Death Note Parade-1
I'm not a huge fan of this on a couple of levels, in fact I slightly dislike it. The first is that there's just way too much of a time restriction to try and tell a story like this in 20 minutes. Before I started watching the episode, I wanted it to be like a grim-dark version of Mushishi and while it sort of is, it's also not as well done. The thing with Mushishi is that I feel like it allocates its time much more effectively than what is on display here. Part of it is due to the fact that the bartender has to set the game up. We didn't even get to the actual game until almost 7 minutes into the episode. Now before someone says the games are unimportant, they serve as a pressure point for the characters. It forces the characters to reveal their personalities. The thing with Mushishi is that rarely is there a judgement being rendered, and here there is both a formal and informal judgement by the 'gods' and audience. There just isn't enough time and I feel like we're getting snapshots.
