xXxiN tHe nAmE oF gOdxXx {talk-words on ANGELS OF DEATH, episode 1: kill me...please}

is drcakey an angel? or a sacrifice?

the second one. it's the second one.

 Angels of Death is an anime based on a horror game made in RPG Maker. The very concept of "RPG Maker horror" (which is pretty much its own genre at this point) is a bizarre one. The unreality of drawings makes horror in animation difficult enough already: now imagine trying to achieve the same effect with Super Nintendo sprites*.

*RPG Maker MV or VX Ace or whichever version Angels of Death was made in has much higher resolution than an SNES game. Do not @ me.

Oh, also RPG Maker's pathing system makes running from monsters a purgatorial endeavor - the line between "cannot possibly catch the player" and "inescapable" is so thin that scientists have only proven its existence by inference. Frankly, while some have had potential, I've yet to see any RPG Maker horror game that could possibly qualify as 'good'. Angels of Death is one of those few with potential (and production values!).

Yes, I have played Angels of Death. Or rather, I watched my friend play it, who had been forced to do so by my other friend. The three of us have a pretty well-defined uke/seme/Creepy-Child-Watching-Through-The-Window relationship. Thus I can examine how the anime translates the source material into a wildly different medium. My objective is not to say "here's how the anime is different from the game" but rather "here are how the anime and game each handle this particular sequence". Along with having seen the game, I've also skimmed a few pages of the manga, and also also watched a decent chunk of an archived stream of it by the utaite 96neko. This means I know exactly what every character should sound like: voiced by 96neko. Which now that I think about it is true of most anime...

So, I have played seen all of Angels of Death. It is not good. While it has cool, interesting, and/or unsettling moments seeded throughout, it is absolutely interminable, dragging on more and more as it progresses, encapsulated beautifully in its finale, in which the player progresses up a long, straight flight of stairs, mashing Enter to perform the same 5 second action to clear away rubble over and over again. I'm pretty sure the game is about a thousand hours long, but there aren't that many hours in a weekend so it must have been around 10. If AniChart is correct, the anime is an unusual 16 episodes, or about five hours, so with luck it will be forced to eliminate much of the cruft that bogs the game down.

Well, that's far too much introduction. Let's begin.

The anime begins with a shot of a blue moon. This image recurs frequently in the game, though I'd hesitate to say it's actually important or meaningful. It's a dramatic thing to cut to, Yasujiro Ozu Kamen Rider Hibiki Shaft style. Oddly, the anime actually uses two different images of the moon rather than one.

The one on the left more or less matches the one used in the game, but the anime employs the one on the
right more frequently.

Personally, I think the zoomed-in one is more evocative. Big moons are spOoOoOoOoOky, after all. Next is this Madoka-style white void, giving a first look at the protagonist, Rachel, as well as introducing the character Danny. It also repeatedly cuts to blotches of spreading blue liquid, obviously blood, only...blue. Angels of Death frequently contrasts red and blue to represent...uh, to represent... wait did Madoka have a white void I feel like there was one in the finale but I can't remember oh god I'm panicking---

"Congratulations."

I'll try not to do this often, for my own sake, but I went back to check exactly how the game started, because this felt off to me. It begins simply with a black screen, accompanied by an eerie chiming sound which is one of its signatures (incidentally, this chime frequently accompanies the blue moon). This immediately fades into the first room of the game.

Comparison of the original and HD remaster.

Once Rachel leaves, the hallway she enters is lined with neat rows of security cameras, which is very Dramatic and Artistic and other words ending in "-ic". As is already apparent, the anime has decided to go with a more stylized look than the game. Personally I think it adds little or nothing to the show, but it makes things a bit more fun, so since the show is (SPOILERS!!!!!) bad, it can arguably be called a plus.

Deeper. Go deeper.

Now, despite these additions the anime has made, it remains quite faithful to the source material. That's a mistake. Film and games are very different mediums. And film and SNES JRPGs are very, very different mediums. For instance, consider this message on the wall, written in almost-proper English.

I spent a good five minutes wondering how she's able to read this
before I remembered she isn't Japanese.

In a game, the player notices something on the wall and inspects it, thus creating a sense of discovery. The fact that it is found rather than presented (even though in this case the player essentially cannot miss it) makes them ponder its significance (consider Portal's "the cake is a lie"). But now all I can do is wonder why the Mysterious People who have Mysteriously put Rachel here mysteriously decided to scribble this very important message on the wall in mysterious permanent marker instead of something more conspicuous. They could have done something cool, like having it tapped out one letter at a time by a Dramatic Typewriter!

Pineapple on pizza, yes/no?

Oh. They did that.

There's also an impossible shot here, where the camera looks at Rachel through the writing on the wall, and thus through the wall itself:

Not since the last time I watched a Shaft anime has something so
cool been so dull.

This is actually not the first impossible shot in the episode. If you scroll back up to the game/anime side-by-side, you'll see the camera is positioned behind the window. But the sky behind that window is just a painting (the room is underground, after all), so there's no actual window to look through. Just a little curiosity.

