This week Platinum End introduces us to a guy who was sad and miserable because he was ugly and poor and after becoming a god candidate used his abilities to make girls like him, realised that was hollow and pointless, so decided to have plastic surgery instead. After all of that instead of finding who he wanted to be he latched on to the public Metropoliman as a hero and naturally decided that he should become his servant.
Given the girl in the stadium who actually did follow Metropoliman’s instructions was still mercilessly shot down, not entirely sure what this guy thinks is going to happen to him in this situation but logic does not appear to really be a priority for Platinum End so let’s just roll with it.
Platinum End sets another trap for our heroes.
When every other god candidate we’ve met has been idiotic or insane it kind of makes it hard to not support Mirai. Then again, Mirai has no personality whatsoever and manages to make every scene he’s in a little bit duller so its also hard to really cheer for him.
Like when Saki, Mukaidou and the angels are enjoying their newly acquired base of operations, Mirai is standing outside staring at the garden and simply says it reminds him of a park he used to go to with his family. It could have been a touching reminiscence but instead it just feels like a line out of nowhere with no emotional attachment and ultimately it goes nowhere as the episode just moves on leaving me to wonder why they included it at all.
Of course Mirai isn’t the only issue in terms of displaying emotions. I’m not even going to criticise the extreme over-the-top facial expressions displayed by the villain of the week (or I hope very few episodes before he is killed) sword wielding god candidate. However I am going to call out the portrayal of Mukaidou’s anguish when he realised his family were in danger.
Instead of any normal human response, Platinum End instead portrays emotion the only way it really can. Change the colour scheme, zoom in super close and give us a shaky-cam effect. Because actually delivering a nuanced emotional reaction has been beyond this story from the beginning. Admittedly, in the first episode it looked more like they were really just trying to up the shock factor and just went too far however now it has become clear that none of these characters can actually just emote normally.
About the only points I’m giving to villain of the week guy are from the fact that he realised that shooting a girl with a red arrow and having her kiss him really wasn’t what he wanted. He recognised pretty fast he wanted girls to actually like him without being completely brainwashed and so rather than shooting them and changing their view he tried to change himself.
He did it in a ridiculous manner but points for at least not just building a harem of mindless slave girls.
Though Platinum End has clearly set the bar low if that is enough to score points.
Also, casual murder continues to be a thing with a girl who simply delivered a message to Metropoliman becoming a casualty this week. Shot down with absolutely zero remorse or even reflection.
For a moment I’d kind of appreciated that at least the new god candidate was smart enough not to approach Metropoliman himself but then seeing the classmate get taken out in an instant more or less made the moment pretty sour.
About the only impact this really had was the guy from last week who suspected he knew who Metropoliman was more or less has it confirmed.
Platinum End needs to use this murder for something more than casual shock. If it later becomes the news story that allows Mirai and Saki to figure out where Metropoliman is then maybe it will be worth it. I mean, girl dying in hall of school should make the news at least. However, if it just passes without serving any purpose other than establishing that Metropoliman is a heartless psycho who will kill anyone, then it really just feels unnecessary.
The full review for Platinum End Episodes 1 – 12 can be found here.
Images from: Platinum End. Dir. K Kise. Signal MD. 2021
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Karandi James
