User Reviews

This anime will grab your full attention from the start and never let go. It begins with a couple arriving after their death in an unknown place where they are to be judged on whether they deserve to be reincarnated or sent to the void. In order to be fairly judged, they must play a game. It is during this game that their hidden darkness is brought out. At the end of the game the arbiter will make the decision on who will be reincarnated and who will be sent to the void.

The main intrigue in the show is that none of the people have clear memories and it's throughout the game that these memories are brought to light. The memories can make a person react very differently, as they realize how they've been hurt in life and how they feel in general about the life they lead.

The show does have it's issues. The existence of the arbiters is somewhat explored, but never fully explained. Why do these beings exist? They don't even know that themselves. There's also a god-like character who's purpose is never discovered.

These flaws don't stop this from being a great show however. I highly recommend this anime if you like psychological thrillers and want to delve into existentialism a bit.

I'm not joking. This anime is something special that will always stay with me. Death is not a simple matter that can be discussed. It's something more. So is life and its meaning. I cried for at least 2 episodes. No other anime, movie or TV show made me feel all those feelings. The dialogues are not void and meaningless. They center the target of the story, and everything is connected till the end. I am very happy that, in the anime, love is the only feeling that can change everything, and that can overcome even fear. I spent a delightful time watching it, and I'm very happy. I recommend you to do so! You'll thank me later.

After watching Death Billards, I just couldn't believe what I was getting into when I watched its sequel! I tell ya, this anime would give a wide range of emotions such as shock, sadness, anger, excitement, you damn name it lol! This anime is really one of the best dark ones I've ever bumped into and like it really gives you a rollercoaster of reality and how we question ourselves - what will be death like for us?

I just think this anime was brillant, I loved its originality, it's opening song, it's characters and its storyline.

Guys you gotta watch this series but watch Death Billards first because you'll be coming for a wild ride afterwards!

I went into Death Parade thinking it would be just another anime to watch, that it would have some good qualities but not great overall. After watching the first episode I was stunned at how good it was. The setting is wonderfully imaginative even when it isn't completely shown. Their seems to be a lot of heart put into this show and that this place is much more realistic. Each episode surprised me with the careful observation of humanity and human life. It expresses our desires, our beliefs, and who we value most. Death parade is more about humanity and what we did during our life. The show is very beautiful in a way in which human nature is defined. Please give this show a chance it is very well done.

P.S. Great opening

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DEATH PARADE is the first anime I have seen without anyone recommending it to me. And an anime that isn't too popular, and I believe it's a nice little show. I decided to check out this series not thinking it to be great. And it wasn't. But it was damn close!

Death Parade takes place at a bar amongst life and death called Quin Decim. Quin Decim is a place where the newly dead go, typically in pairs to take part in a random game under the supervision of the arbiter. The players must compete in a game that they believe will cost them their lives. Nonetheless, these people don't know they're dead. These games mentally push them to their max to reveal their true character, and by that they are judged with either having their soul reincarnated or forgotten in the void.

Something I do find great though is that the show revolves around different people that get introduced to the afterlife, so the protagonists change throughout. Characters here are created with care and these characters feel real, and care for them, even if you have only got to know them for about fifteen minutes. This is where director Yuzuru Tachikawa makes his money. Tachikawa also directed the seventh episode of Attack on Titan, which was the episode that showed the greatest character development. It showed characters being pushed to their absolute limits to do whatever necessary, exactly what Death Parade is about. Changing characters every episode can be seen as slightly repetitive as the show goes on. Tachikawa shows the moments leading up to their darkest moments and their death. Most of these characters are bad, and some truly horrible! Inside you're punching yourself because you shouldn't feel for some of these criminals. But as I have stated before, Tachikawa is a brilliant character director.

I am a sucker for great openings. Whenever I write a story I begin with a memorable beginning to get the viewer interested. This is what Death Note did very well and what Attack in Titan did extremely well. It is a huge plus to have a great beginning which is what Death Parade had. I won't explain the pilot as it is something that shouldn't be spoiled. All I will say, is that it is both a frightening and heart racing episode that is beautifully created.

The ending was decent. My individual reviews near the end get extremely high, in the nine-out-of-ten category. It is fascinating showing the little pieces hidden around the show to reveal the main character's back story. There was a brilliant reflecting scene in Momento Mori. A reflective scene is when the show kind of stops for a while and plays music, usually calming music, so you have time to think about the subject and ultimately appreciate the beauty of it. I love those scenes in theatre.

I do want to point out that, some of the characters just leave in the series and are in the end unnecessary. Some characters aren't explored and don't do anything. For example, Castra, the girl who designates the dead to whichever arbiter. Castra is given about four minutes of screen time in a roughly five hour series. They leave her character in, I believe, Story Teller, they don't come back to her and I found it very strange. Same as Nona and Oculus, the last you see of them is them having a verbal fight with each other. When the show ended I said, "goodbye then?" And also, throughout the series Oculus is rambling on about how everything is wrong about which person is the right arbiter. I thought in the last few episodes he was going to throw rampage, but he never did. So what was his point?

I haven't read if here will be a season two, it is a possibility, and it explains some of the unfinished characters. The two protagonists get a heap of screen time in the end and are rounded off nicely. The ending itself you could see building and it created an emotional ending, but I still believe they should have a little bit more of an exploration and farewell for the lesser (but still important) characters.

Death Parade keeps you interested for most of the series depending on how you look at it. If you want an anime analysing people and how crazy some of us get when out under certain circumstances, then go watch Attack on Titan, then watch this. Hehe. I'm probably making this show out to sound like its bad, but it isn't. I had a heap of fun with it. Death Parade is a nice little series you can watch in a day. If you don't worry about the little plot holes and the unnecessary characters you will be able to explore a great message about choices and the permanence of them.

