Last week, in addition to review episode 6 of Platinum End and criticising characters for being dumb enough to walk into yet another obvious trap, I also discussed my thoughts about this series as a whole so far and why perhaps it hadn’t landed so well with viewers. Episode 7, incidentally, is another good example of how these characters don’t exactly make this compelling viewing and the plot seems fairly forced to push forward even when there doesn’t seem much point to it.
Platinum End continues to make me ask ‘why’.
After the tower explosion at the end of the last episode, instead of discovering that Mukaidou had used his wings to evade the explosion, we find he survives through his wearing the blast suit. I guess that gives the suit some purpose but ultimately it still begs the question why not just fly away faster than the explosion?
Or why not fly away after the explosion before Metropoliman casually shows up?
Or why not fly away at any point after you more or less decided to ignore Metropoliman’s threat to cause another explosion?
See Platinum End, when you give your characters the ability to run away from pretty much any situation you then need to explain why they don’t. And Mirai and Mukaidou have little to gain from this show-down so once they attacked and Metropoliman didn’t set off another explosion, they could safely have just left the scene.
Incidentally, given Mukaidou uses a gun rather than a white or a red arrow during the battle, I suspect that Metropoliman will have figured out that he isn’t the one with a special angel. Otherwise, why waste your time with bullets that can both miss and won’t penetrate his suit when you could have used an arrow? You were directly behind the guy and had him blind-sided (hence why you managed to shoot him with a gun even if it wasn’t overly effective).
Anyway, Platinum End spends most of this episode on an aerial battle that is visually messy and not very impressive. Close ups of Mirai involve a lot of tears and mucus, kind of reminding me of Inuyashiki with how much fluid was running around at times. There’s also a lot of characters just kind of floating about while dramatic music plays.
Equally, we know Metropoliman is bad because he kills people, sets traps, and uses deceit to get what he wants. Mirai is clearly not bad (I won’t stretch the definition to good), because he doesn’t want people to die. Mukaidou is more cynical and will kill if necessary to minimise other deaths.
One thing I did gain from this episode of Platinum End was an actual appreciation of the relationship slowly forming between Nasse and Mirai. Nasse’s really been Mirai’s champion from the start but there’s a scene this week where it is almost like Mirai is seeing Nasse for the first time again. When Nasse first saved Mirai’s life he wasn’t exactly thrilled, but this week, as he looks up at Nasse from his huddled position on the floor of Saki’s room, its like he is realising all over again that Nasse is an angel.
More specifically, Nasse is his angel.
None of that changes the fact that Platinum End continues to have Mirai spout fairly naïve and seemingly empty statements about not killing. Even Metropoliman asks is he’s a child.
For someone who tried to commit suicide and was responsible, even if not intentionally, for his aunt’s death, his moral position here seems shaky and his absolute commitment to it seems to have seemingly come from nowhere, or at the least from a series of poorly explored flashbacks to his near-saintly parents’ wisdom. Certainly this could have been developed better by Platinum End but instead it seems like someone asked why he suddenly cared about death and so someone quickly wrote a flashback of his parents telling him not to.
And yes, Mirai has in his memories nearly raised his parents to sainthood. We’ve not seen one memory of them being anything less than calm, sweet, optimistic and espousing doctrine about finding happiness. In reality I’m sure his parents were actually a little more grounded but that’s the thing about childhood memories. Cook them enough and you’ll get the dish you want.
I will also mention that Saki continues to be a fairly meaningless character though there’s a small indication at the end of the episode that perhaps she’ll finally get some development soon. Let’s hope the next step after that is Platinum End actually using her to do something.
The full review for Platinum End Episodes 1 – 12 can be found here.
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Karandi James
