Death Parade / First Impressions

「デス・ラリー」 (Desu Rarii)
“Death Rally”

My two favorite genres of television – crime drama and psychological thriller. But why does Death Parade torture me with a cliffhanger?! I just had a terrible feeling that this episode couldn’t possibly end in 20 minutes and I was right. However, as much as we all hate cliffhangers, it just adds to the depth of the show and raises my expectations for next week. Although I claim to love watching crime dramas and thrillers, I’m actually a huge baby when it comes to watching Criminal Minds or Dexter or even Castle. It terrifies me to even fathom that these types of crazy people actually exist out there and what’s worse is that, no one knows who they are. I love watching stories about how detectives solve these cases (whether real or not) because it shows the capabilities of the police force and I get a huge satisfying feeling that justice was served. This is why I can’t wait to see how Decim judges these two individuals who are supposedly both murderers. I normally hate stories with an unreliable narrators’ POV (Gone Girl is a great example of one), but it adds so much more to the mystery and thrill that I find myself instantly hooked.

These are the episodes which I love the most because they focus a bit on the actual reoccurring cast, but most of the plot still revolves around the two individuals that enter Quindecim. There’s Tatsumi (Fujiwara Keiji), a detective whose wife was murdered and he’s been obsessed with finding the perpetrator since. And there’s Shimada (Sakurai Takahiro) whose a young man whose sister was assaulted by a supposed stalker. Clearly both these men want revenge on the people that committed these crimes against their loved ones. Now the question is, which one is the murderer? Well it’s implied at the end that Nameless Girl says that they both are but the thing about Death Parade is, the information they share is always incomplete so you never know the full picture until the end. From the very few glimpses of flashbacks and the preview, I think Tatsumi is for sure a murderer at the very least. His shoes are bloody and he has more reason to seek revenge for his wife. He’s also a detective and it’s easier for him to get information in order to track down who killed his wife (although it looks like the case was never solved). Shimada doesn’t look like a killer and from his expression after opening the duffel bag, he looks surprised to see the bloody knife. Of course, the flashbacks also imply that he was indeed, holding a bloody knife while barfing into the toilet. My guess is that people who vomit after committing murder are likely first-time criminals because their body can’t handle all the blood and gore afterwards. Either that, or you’re criminally insane and like seeing that stuff… but I’m assuming here that neither Tatsumi nor Shimada are mentally ill. I’m also assuming that they’re both not serial killers because that adds a whole never level of complexity.

There’s not enough information to link the two of their cases together yet. All we know is that one couple is older and the other is younger but there’s no connection that leads me to believe that these two men even knew each other. I would like to see their cases coincide at one point or another but I’ll need more detail to deduce how these men met in the first place. I think it’d also be more interesting if these men actually murdered with the intent of killing and it wasn’t by accident or fluke because that just makes it harder for Decim to judge them. And we all know what a great story and discussion it is when there’s more ambiguity in the endings. You can say that if someone murders another person, the murderer just doesn’t deserve a second chance at life. Straight up, that person deserves to die too (death penalty) or get thrown in to the void… but I’d like to see what these men do once they realize they’re dead. Will they regret their actions? WIll Decim actually deem them worthy enough to get a second chance at life? That’s why I don’t want it to be a “Oh, I slipped on a banana and the knife I was holding just happened to stab my sister” type of situation. It’s these more intense situations that come up that you really get to see what humanity is like and the decisions they make under stress.

All in all, the episode did a great job sitting up the story and background for next week. I can’t wait to see how sh*t goes down and I have faith that Death Parade will do a good job at revealing the events piece by piece. What’s also interesting this week is seeing Nameless Girl also receive the memories of the two players. I thought that only Decim or the arbiters could receive this information from the Information Bureau but it turns out that Nameless Girl has the privilege of seeing their history now. It’s not always a blessing to judge someone based on their past though because even if it gives context, people can change and behave differently until different circumstances. This is what Decim has to find out for himself during these interactions between the players. I wonder if this means that Nameless Girl will interfere with Decim’s judgments after seeing these memories for herself because everyone can have different interpretations of someone’s past. Anyway, we’ll have to wait until next week to see what’s in store. I love these types of stories!

