Angels of Death is a psychological horror anime. It features one season taking up 16 episodes. Given its psychological horror nature, it features many elements specific to that genre. These include tension, confusing plot, unclear symbolism, confusing themes, lots of gray area moral decisions, not even close to flawless protagonists, and leaving many things unanswered to the viewer for much of the show.
The two main protagonists are Rachel and Zack. Rachel’s the more important of the two and is the primary protagonist. She comes across as being very shy, soft-spoken, and calm in nature. Rachel is cool and calculating with decisions. She generally doesn’t let her emotions get the best of her when she decides something. Rachel is quite intelligent book wise. Additionally, she‘s also very depressed and has a confusing persona. Given this anime’s confusing and dark persona, she fits the needs of the show quite well. The anime does an excellent job developing her character and really exposing who she is as an individual. It doesn’t, however, give all the answers to her complicated personality and past right away. Instead, it slowly drops hints as to Rachel’s true nature, keeping the reader guessing. Overall, her character development is outstanding.
Zack on the other hand has a personality that’s the opposite of Rachel’s in many ways. He’s loud, obnoxious, impulsive, quick to turn to violence, unfriendly, unintelligent, and very chaotic. Zack relies on brute force instead of thinking things through. Unlike Rachel, he doesn’t have as much of a focused character development in the show. This is largely because his personality doesn’t change as much as Rachel’s does. Still, we do manage to slowly find out some aspects of Zack’s dark backstory, and this is done very well.
In addition, we also get several other major recurring characters. Mostly these characters take villainous roles in the anime and have a wide variety of differing personalities. This is a positive as we don’t get villains that all act the same way. Instead, we get nice variety in the villain department. The villains also get sizable character development as things go on. We really get to see their views, emotions, goals, and personalities on a deep level. Overall, the villains in the show are great.
As for the other elements of the plot, some of these parts are done well, but some could have been better. On a positive note, there’s plenty of tension in the anime. Additionally, much of the plot of the show is very unpredictable all the way to the end, keeping the viewer guessing throughout. The confusing symbolism, imagery, characters, and themes also keep the viewer guessing trying to figure things out. In fact, many of these elements never get clearly and fully explained during the show, leaving the viewer guessing even after the anime’s over.
The plot though wasn’t perfect though. In some cases, it felt a bit forced in some ways, like they tried to force plot elements that generally didn’t seem to make sense into the show. Additionally, some parts of the plot felt dragged out to a very strong degree. It definitely felt like they were trying to make some plot elements take up more time and space than they should have.
As for the emotions and scenery of the anime, these are fantastic and are probably the show’s strongest point. The anime is extremely emotional. The show’s feel is generally very dark and grim. This isn’t a happy cheery anime. There is occasional comic relief in the show, but it’s very rare and generally short lived. Instead, there’s lots of death, killing, and suffering in the anime to go around. The character emotions are on full display for much of the show. Sadness is the anime’s overarching emotion, though other emotions are evident as well. Additionally, the characters pass through many trials and these trials clearly take a toll on the characters’ wellbeing. You can really feel the emotions of the characters and definitely feel sympathy for them.
Given the characters in the show are far from flawless, it really shows how amazing this part is. It’s one thing to feel sorry for a righteous hero who is unfairly and unjustly treated, but this anime actually manages to make you feel sympathy for serial killers of all things.
The emotions also tie very heavily with the show’s scenery. The animations and imagery are outstanding and really strengthen the anime. Much of the background scenery is quite dark, dirty, and often features elements more suggestive of an insane asylum than a hospital. All of this adds to the dark feel of the show. Overall, I like the dark feel of the anime and the dreary background really helped to set the mood and complete it. Although the imagery is dark, that doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful, and beautiful it is. This beautiful scenery really ties in with the emotional feel of the anime.
There is one major part of the anime that is poor though: the horror. This show is called a psychological horror anime, but they seemed to forget that part of a psychological horror show is, well, horror. Plain and simple, this anime isn’t that scary. I went in thinking it would be horrifying and it really wasn’t. There just wasn’t much that made me scared in the show, if anything for that matter.
Overall, I give Angels of Death four out of five stars. It definitely has lots of positive elements and I’m glad I watched it. There are a few drawbacks with the plot and the lack of horror makes me question the genre this was labeled as. I honestly wonder if it should be considered psychological horror. Still, the beautiful scenery, vivid emotions, strong character development, unpredictability of the plot, and great tension make up for the drawbacks. If you like animes with a dark and grim nature and want an anime that really makes you think deeply trying to figure things out, this may be the anime for you.
Angels of Death Pros
Absolutely beautiful
Emotions are very vivid
Unpredictable to the end
Outstanding dark and edgy feel
Great tension
Excellent character development
Confusing elements are very thought provoking
Angels of Death Cons
Not horrifying despite being psychological horror
Some plot elements are too dragged out
References
Angels of Death. Funimation, 2018. Web.