This is my second time watching the show (a few years after my first watch), and sadly it kinda shrunk on me. A lot. I still enjoyed it overall, but I can't help but notice a lot of issues and flaws here.
Death Parade follows Decim, a judge of humans after their death, and a woman who doesn't know her name (or anything really of her old life) who helps him judge, at least temporarily. The judgement takes place in a peculiar bar named Quindecim, as people play various games that push them to show their darker sides.
I have some good stuff to say on the show (after all, I do like it overall), so let's start with that.
The soundtrack is pretty cool, and the op and ending songs just stuck in my head quite hard. They're fun. I also like some episodes, there are a couple of interesting characters here and there amongst the people who arrive Quindecim. I guess that there are some intriguing aspects in the worldbuilding, I like it when other characters who are related to the afterlife are explored, even it's just a little bit. And, that's about it. Most episodes are at least mildly entertaining. The animation is decent most of the time, and that's about it I guess.
Now, Death Parade has tons of issues. If I had to put most of them under a general title, I'd say that a lot of things are just UNDER. Things are just not enough here, and it truly seems like at some aspects the writers just didn't try hard enough. The main characters are extremely underdeveloped, the worldbuilding feels thin and underwhelming, a lot of episodes have bad and corny dialogue at least at some points. Also, the series tries to communicate this whole philosophy about free will and feelings, god, sin and sentence. But though this idea might have worked here, it just seems quite dull in the series, and it's underexplored.
Beyond giving the main characters more depth, more genuine emotions that don't feel artificial when they interact with each other, I'd really like this series to dive deeper into the afterlife, into the philosophical parts. Cause it just doesn't do that well and thouroughly enough, which is quite disappointing, especially when taking into consideration how much I liked the show when first watching it a few years back.
Also, one last criticizm about the series - the games felt too same-y sometimes, in a way that made them rather dull in my eyes. Again, a concept that could have been developed in a much better way.
But, you know, despite all of its flaws, Death Parade is still not a bad series. I did enjoy it overall, and as said above, the psychology of some of the people who were judged was indeed quite interesting (though they won't remain for more than one episode most of the series, which is a bummer since they were actually more well developed than our main characters sometimes). Yet, this series is indeed flawed, and quite heavily so. I'm feeling a 6.4/10 on this one.
Death Parade follows Decim, a judge of humans after their death, and a woman who doesn't know her name (or anything really of her old life) who helps him judge, at least temporarily. The judgement takes place in a peculiar bar named Quindecim, as people play various games that push them to show their darker sides.
I have some good stuff to say on the show (after all, I do like it overall), so let's start with that.
The soundtrack is pretty cool, and the op and ending songs just stuck in my head quite hard. They're fun. I also like some episodes, there are a couple of interesting characters here and there amongst the people who arrive Quindecim. I guess that there are some intriguing aspects in the worldbuilding, I like it when other characters who are related to the afterlife are explored, even it's just a little bit. And, that's about it. Most episodes are at least mildly entertaining. The animation is decent most of the time, and that's about it I guess.
Now, Death Parade has tons of issues. If I had to put most of them under a general title, I'd say that a lot of things are just UNDER. Things are just not enough here, and it truly seems like at some aspects the writers just didn't try hard enough. The main characters are extremely underdeveloped, the worldbuilding feels thin and underwhelming, a lot of episodes have bad and corny dialogue at least at some points. Also, the series tries to communicate this whole philosophy about free will and feelings, god, sin and sentence. But though this idea might have worked here, it just seems quite dull in the series, and it's underexplored.
Beyond giving the main characters more depth, more genuine emotions that don't feel artificial when they interact with each other, I'd really like this series to dive deeper into the afterlife, into the philosophical parts. Cause it just doesn't do that well and thouroughly enough, which is quite disappointing, especially when taking into consideration how much I liked the show when first watching it a few years back.
Also, one last criticizm about the series - the games felt too same-y sometimes, in a way that made them rather dull in my eyes. Again, a concept that could have been developed in a much better way.
But, you know, despite all of its flaws, Death Parade is still not a bad series. I did enjoy it overall, and as said above, the psychology of some of the people who were judged was indeed quite interesting (though they won't remain for more than one episode most of the series, which is a bummer since they were actually more well developed than our main characters sometimes). Yet, this series is indeed flawed, and quite heavily so. I'm feeling a 6.4/10 on this one.