Overall - B+

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I can count on one hand how many anime or manga series I've ever watched or tried to watch..this is one out of 3 anime's that I would absolutely recommend to anyone! Regardless your thoughts on manga or anime, this is a must-watch miniseries. This show will make you think a lot, filled with interesting symbols to keep you interested and has a beautiful message. Give it a try, you won't regret it!

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 isn't a bad show, just one that wasn't properly utilized to its full potential. It had the setup to be something thought-provoking and entertaining at the same time, but due to the humdrum cast and unexplored setting, it only passes as a nice popcorn time passer. Also, the opening, since no one seem to shut up about it. Despite my qualms, I fully recommend it to anyone since it's entertaining at the very least.

The start of the anime is well structured. It gives your imagination some room. The quality is consistent throughout. It emphasizes on human behavior and offers some interesting twists. Give it a chance. Considering its length you won't regret taking the time

This anime started off alright, and the first episode wasn't terrible. After that the show just became extremely boring. The main characters are very unlikeable and boring. They have monotone voices (in the dub) that will put you to sleep. Usually I binge and anime and finish in 1-3 days. This took me nearly 2 weeks to finish because I could not handle watching more than one excruciating episode per day. I kept watching because of how highly rated the last episodes are, but they are nothing but a let down. My reason for finding this show so boring might be because my hopes were set too high. I had just got done watching Monster, which is a masterpiece, and I wanted to watch another anime like it. I found this, which is garbage in comparison. This is the worst excuse I've seen for a psychological thriller.

First of all, the opening of this anime is everything. The idea of this anime is so freaking interesting and creative. Death parade is probably the darkest and deepest anime that I've ever seen and I love it. Has a beautiful ending although, I'd love it if Decim had feelings for the black haired girl cuz I sHIIIP THEEEM OOF.

I NEED A SEASON TWO PLS

This is a really good anime, I would rather not say too much about it as I don't want to give too much away. If you want to see a show that gets inside peoples heads and reveals their life decisions and shows how they came to be and the ruff times they went through you should watch this!

Rewatching it for the second time, still one of the best animes

This show was just amazing and sad and meaningful . i am really out of words for it i just loved it

I really appreciated this take on afterlife as I never had seen anything like this before. The older I get the rarer it happens. Death Parade presents a curious angle on human life and its end. Even though I'm not a big fan of the whole religion-smelling heaven-hell concept but it's not very focused on. But it poses curious questions. Are people pushed to the limit - still the same people? Is darkness in the soul always there, or is it survival instinct? The series is visually beautiful, slow paced and sounds very charming. It perfectly pins that haunting atmosphere of a weird bar playing jazz when its raining outside(hope one day to visit a Death Parade themed bar if there is one). All in all I really recommend watching this.

I was pleasantly surprised by this anime. It has a fresh premise, that stands out among the sea of done to death (pun intended) ideas. The story is interesting, surprising, has some cool twists, and tugs at your heart strings from time to time. And the animation quality is top notch, which is one of the factors that drew me into giving it a try in the first place. The Dub is pretty good as well. Madhouse did it again. Give it a try.

I'm not gonna rate low cuz it might be good for other people so never harms to take a look... Although the concept seemed interesting I just could't get past ep 5 which is another reason I didn't rate it lower cuz I actually don't know the ending but I just can't watch long enough to get to it because so far the show is pretty much a mix of random things and I can't figure out how it's supposed to make one feel...first episode you feel a bit of horror and later on it's romance and comedy..dunno but it just all felt out of place. The story felt pretty shallow and empty..yes true some shows has a simple story but are still good shows but at least they would be executed properly..but with this show the main theme and idea seem to fall off pretty fast..I'm sorry but comedy and cute romance are stupid when you put on the table such a serious idea..in real life people would never behave in such way under these conditions..so again only the very first episode game made sense to me...but that's just what I think so please check it out anyway.

Initially I was going to rate this lower, because I couldn't work out whether it was meant to be serious or not. It's too dark to be a comedy, yet not dark enough to be a horror. There's some action, but not enough to call it an action anime. So I was a but lost and frustrated trying to work out if I liked it, but it wraps up nicely and I think it's more of a thinking kind of anime than anything else...

Decim is the bartender in a bar called Quindecim. He is an Arbiter, a humanoid, emotionless puppet who judges human souls in the afterlife. Dead people arrive in his bar, not knowing they're dead (yet), and he provokes their memories of their life and death, then judges their souls either to reincarnation or to be cast into the void. One day, a girl is sent to help him, and she invokes feelings in him he has never experienced.

There's a whole host of characters, and at only twelve episodes, you don't get to know much about any of them because the show focuses on the new girl and Decim, but it's interesting enough and worth a look if you're into this kind of thing.

Terrible The plot of this show is not the best. It is quite messy and boring. The dialogue is mundane. The characters are really boring and unlikable over hip show

If you aren't a fan of psychological/philosophical anime, then this probably isn't the show for you. It also isn't what I'd call a 'fun' anime...but it deserves praise for what it is - a pretty fantastic psychological anime. It's not really the type of anime I binge watch, i needed to take time to savour each episode and by the time the ending had rolled around I was extremely impressed with how Death Parade handled its themes. It asks questions like: what makes us human? And deals with the purpose of emotions and memories...they are pretty straightforward yet incredibly complex themes that I felt it did a good job exploring. Overall, this isn't for those who don't want a slower yet thought-provoking anime, but if you like psychological anime this may be one you really enjoy.