Another example of over-devotion to the game comes here, when Rachel looks in a mirror:

"It's me, Chara."

I could've said "Despite everything, it's still you," but I didn't. That's just the kind of hard-hitting journalism you can expect from me. Here, Rachel looks in the mirror and comments on what she sees. In an RPG Maker game, the developer's ability to express a character's feelings is limited. They have very few tools, particular to display complex or ambiguous emotions. All they really have is words. Character narration. In film, a character's face and posture, and perhaps the camera's position, allow the audience to interpret their feelings. This line is unneeded, and it isn't the only time Rachel has an unnecessary copy-pasted-from-game line. It's particularly unfortunate because the first four minutes or so have the game with Rachel having no one to talk to but a typewriter. Not filling the empty spaces with chatter could have done a bit to counteract the anime's mood-killing pace.

There's also no reason for the mirror to be here at all. Something for the player to poke around at, I suppose.

Let's return to the typewriter. In the game, Rachel is questioned by a computer in order to create an ID card needed to proceed, which is here replaced by a typewriter. That's fine. Like a lot of obsolete devices, typewriters are kind of innately cool. However, this is also the anime's first major fumble when compared to the game.

 The computer asks Rachel several questions: "What is your name?" and "What is your age?", which are quite normal, followed by "Why are you here?". She answers that she was at the hospital, and then woke up here. It then asks her why she was at the hospital. When she hesitates, it begins repeating "Why?" over and over again. It beeps loudly with each repetition, the harsh sound making it feel like it's demanding she respond, or somehow accusing her of something. 96neko's flat-voiced "NAZE? NAZE? NAZE BYOUIN NI?", however, is the ideal experience, and no doubt what the creator originally intended.

The typewriter cannot do either of these things, and the anime creators make no attempt to help. It quietly taps out "Why?", and only does so twice rather than several times. What was violently demanding is reduced to slightly unsettling.

The wait as it types out "Why were you at the hospital?" *ding*
in real time is particularly embarrassing.

This is also the first example of cut content in the anime. It's minor at most, but the typewriter does not ask Rachel her age.

A not-dissimilar fumble happens again on Floor B6, after a prerecorded voice helpfully explains the story's main conceit. (Rachel is a horror game protagonist. The bad guys are bad guys.) The camera pans to focus with great importance on a newspaper.

Campaign To End Serial Killer Racial Discrimination "Very
Successful" Says Mayor.

This is a translation of a more detailed newspaper clipping from the game, condensed down to two words. We the audience know this story is about a bunch of slasher villains trying to murder a 13-year-old girl, we don't need a newspaper to tell us that the murderer on this floor murders people. Focusing on this like like it's something dramatic is senseless, bordering on a Simpsons gag.

This is also a good opportunity to mention that the music in this show is awful - some of the most rote I've ever heard. "Jaws theme, but MIDI" excitedly building to the Sunday paper is not a good look.

Okay, I've been very granular up to this point. Let me try to zoom out at least a bit for the rest of the episode. Floor B6 is a city block. In a game this is something to explore; here it's something to walk down. Rachel finds a bird. It's immediately slashed/crushed - hard to tell which - by the floor's angel (of death), Zack, in a moment so wildly telegraphed a pre-schooler could see it coming. She says "we'll get out together", and then they don't do that thing. It's ironic, you see. And sad. Are you sad? You should be sad.

With a life-cycle of only 25 seconds, the Ironic Death Bird has the shortest lifespan of any animal
known to science.

Yes, 25 seconds. I counted. This is the rhythm of the episode: something is copied from the game, boiled down to its most basic elements, then boiled a little more just to be safe, and then pasted into the anime.

Also, as an aside, all birb-related violence is kept firmly off screen, which makes the anime bizarrely tame. I'm not saying we needed to see a defenseless bird get stabbed with a giant scythe, but actually that's exactly what I'm saying. This is essentially a survival game anime, and a survival game without brutal death is like an anime without uncomfortable sexual elements. It's just wrong.

The following chase sequence continues to show just how rushed the anime is. Rachel immediately runs to the one safe hiding spot because she's played the game before and knows exactly where it is. Between this chase and the one later on, the only moment with the slightest bit of actual suspense is Zack stabbing the box Rachel is in, trying to flush her out. Even that is about half as long as it ought to be.

I think you should listen to him, Rachel. He seems nice.

After Zack wanders off, Rachel goes back to the dead birb and stitches it back together. All you see is her threading the, um...thread...through the eye of the needle, of course, severely limiting the impact of the moment.

The sewing needle. Both chalice and sword. Penetrating and being
penetrated. How Freudian.

This introduces one of the problems of Angels of Death, the game: it's not clear how creepy, or what kind of creepy, Rachel is supposed to be. The personalities of "Normal Girl", "Sewing Up The Nice Birdie", soon-to-arrive "Please Sir, Mighty You Be So Gracious As To End My Life?", and "Do You Swear To GOD?" (which will debut next episode), could exist in any combination of two or maybe even three, but together they're just a jumble.

