REVIEW: ‘Platinum End,’ Episode 22 – “Wings of Determination”

Platinum End is a dark fantasy anime produced by Signal.MD. Seemingly at an impasse, Professor Yoneda invited Mirai’s group to another meeting. Despite their continued opposition to Yoneda’s point of view, Mirai’s group agreed. Now that they are there, Yoneda requests to speak to Mirai in private. But how will this request play into Yoneda’s plan to kill the God Candidates in Platinum End Episode 22?

Throughout this episode, Platinum End continues to wage its battle between crafting a compelling narrative and getting bogged down in endless philosophical semantics. While the differences between Marai and Yoneda are somewhat compelling, the show spends far too much time again with the two characters effectively going around in circles. What makes it even harder to wade through the discourse though is Yoneda himself.

Every line uttered by Yoneda in Platinum End Episode 22 has all the disinterest and flat tone of a college professor lecturing students for the 800th time when he doesn’t care about a class he is just required to teach. While this makes sense for how Yoneda has been presented in the series, it makes listening to him a chore. Many of the things he spouts as facts are completely unprovable, most noticeably his fixation with predestination. As he drones on and on, treating Mirai like he is an idiot simply because his worldview is different, I repeatedly found myself wanting the episode to just end already.

Despite this omnipresent struggle for the story, there are a couple of genuinely strong moments here. The continuing build-up of Mirai and Sakai’s relationship is handled wonderfully. Mirai’s unflinching acknowledgments of what he cares about most and what he wants the world to be are some of the most honest moments of character development I’ve seen. He doesn’t try to justify or pretty up his viewpoint so he seems superior or more correct than Yoneda. He acknowledges that what is important to him doesn’t have to be what’s important to anyone else. But whether it is or not, he will still fight for it.

The visuals during the debate that makes up the bulk of Platinum End Episode 22 do all they can to make the discourse as interesting as possible. I do love the way the camera presents the moments that make up this narrative. Angles, distance, and motion are all used to create a strong sense of drama and weight. While it still doesn’t manage to compensate for the above struggles the episode has, the problems would be even greater without its presence.

When all is said and done, Platinum End Episode 22 delivers another mixed bag of an episode. It does deliver some important narrative moments and its ending leaves the story on a great cliffhanger, but getting to these high points requires the viewer to wade through some extended low points.

Platinum End Episode 22 is streaming on Crunchyroll.