Anime Review: Platinum End review

Platinum End is a psychological, very dark, supernatural, and fantasy genre anime. It focuses on the topics of suicide and God candidates. Many themes such as sadness, despair, anger, guilt, and shame are featured in the anime. From my point of view, the series isn’t for the emotionally weak as it touches deeply on our spirituality and beliefs.

NB: If you are suffering from depression or you feel depressed or need support, please get in touch with the National Network of Depression Center

The anime isn’t necessarily good but isn’t as good as expected. Since the anime has the same duo behind the highly successful Death Note and some people behind Your Name and other anime classics, Platinum End was put on a high pedestal. The anime is the victim of the author’s success. With that said, you may want a deep and honest Platinum End review.

Related: Top Strongest Platinum Characters

Plot

The plot is quite simple and easy to understand. God is set to die and needs a successor before time. He selects a few humans who attempted to commit suicide and makes them into “God Candidates”. The God Candidates get special powers.

They are supposed to decide amongst them who has to replace God after he dies. It is not bad as a plot and is quite interesting but it could have been better developed. Several ideas are developed throughout the anime but the show sticks to neither.

Angels play an important role in the anime. It would have been interesting if there were a story told behind these creatures, a sort of “angels’ story”. Unfortunately, Platinum End focused more on the daily lives of the most pitiful humans in the world.

Characters

The main character, Mirai, is boring as he is always complaining and never ends up accomplishing great throughout the series. The supporting cast also wasn’t any good, with the main female character, Saki, just as dull and uninteresting as Mirai.

I guess the authors wanted us to see them as tragic characters but the way they were portrayed doesn’t permit viewers to attach to them. It’s true that their state of mind is not positive because depression doesn’t make people strong, it hurts them.

But despite their tragic natures, they could have been either very smart or powerful characters. For comparison’s sake, Naruto from the Naruto series or Eren of Attack on Titan are just as tragic but the way they were portrayed and written, kept us glued to their respective shows. One thing I could appreciate about the characters is their individual motives, philosophies, and dialogue, they were pretty well done. 

Related: All the Platinum End Angels and their Level Ranked

Animations and Soundtracks

The animation is pretty good but not the most spectacular. It falls off occasionally but during fights, it is not deceiving. The arrows look amazing, they really did symbolic stuff with the wings as the flying sequences in the anime are awesome.

The quality is very nice. The drawings are detailed and often quite beautiful. It’s almost like it doesn’t fit the show. The animation itself could have been better given the quality of the drawings, but the drawings themselves are exquisite.

High levels of detail don’t automatically mean better artwork, but in this case, the details were very noticeable and contributed to the visual aesthetic of this show very positively.

Talking about the soundtracks, they are great. I appreciated the opening theme but also the two endings. There were some amazing tunes in the show presented as OSTs. At least something positive on this Platinum End review. 

Verdict

Here are my final scores for Platinum End:

Plot – 6/10

Characters – 5/10

Animations – 8/10

Soundtracks – 8/10

Overall – 6/10

So Platinum End is an okay anime. There is some stuff to like, some stuff to close our eyes. It definitely doesn’t measure up to Death Note, it could have been much better. There’s a lot that’s great about the writing.; it is a big waste of potential and finally ends on nothing great. Nevertheless, you can give it a try. 

Despite it all, I thoroughly enjoyed this show for a few reasons. Once the negatives started to pop up in this show and once that ridiculous ending occurred, I lost all appetite for this show. Well, that concludes the Platinum End review. Dialogue is great, the world feels real, and the concept of the powers has unlimited possibilities

Related: Platinum End vs. Death Note