Most humans believe that there is a heaven or a hell waiting for them after they die, while some believe that there is nothing. Death Parade serves to tell us that both of these preconceived human notions are wrong, and that the only “afterlife” there could be is a choice between the soul of the departed being sent for reincarnation or, in the other case, sent into a void where they will fall endlessly while being forced to think about every wrong thing they have done.
Setting: QUINDECIM
Quindecim is a bar where two people who die at the same time arrive to be judged on whether they will be reincarnated or sent for eternal damnation. The bar is operated by the bartender Decim, a young white-haired man who just has something different about his eyes. He is an arbiter — someone whose job is to judge the pairs coming in and make a decision about their destinations.
The dead who arrive at Quindecim are not informed that they have passed, and when asked, they don’t remember how they arrived at the bar. The only information they are given is that they must play a game and that their lives would be at stake (despite them being long dead). They are also told that they won’t be allowed to leave the bar until they complete the game. The purpose of these games (which are picked for the pair through a roulette) is to push the visitors to their edge, and bring out their real selves through which the observing arbiter can make the call on where to send them. These games provide a fascinating insight into the way humans think and how far people who have everything (or nothing) to lose can take it when their lives are at stake.
Choices..Choices..Choices?
When the psychological tension within the players unravel, that is where the anime truly shines. For they are not just harmless games that determine who will go where, but they also include elements in them which use the player as a token. For example, one of the games involves throwing darts at a board which is marked with the other person’s organs alongside the conventional scoring system, and striking those organs inflicts real pain on the person.
Each game brings with it new stipulations and challenges, and each participant brings their own dilemmas. Since the people playing aren’t told that they are dead yet, they assume ending up as the winner would mean that they would be able to get back home to their families, and as such, sometimes take extreme, immoral measures to come out on top. The arbiter Decim occasionally makes the games difficult during a participant’s turn, to push them to their edge and see if they’d make a rash decision that’s not in the spirit of the game, which helps him make his decision. For example, one of the games involves a middle aged lady lashing out at a socially recluse teen after he nearly defeats her in a video game at the bar. Feeling that she’s at a risk of losing and never returning home, she abandons the game and starts beating him up, bringing out the worst side of her which the arbiter promptly uses to make his judgement. There are many such scenes in this show which truly take a plunge into the depths of how far human beings can fall when it comes to their lives, and is an excellent commentary on the human condition.
An Unclear Identity
Just like the mystery surrounding life after death, Death Parade is also shrouded with a similar uncertainty. The characters are never truly explored and the location and workings of the universe it’s set in is never explained. We don’t learn about the rules of the “world” in this anime except for the fact that it’s set in a bar which passes judgement onto souls. This works very well in favor of the show, as viewers never know what to expect. The creepy dolls lodged all around the bar, what are they? Who chose the catalog of the games? No one really knows. What’s inside all the other bars in this tall building which also hosts Quindecim? Who knows?
What it all adds up to is an emotional anime which makes us question what we would do if we were ever put in a situation like this. Everyone who walks into that bar have had a life, have people who love them back home, have people who will miss them when they don’t come home — in such a situation, if we were there, could we pull the trigger? Leaves you thinking long after the final episode, with more questions than you started with.
*Note: Images are sourced under the Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976. Allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research.
I do not own any of the screencaps.
More of my work —
