, an angel from heaven will save him and put him as a candidate for a game, where whoever wins will take the throne of god, as the current one is dying.
And yes, I know that we have already seen this script in other series like (mirai Niki) so it doesn't seem like a very original idea”.
But what is important in this series is the development and background of the events of the participants in the game (i.e. the plot).
In-depth context:
Our story places us with a Japanese boy named “Mirai Kakehashi”, as explained in the back, this boy jumped from the rooftop of his school to end his life, “the reason for his grief is the recent loss of his parents due to an accident, and well despite his uncles adopting him they ended up being a disgusting people who abused and physically mistreated him”.
The boy is saved by an angel and explains to him that he can now choose an ability.
the angel has the ability to give you 1 of these 3 things:
1° the angel wings, “are basically wings behind your back with an impressive flying ability, and I add that more than flying ‘seems to be the teleportation of Goku added to the Matrix effect of seeing everything in slow motion as the shots of firearms and physical actions of the attacker, like Neo’.
The ability to fly at maximum power gets you out of a shot of arrows (red and white) which are the other attack abilities of the participants, so nothing beats flight.
2° the red arrow (it is a kind of object that you throw from your arm with a geometric crystal shape), its function is that the human to whom you shoot it will fall in love with you... “basically a cupid's arrow”, although as this is from the author of death note a series of strange rules of each object start to appear, as rules of the notebook so to speak.
Red Arrow Rules:
The person you shot it at will fall madly in love with you and will follow your orders.
You only have a maximum of 14 red dates in your inventory.
The person you inserted the arrow will be in love with you for 33 days in a row, after that he/she will lose the love effect and will be normal again, your arrow will return to your inventory.
The person you have made fall in love with cannot be affected by another red arrow you throw at him/her, making him/her a unique human by love effect in the whole life with your red arrow.
The red arrow can be recovered before 33 days if the human dies, this arrow will return to your inventory.
The orders given to a human in love with you cannot go against his moral prejudice, that is to say if the person has no sins, he will not obey orders that go against his personality, things like (kill someone because you ordered him to), or if he thinks it is wrong to follow the order, he will not obey you, something like free will.
returning to the subject, the 3rd object of the angel is the white arrow:
This arrow is an instant death is 100% effective, nothing and no one is saved from this shot no matter what armor you wear, or things you have as physical protection of clothing, the arrow pierces through anything and the death of the person will be instant and painless. But the only thing that can escape it is the ability to fly with angel wings at maximum capacity.
explained the items to choose the protagonist Mirai says to his angel Why don't you give me the 3 things instead of one, so without further ado the protagonist's angel gives him the 3 items. I add that he said it as a random question, because technically this tournament and being god doesn't matter to him in the least and he doesn't even want to be part of it.
That said the other contestants are various Japanese who tried to commit suicide and each of the angels sponsored a human (as if it were a shinigami by death note, if we put it in comparative planes).
I add that each angel has its level or status, so some will only give wings, other red arrows, other angels will give both, and as you may have guessed very few angels will give the coveted white arrow.
The point of this tournament is that if you kill your opponent, you will absorb their items to your inventory, so the more people you kill in the tournament, the more skill rings will be added to your body giving you more skills that you didn't have before.
From this point I found it interesting, but at the same time on screen it looks super weird, I mean if you won more cupid arrows it would be logical to add another 14 red arrows to your arsenal of shooting, but the truth is that does not happen.
It also applies with the angel wings, I honestly thought that whoever accumulated more, would already have wings like a Digimon Angemon and they would grant him more super speed...but this doesn't happen either.
And you may wonder what is the point of accumulating ability rings if you don't boost what you already have by default?
and here is where it gets complicated for the plot, because technically the tangle that the series will give to its story is precisely because of this (in favor of the author).
I'll put it in context, if you have followers in love with you, you can make them your lackeys by giving them these items that you have to spare, they will fight for you doing your dirty work (not risking your skin or your place in the tournament), so basically you are creating minions like Inuyasha's Naraku and his chikon fragments.
Literally, that is.
The other thing is that if your minion is annihilated in battle, the opponent will not be able to claim those Aros, as they are returned to the source (which is the original person who enamored them with his red arrow). So in this context you cannot destroy your real opponent until you defeat him in an official duel, because all his items distributed to his minions will return to him (like chikon pearl fragments).
It sounds somewhat petty of the author to make this plot, but that is what really makes the plot unpredictable, also the characters will invent desperate methods to break the rules of the tournament and objects in their favor (without breaking the rules of course), so it is not that the villain has to win 100%.
The unpredictability of the series and the twisting of the rules gives it a lot of dynamism in the style of “L and Kira”, as it dominates the strategy over the brute force in direct combat.
Let's move on to different planes without giving spoilers of the series (the idea is that you enjoy it to the fullest).
I understand that the villain on duty will wear a solid armor as a power ranger (obviously to hide his identity and to protect himself from the fire shots...another function of the power ranger armor is to be a public image of goodness as a super hero), so it has its function to play Gojan the Great Sayaman to captivate the public and hide his true intentions.
But I also found it absurd that the other participants of the tournament were dressed from now on with a different color power ranger armor.
Obviously theirs is cosplay (no armor armor function), but I felt that the series went off the rails giving some visually absurd confrontations between power rangers...that if you flipped the TV channel and happened to come across this series, you would actually skip watching it because you associate it with generic power rangers series.
Well for me there is no argument to see so many robotic suits peeling, as it is out of tune with the series and its plot...I mean, I expected the other participants to go out with unique and original costumes, either weird costumes to hide their identity, or if they are not afraid of death and the tournament (because they are suicidal) they can go out without wearing a costume and that's it.
It should be said that there is a background to this, the villain dressed as a hero forces the other participants to be branded as villains of humanity, so I think that to try to win the support of the public they got by using more costumes of those power rangers...but it is still very rare to assimilate this on screen if you do not get hooked with the plot of the first episodes.
An interesting twist is that each angel has a little something in store to get their favorite to the throne, so the interaction extends not only to the plot of the human contestants, but also to the angels involved in the tournament.
In itself the first part of the series was very shocking to watch, as they played all the cards on the table to retain their audience with all the back and forth of the rules.
The second part of the series was a bit strange “since nobody wanted to fight to the death and they preferred to solve it by verbal debate” (who of the participants that still exist, choose by vote among them who will be the new god without having to keep killing each other).
Even so, it's not boring to watch because I didn't expect any other solution than the typical battle to the death until only one is left standing.
There are several heavy characters with their personal ideologies of what they would do with the position of god, others stubborn to deny its existence even though they are in the tournament participating for the position.
But despite the adrenaline rush of the fights, the plot doesn't end in a blind spot.
The truth I think that animating all those fights with 3D mechanical effects and costumes would be a bit expensive, so maybe that's why they decreased the action, it is not the first series to resort to this trick (Darling in the Franxx went through the same thing, high budget robots as evangelions and animal transformation of zoids...we are going to be a big brother reality locked in a house with teenagers and watch their love misadventures as a soap opera, “vote now who will win this reality”).
The series itself, despite the changes it has, entertains with its narrative, so it is not something to dismiss lightly (especially if it is from the creator of death note).
The series will not be above his previous work as a reference, but it will undoubtedly keep the viewer hooked to his seat devouring one chapter after another continuously.
P.S.: enjoy the series without summaries or spoilers, actually avoid this as the goal of this anime is to make you sit back and watch what happens.
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