Moving right along. There is a Video Game Key in the bird's stomach, because Angels of Death is a video game. Zack chases Rachel to the elevator. This consists of him running, her running, him running, her pressing the button for the elevator, him running, the elevator doors opening, him running, and the elevator doors closing. It is every bit as thrilling as it sounds, I assure you.

Let's see, we've been introduced to our protagonist, the Death Game has begun, and the entire first floor has been cleared. Wow, that's a lot to accomplish in just one episode. You can see why it's so ru---

Hang on, something's not right...

It hasn't even been 10 minutes?????

At the start of this piece I wondered if the shorter timeframe would force the creators to eliminate the filler. Now I'm wondering how they're going to make 16 episodes out of this.

Floor B5 introduces Dr. Danny, who already appeared at the start of the episode. Now he's here. Almost immediately he starts grinning evilly and saying mysterious evil things, thus negating the risk that any subtlety or tension might be wrung out of their interactions. If you thought the episode was rushing before, now it kicks into overdrive, dashing from place to place with wild abandon.

They include this wall of crystallized plot even though this isn't
a game and the player doesn't need to be fenced off from
game areas.

Throughout the whole episode there's little connective tissue binding scenes and locations together. It's not really apparent at the start of the episode, but by B5 it's absolutely striking. Not only are the scenes themselves rushed, but the spaces between them are smooshed as well.

An actual cut in the show. He didn't even get to finish his sentence.

We then proceed to the most disappointing moment in the entire episode...

I'll give you a moment to weep. What's that? You don't know what you're supposed to be weeping about? Well, in the translation of the game, the translator apparently drank an entire bottle of humorous prescription medication of your choice and decided that about two-thirds of the time, Danny shouldn't call eyes...'eyes'. No, instead he calls them 'peepers'. And he talks about eyes a lot.

Japanese has a full three words for 'eye' (me, hitomi, and manako). My guess would be that the translator decided that since Danny sometimes says me and sometimes says hitomi, the distinction should be preserved by using two different English words. But English only has one word for 'eye', so they dug up a slang term and didn't realize how utterly ridiculous it sounded. But the translator for the anime didn't play the game and thus didn't realize how vital, how utterly quintessential it is for Danny to say 'peepers'.

Rachel then has to go and find one of Danny's false eyes. In the game this involves a tedious bit where the player must go into Danny's Creepy Eye Room, take a glass eye, and bring it back to him, and then he says it's the wrong one. The anime cuts that mess but - rather like the bird scene - this reduces the sequence to an introduction and conclusion with no intervening material. He tells her to go get his glass eye, she goes to the aforementioned Creepy Eye Room, and he immediately appears behind her to get it himself. Sorry, he evilly appears behind her to get it himself...evilly.

Evil.

He puts the eye in and...okay what is this

Danny awakens his Sharingan.

As Danny straps her down onto his Evil Science Table, something he says causes part of her memory to return. (Oh yeah, she has plot-driven amnesia. I would've mentioned this sooner but I mean...I thought that was just assumed.) Remember the blue moon? Well now it's a RED MOON.

"You might remember me from my starring role in Final Fantasy IV."

Only, wait. Before the red moon, the anime shows a shot of the blue moon again. But something's not right. Let me put the two moons side by side and see if you can figure out what it is:

If you guessed "they're completely different"...you're absolutely right! They don't match at all. You can't do a match cut without matching!** How do you make a mistake like this?

**The show doesn't do an actual match cut. I know. Do not @ me.

This Mysterious Recollection that Rachel has Mysteriously Recollected is key to the rest of the game. But first, Danny has to die, courtesy of Zack.

"You won't be lonely *puts on sunglasses*...in hell."

Okay, I have some questions. Zack stabs Danny from behind, only Danny is already looking behind himself. But he somehow doesn't see Zack coming? Also, I'm confused about the layout here. Rachel's head is pointed toward the Creepy Eye Room, her feet toward the hallway. The Creepy Eye Room has one door, and even if it didn't (the anime may have added one), Zack came up the same elevator Rachel did. He couldn't come from that direction. The only place he could have come from is the hallway, in which case he should be on the opposite side of the room.

*deep breath* Should I do it? I think I should do it. I'm going to do it...

Leaving his assigned floor is against the rules, so Zack is now a sacrifice like Rachel, and their team-up is the basis of the rest of the story. Episode 2 will begin the process of changing "Be Sure to Cry, Scream, and Beg For Your Life!" Zack into Isaac Foster, Good Boy. If the thought of a gleeful murderer being rewritten into a wooby disturbs you, I can assure you there's no need. It's just dumb.

But before that can happen, we have to drop Angels of Death's most important-est line. The Nonspecific Things that Rachel has remembered have transformed her from Regular Gloomy all the way to Edgy Fanfic Gloomy, and she says her world-famous catchphrase...

Dun dun DUN!

Now. Would I recommend the anime Angels of Death? Well...sort of. It's not good by any stretch of the imagination, but I think it's kind of amusing. And it covers so much territory, you barely have time to get bored before it moves on to the next item on the agenda. If the story sounds like your kind of thing, it'll probably be fun to have a taste. But it won't be a show worth sticking with. Trust me, I'm an expert.

つづく