1. Setting the world view
There are not many animes based on the world after death. There is the healing "Angel Beats!", the anime movie "coco" (translated as "Dream Travel") released last year, and the Korean comic "Lighting Store". The world depicted in "Angel Beats!" is a campus where souls with unfulfilled wishes remain after death until they are reincarnated after fulfilling their wishes. This is also the setting direction chosen by general anime, such as "Reincarnation Realm", only Only an uncared soul can become a Buddha. The world of "coco" is huge and dreamy. All the dead gather here, and the fate of the soul is decided by the people in this world. Those who are remembered by the people in this world can live for a long time, which warmly expresses the "something" Man is dead, but he is alive". The setting of "Lighting Store" is the most interesting and true. It tells about the world of people who are on the verge of death. In such a world, there is a store, a store specializing in light bulbs. In this world, "people" are all There is something different from ordinary people, which is a metaphor for the fact that they are on the verge of death. Each "person" has their own light bulb, which is the right to survive. Some "people" choose to give up, and some "people" choose to live. Go down (I thought it was a horror theme at first, but I was moved to a mess at the end ( ▼-▼ )). Compared with the huge afterlife world depicted in the other three works, the world of "Death Parade" is a tower, a bar on one floor, a game for dozens of minutes, and then reincarnated or into nothingness, "Death Parade" The biggest difference lies in the existence of the adjudicator and the existence of the adjudication system.
2. The rigor of the work
The setting of "Death Parade" is indeed interesting, but a little thinking will reveal many problems.
The first controversial point is the standard of adjudication. Since it is necessary to judge, there must be a standard. Just like the judgment of guilt and innocence in the human world, it depends on the law. However, there is no clear statement from the beginning to the end of the animation, but it can be seen from Dekim's actions. To come out is to expose the dark side of people, and make judgments based on the number of dark sides. I personally think this criterion is very childish. The amount of dark side does not determine whether a person commits a crime, and a person’s dark side has a lot to do with the mood he has at that time. When the mood is at a low point, it is more likely to lead to negativity. energy. But who can be sure, when he crosses this hurdle, the choices he makes will still be the same as before. The trajectory of history is a spiral, isn't it true of life, how can the whole be determined only by the fragment? Dekim said that everyone is equal from the moment they come here, that is, everything in life has no meaning to participate in judgment, but in each story, what I recall is not just the one before my death. A memory, relying on the mood before death, to make the current decision. If everyone recalls good memories, how can the dark side be inspired? Moreover, can the dark side stimulated under extreme conditions represent what this person does on a daily basis?
In the anime, the adjudicator is set to use means to stimulate the dark side of human beings, which involves two issues, the means of adjudication and the existence of the adjudicator.
means of adjudication. Every story in "Death Parade" emphasizes the extreme state. Although the choice is made by people, a large part of it is fueled by the adjudicator. It is like a tempting crime. If the crime is committed Human beings should go to nothingness, so isn't the judge's behavior of inducing crime also the same crime? For example, in the episode of the detective and the staff, what is the difference between the adjudicator and the detective who watched his sister being violated? Isn't the punishment only after the fact of the crime?
presence of adjudicators. The setting of the adjudicator in "Death Parade" is a puppet, without emotion, but can no emotion mean absolute rationality and fairness? The answer is of course no. Dekim himself has a heart of "respecting those who strive to live", while Gindy has a prejudice against human beings, which greatly affects the fairness and rationality of the ruling. Moreover, what is the ability of a doll, which even humans cannot understand, to judge what humans have done, whether it is right or wrong?
Finally, the existence of the adjudication system. Why establish such a ruling system? In the anime, it is said to solve the problem of large population. But think about it, it is the soul that is reincarnated, and it is also the soul that falls into nothingness. If a soul corresponds to a body, shouldn’t the population be less and less? Since the population will increase, it means that there is a god who creates souls? If that's the case, let's just recreate the soul that has fallen into nothingness, and save energy. In this way, there is no difference between reincarnation and falling into nothingness, and the existence of this adjudication system is meaningless.
3. The narrative ability of the work
After watching the first few episodes, I found that the routines of each episode are the same, which can easily cause aesthetic fatigue to the audience. Moreover, the storytelling ability of each episode is still insufficient, the plot is not detailed enough, the emotional outburst of the guests is a little stiff, and the confrontation between the two guests is a little pale, perhaps the time for each story in each episode is too short to describe The fullness of each guest's character. In the end, I feel that the game's settings are a bit tasteless, and the games in several stories do not portray the sense of fear in the extreme state at all. Compared with "Gambling Apocalypse", which also exposes the sins of human nature under the theme of the game, the gameplay in "Death Parade" is not interesting enough, but after all, "Death Parade" only involves two characters, and the story has limited space. .
4. One sentence summary
"Death Parade" is a work that has an interesting but not rigorous setting, and can tell the story clearly.
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