Bottom Line – @RCCherrie: A murder story and a cliffhanger on this week’s #DeathParade?! What are you doing to me?! I love me some crime drama.

 

Preview

29 Comments

  1. Show Spoiler ▼

    https://randomc.net/image/Death%20Parade/Death%20Parade%20-%2008%20-%20Large%2036.jpg
    After seeing this part, I have a different perspective on how Decim handles himself. After finding out both Tatsumi and Shimada were Show Spoiler ▼

    , he merely responded that his experience as a arbiter was a concern to judge them. I would have reacted like Black-Haired Woman.
    https://randomc.net/image/Death%20Parade/Death%20Parade%20-%2002%20-%20Large%2019.jpg
    https://randomc.net/image/Death%20Parade/Death%20Parade%20-%2004%20-%20Large%2036.jpg
    This just turned into a Decim Appreciation comment, lol. I love your stoic nature, Decim!

    On another note, what a cliffhanger ending! Thank you, Cherrie (^o^)b <=Thumbs-Up

    ichigo
    Reply

  3. I think the key part about this arc is knowing when did people who come to Arbiters die. So far judging from the very first episode of couple dying together and coming in together i would say Tatsumi and Shimada actually killed each other or something similar to it.

    Dwarg
    Reply

    2. I think those who enter at the same time didn’t necessarily die together in terms of geolocation, but most probably just in terms of time. Mayu and boy band member didn’t die in the same place at all, but they probably died at around the same time, yet somehow Mayu ended up being “late”… The other example is of the single mother and the boy who committed suicide…

      xClueless
      Reply

  5. Agh, I’m so torn! I understand in my head that revenge doesn’t bring anything back, but I still find myself rooting for those two. It’s amazing how much this series can make you feel for these flawed characters in the span of 20 minutes, whereas after 20 episodes I still can’t muster a shred of empathy for Inaho…

    ilion4o
    Reply

  7. We had people who died of natural death, suicide, accidents and being murdered – there will definitely come the time when we have murderers who possibly died in the process or after a murder. I think it helps that there is the “rule” of a memory reset so we can observe every character from a clean slate.

    I think the only way for this cliffhanger to escalate further if both their scenarios were interrelated (their loved ones being assaulted/murdered by the same person perhaps?). The reason Nona sent these two to Decim was obviously to see how he intends to deal with this (with or without Onna’s help).

    We had that lovebird pair who both eventually ended up in reincarnation, does it mean that we might possibly be seeing two individuals who will be judged to the void soon? Regardless of circumstances, murder is still a very grave sin. There still isn’t a very distinct line on what the arbiters are judging, with regards to the dead. This arc could serve to highlight whether if the judgement is based on their last deed before they died (eg. murder) or just the plain actions during the games they play.

    Azsurance
    Reply

  9. I had a feeling they would be be murderers (or at least, potentially murderer and victim or something like that) but how they revealed it was a nice touch. Considering the circumstances behind their crimes, it’s understandable why this was supposed to be handled by a “special” arbiter. Part of me wonders if we’re going to see a reprise of Decim/Onna’s debate on motivation versus act like in episode. If we’re judging by the act alone, both of them should automatically be voided but then there’d be no point to going through the judging process or for Nona to want to force Decim to “doubt” and judge from a more human perspective.

    Onna getting the memories is interesting. So far she’s been a sort of moral compass for Decim but this time she has the same memories to work off of that Decim does. If we see another Decim/Onna debate, this might really help differentiate between Arbiter Thinking versus Human Thinking. As a more out-there guess on Onna getting the memories this time, it might help foreshadow if Onna ends up sticking around at the end of the series or if Nona has plans for her. Nona wants an Arbiter with a different (i.e: human) perspective – if Onna can do the job (or at least keep up with Decim) with her humanity intact, that’d be a prime candidate right there. Especially since Nona comments back in episode 2 that Onna had a “long way to go”.

