Angels of Death

SirixHiraeth Jan 26, 2019

9

First off, if you're looking for a story about two angsty characters who undergo the typical anime redemption arc, then this show is NOT FOR YOU. It is not a "warm fuzzy" story about how the villain becomes the good guy in the end and ta-dah la-la land. The characters in this show are WAY more complex than that. They have human feelings and human flaws, which means they also have very human problems that go a lot deeper than "my dad was distant when I was a kid, so now I'm emo."  The story revolves around two characters, Rachel Gardner and Zack, who traverse through one big escape the room game. I was a little sceptical at first about how they were going to fit an entire story into about 20 episodes of running through various floors of gigantic apartment suite and I thought we were going to have a lot of lagging and useless fillers.  Boy was I wrong. The show throws more curveballs into the desperate plans and escapes of Rachel and Zack than I thought they could fit into one building. The whole cast features nothing but psychos, so naturally it doesn't have that uber-heroic feel to the adventure, but the realism of what the characters went through in their lives and what they had to do to overcome it was really gut-wrenching and makes you cheer for the two protagonists all the way through.  However, that's not to say the two are perfect. In fact, I would defiitely call them anti-heroes in every sense of the word. But the focus was never really on the characters' pasts. The theme seemed to be what choices they made in the moment and the consequences that resulted because of it.  At first glance, it seems the show is about finding out who you really are, but I think it goes deeper than that. It's about discovering what it means to be human, and by human, I mean accepting the imperfections of human kind and what that means for you and those you care about. It's about accepting the flaws in our sinful race and moving on despite them. So while it was not a "warm fuzzy" story about redemption, it was a wonderful story about finding light in darkness and the release of acceptance. So I would say, if you want to feel like you've been punched in the gut all the way through, then you should definitely watch this show. It was killer (pun totally intended), it was heart-wrenching, and it had it's laughs. I thikn it deserves more than 3.5 stars as the overall score, and I'm happily putting it in my favorites list. 

kilrazan May 14, 2020

3

Hot dang this one is a mess. If you were to take a list of everything that's considered "Edgy", the author of this would take it as a guideline. Over-the-top anti-religious iconography, buckets of gore, and dead-inside characters whose only motives in life are kill or be killed. If you're into things being edgy for the sake of edginess, you can still do much better than this. Story: There's barely any story here. First off, it's incredibly obvious the story was originally written and intended for a Visual Novel experience, so the pacing is odd, there are scenes representing obvious minigame moments, and there are all kinds of awkward dialog moments that probably felt alright in written form, but in real-time dialog they're just upsettingly bad. More to the point, the entire story here revolves around a girl waking up in some kind of asylum, supposedly suffering from amnesia of some level. She encounters the other main 'protagonist', and after mere moments of knowing him she tells him she just wants to die and asks him to kill her. He responds that her dead-inside face isn't good enough for him and he won't kill her until she smiles. So the entire rest of the journey is the two of them travelling floor-by-floor through the asylum trying to reach the exit, where each floor has an equally edgy individual blocking their way via some deranged set of skills and desires. It's so farcical it's almost funny that the MC's entire motive is to get killed, and yet once scythe-boy tells her "I'll do it if you smile right", she does everything in her power to stay alive so *he* can be the one to kill her. Each successive floor-guardian takes longer and longer to get through that it becomes frustratingly slow-paced, and the worst part of this whole fiasco is the fact that the story isn't even finished with their 12 episode run. They dragged it out so long they had to do an extra 4-episode web-only special to wrap it up. Animation: Surprisingly decent. Nothing special to sum up here, really; it's just... fine. No complaints, no accolades. Sound: Easily the best part of the show, but it's not saying much. The songs are passable and unremarkable enough that I probably wouldn't even recognize the OST if I pulled it up on youtube - it's just really decent background noise to carry the show. The best parts of the sound are the voices. They got some really decent chops on their VAs, and it shows.  Characters: Just as poorly written as the show itself. The only reason I give this a higher score than the story category is that their visual designs are actually pretty good, and ultimately were the pull that made me want to watch in the first place. Other than that, there are no redeeming qualities here. Characters are entirely 1-dimensional, flat, unconvincing, and frequently betray their own stated motives. There is no character development to speak of either - just cardboard cutouts being moved along the story plot inexorably with no real purpose. Overall: A garbage show that I'm surprised was even made into an anime. I'd rather watch hours of insipid reality TV, beacuse at least those have scripted character growth. 3/10 would not ask Scythe-Boy to slice me again.

Symka Dec 11, 2018

5

      I'm writing this review after finishing the original 12 eps, and then the 4 additional ones of the web series.     This anime was exactly like every other anime I've seen that was based on a video game. Some parts of it were so drawn out, I never want to hear anyone say "Please kill me", or "promise" for a very long time. Around the part where they get to the church floor, I wanted so badly to drop this anime, but powered through due soley to having to finish a show once I start it.     The characters, who seem interesting enough at first, run around in the same circles over and over again until the anime ends. As does the plot. It's a seemingly never ending waltz between the eventual dullness of the characters, and the faults of the plot, dancing only the sound of the characters continually screaming over each other. Yeah. At some parts, it gets pretty rough. It's also a show that is torn between wanting to kill off all of it's characters, and having them come back, and back, and...back again. Towards the end, I was expecting it. Although, in the last few episodes there is a twist that spices things up just enough so that I can find myself starting to enjoy it again. You know, sort of.     But, I did enjoy the Japanese voice actor for Zack. It was gritty enough to fit his character very well.      Admitedly, it does get WAY better during the web series, so if you've finished the first 12 episodes, do yourself the kindness of watching the last 4. While still not perfect, I didn't feel like everyone was dragging their feet, nor did I feel like each episode took me 3 years to finish. Some parts of it I did find myself looking forward to.  For an anime where seemingly so much happened, it went by outrageously slowly.  tldr: Not a horrible anime, but one I won't be rewatching in the future.