    As for the possibility of them being connected, I’ve seen a few theories on it but I think it’s too early to tell. I’ve seen some people suggest they’re both who they were looking for (i.e: Shimada kills Tatumi’s wife and Tatsumi strikes back) but it doesn’t make sense with the personalities from what we know and in the memory flash one of the attackers had a tattoo. If they are related, it wouldn’t surprise if its even something like the culprit for both cases was the same, one of them attacked the culprit first, then the second person killed the first person mistaking them for the culprit.

    Acerbus
    Reply

  10. What I found interesting was, when I heard Decim make inquiries about one of the guests being a killer, I dismissed Tatsumi as being a murderer because it would be an obvious way to go, him being a rough looking man versus the meeker Shimada. However, as the episode went on, I started getting the idea that Shimada would in actuality be innocent and that the episode was going to go for Tatsumi being the murderer. That both of them are murderers was a nice twist, and oddly one I didn’t see coming.

    I’m also glad that they didn’t wrap this story up in a single episode, as various other shows (such as Jigoku Shoujo) have attempted this kind of formula and not devote enough time to it, leaving the stories rushed, overly formulaic and unfulfilling. It’s also cool seeing that there’s some more structure to the games aside from having no rules aside from the ones given at the start, which makes sense – if anyone figures out mid-game that they’re dead, they could prolong the game indefinitely. Having pain speed up the process, be it by deliberately slowing it down or just slow memory recovery, is a pragmatic method, if a bit cruel. It also has some parallels with how Onna has only just started recovering memories after being shown a book from her past – nostalgia, the pain of memory, to speed the otherwise stagnant process up.

    Definitely looking forwards to the next episode.

    Taiko
    Reply

    1. I usually think it’s a good twist in a story when the police (or detective) ends up being the criminal and is able to hide his own trail or lead people down the wrong path. However, in this situation, I think it’s also cliché to assume that Tatsumi might have been the murderer… now that we know he is, I still feel very sympathetic towards his cause. From the few flashbacks, it looks like Tatsumi’s crime was due to passion and the love that he had for his wife. I don’t know if his wife DESERVED to die… maybe she did? We don’t know… but it looks like she was innocent and up until then, Tatsumi had a good relationship with her. So to Tatsumi, whoever killed her, deserved to die as well. Does someone seeking revenge deserve to go to the void? I don’t know… but I guess it shows that he can be violent.

      Cherrie
      Reply

  11. This episode was too intense, especially those last few seconds right at the end!! I don’t want to wait a week!!!

    Wow, what a ride. Both men seem so normal and kind at the beginning, and even their reasons for retribution seemed “righteous”. But that preview for the next episode where a girl was being threatened with a knife makes me worry that Shimada is suffering from a dissociative personality disorder (much like the character in Fight Club). Argh I really hope not!!! He seemed to really love his sister and wanted to protect her.

    xClueless
    Reply

  12. This episode was too intense, especially those last few seconds right at the end!! I don’t want to wait a week!!!

    Wow, what a ride. Both men seem so normal and kind at the beginning, and even their reasons for retribution seemed “righteous”. But that preview for the next episode where a girl was being threatened with a knife makes me worry that Shimada is suffering from a dissociative personality disorder (much like the character in Fight Club). Argh I really hope not!!! He seemed to really love his sister and wanted to protect her.

    PS Cherrie, I love crime drama and thrillers too!!!

    xClueless
    Reply

  13. On one hand, i agree with the part of both of them being sent to the void for killing others.
    BUT, and this is a big one, depending on why someone commits a mortal sin they might be able to get reborn again.
    The detective for example, he lost his wife to a murderer (or a robbery gone wrong) as far as we know and since he desperately tried to solve the case it wouldn’t be too far out there to guess that instead of placing the murderer in jail, he killed him. Now, here comes the fun thing with that case, yes i said fun part not interesting part since that comes a bit later. While he might think that he can control himself enough to jail the murderer, if he knew that he couldn’t get enough proof or the murderer was rich then jailing would do no good and killing the murderer would stop the murders. The interesting part would be that the detective could decide to take justice in his own hands with every criminal which in turn turned him into the monster he hated when going that path.

    The big brother might be an easier case, but still just as interesting. Disregarding the fact that they didn’t get send to an orphanage or family, the big brother has to protect his little sister and since he seems to try to make her life as easy as possible ( himself working as soon as possible while the sister gets to continue her study ) it is only logical that he would be pissed off to say the least when someone assaulted his sister. Now, here is the part i am not sure about and that is about the relation between brother and sister here. If their relation is of brother and sister, it might just be that he wanted to beat up the stalker ( the one who assaulted the sister ) and then threaten with the knife but killed him without intending. Now if this is the case, it is legally considered not murder since it would be labeled as an excusable accidental killing but morally it is still murder.
    If they however have a relationship more akin to lovers that would not only complicate the why for the murder but also the legal implications.

    Regardless, it feels like they both should reincarnate even though the first thought is usually that the one who kills should be sent to the void. So unless the information we will get next episode gives a different picture i am leaning towards both of hem getting reincarnated. And yes, i know that this post might be rather long to read ^^”

    damrod
    Reply

  14. Just putting this out there.

    This might seem like a crazy theory, and it probably IS a crazy theory but here goes: Shimada has a another personality – a person that beats and kills women. When Shimada first found his sister in bruises she seemed to be kinda scared of him? As if she didn’t want him to approach her. It could be that Shimada’s other self also killed the detective’s wife but Shimada himself is unaware of his crimes. I definitely think the two cases are connected but I wouldn’t mind if they weren’t – after all, the joy in this all will be watching Decim (and possibly Onna, now that she too has memories) make their judgment.

    Animeseer
    Reply

    1. While it is a nice theory since the split theory would still have a single soul. However, it has a rather simple and obvious weakness and that is being the part where she was afraid of her brother.
      If the sister got assaulted by females, the wounds would be different and a male would usually do more than just beat up a girl. If it was her husband, it would just be domestic violence but since she was still single as far as we know it was most likely more than just a physical assault.

      damrod
      Reply

    2. A lot of theories of people thinking that Shimada might have MPD – which the more I read, the more likely I think it is. However, that just might be me seeing what I want to see =X I don’t know enough about Shimada or his sister to say for sure that their relationship wasn’t that great… but I can imagine that Shimada might have been the one to beat up his sister. Maybe he saw her with another boy or doing something bad and he went a little overboard. Then when she did it again, he killed her. But that’s a HUGE extreme and I can’t imagine his sister ever wanting to go back to him after he beat her up =S Maybe she tried to run away from him and that’s when he killed her? Oh dear… that’s a sad thought =( Either way, I don’t think there’s a good reason for him to get reincarnated. Sounds like he’d be thrown into the void IF he does in fact have a crazy second personality.

      Cherrie
      Reply

    1. Yes, even if we understand their motivation behind this, they still killed someone out of Revenge

      And for the Detective, perhaps he Wife got killed as a Warning of the Person in he was so addicted working. Max Payne.. well a little

      i just wondering, why the Sister turned her face away from the Brother in the Hospital… Perhaps the 2 face 1 Soul theory is not that wrong. The Key scene for his guilty is the Sister. But perhaps when he found her, she just got afraid of all Man that touch her.. reasonable if you would be under her skin

      WorldwideDepp
      Reply

      1. and if you want a speculated story, for the Brother be involved in this chain…

        Someone assaulted her Sister. Perhaps it was himself when drunk, he assume that this Stalker done it, and so he go looking for him, he know where this Stalker life. But found only the Wife at Home.in the meantime the Detective went home and found her. In Rage he run out of home. And voila, Brother finds the Stalker. It is the Detective. He was observation his Sister because her Boyfriend is the criminal he is hunting…

        That flow out of my “fan Fiction” mind

        WorldwideDepp
        Reply

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