Freshly graduated from middle school, Mirai Kakehashi has only one wish: throwing himself off a roof to end his miserable life, having been treated as a slave for years by his foster family after his parents died in an accident. And jumping off a roof he does… but his guardian angel, a young-looking girl called Nasse, doesn't want to let him die and saves him just before he hits the ground. Nasse has one goal: making Kakehashi happy, no matter what.
After which she gives him two powers: the wings of "freedom" (the ability to fly at light-speed) and the arrow of "love" (the ability to make anyone love him for 33 days). Little does he know at first, he is only one of 13 humans, each chosen by an angel in a competition to choose the new God. Kakehashi soon realizes that these angel powers can be scary, and that not everyone is as scrupulous as he is in their use.
Platinum End is the latest collaboration of Obata Takeshi and Ohba Tsugumi, the writer/artist duo behind Death Note and Bakuman。, which was published in Monthly Jump Square from November 2015 to January 2021. An anime adaptation by Signal.MD with Studio Pierrot as part of the production committee, which will run for 24 episodes, began airing in October 2021. Platinum End's ending has gained far more notoriety than the manga has relevance.
Tropes related to the characters should only be listed on the character page.
Tropes featured:
- Amusement Park: One of the confrontations between Metropoliman and Kakehashi takes place in an abandoned one.
- Angelic Beauty: Most angels are beautiful to look at. Though there are some exceptions to this rule.
- Apocalypse How: Planetary-wide Species Extinction. When the new God finally decides to kill himself, Humanity suffers the blowback. One by one, from youngest to oldest, everybody on Earth disappears. Followed by everything else not long after.
- Armor Is Useless: Notably averted. At one point during their fight Metropoliman tried to stab Kakehashi only for his blade to be stopped by Kakehashi's suit.
- Artistic License – Biology: Kakehashi kills the virus in Fuyoko’s bio weapon with the white arrow. Viruses are nonliving, and therefore, cannot be killed. Although, it’s possible that the literally supernatural power of the arrow terminates all processes even remotely lifelike.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Nasse, at least, really doesn't grok human moral standards or thought processes. It's unclear if this is just her, or a common thing among angels.
- Bystander Syndrome: Enforced onto the angels chosen for the God Candidate trials. Only being able to help them by giving them the wings and arrows required for the challenge after saving them from death. With any direct interference punishable by either demotion or outright erasure. Nasse briefly ends up both demoted and partially destroyed when she saves Kakehashi from being killed by Yoneda.
- Cool Helmet: Metropoliman's helmet and suit are rather impressive, and Nanato wears one too for their first confrontation.
- Cool Mask: Nearly everyone wears one to hide their faces during confrontations.
- Creator Provincialism: Every God Candidate is from Japan, which is given a Hand Wave by how it has a high suicide rate.
- Cruel Twist Ending: The penultimate chapter and even the beginning pages of the last are at least somewhat nice, with the new God and angels watching over humanity and the surviving cast continuing on with their lives. The last chapter, however, has the new God observing human suffering, questioning his own existence if both immeasurable sorrow and inequality coexists alongside joy and the previous God did very little during their tenure, and kills Heaven, Humanity, and himself when he's under the belief that only taking himself out will destroy the heavens but not affect Earth.
- Death Seeker:
- Every god candidate needs to be this to be chosen by angels.
- Later it's revealed that humanity and god himself were created by an immortal being/beings who wished to find a way to kill itself(themselves), with implications that this is not the first time they had done it.
- Gut Feeling: Hajime's angel Balta is known as the angel of Intuition and he's quite good at deducing other people's intention's
- Dies Wide Open: Chiyo dies like this.
- Downer Ending: The new God fails to complete fusion with Shuji and ends their life. Everything dies, including the universe. However, beings of even higher power than the one said to be God remain, unable to die, but able to create another God to continue making life, though they give up on the lives that have vanished.
- Hero Ball: Nakaumi, under orders of Yoneda, threatens to kill Yumiki, Temari & Hanakago with a White Arrow, and it's quickly found out he's been hit with Yoneda's Red Arrow. It would seem that Nakaumi has the advantage, as none of the ladies have White Arrows. However, the series has made it clear that anyone with Angel Wings can outrun a White Arrow, which all three ladies have. Second, Red Arrows can deflect White Arrows, which all three ladies also have. Lastly, God Candidates are still susceptible to physical damage, and Nakaumi is a middle school child with no protective clothing. Between these three facts, a decision could have been made to escape, or to engage Nakaumi in combat, either of which could have worked. However, instead the three ladies allowed themselves to be captured, setting up the final confrontation between Yoneda and Kakehashi.
- High-Class Glass: Baret, Nanato's angel has a monocle seemingly made of light and it fits her moniker of angel of knowledge.
- Ignored Expert: Subverted, Professor Yoneda is widely respected, even moreso than Kakehashi and other's arguing in favor of God. Double subverted in that he is not just paid attention to, but also deadly wrong, humanity can't exist without God.
- Ludicrous Gibs: How Metropoliman meets his end at the hands of Mukaido.
- Man Behind the Man: God is revealed to have been created by a bunch of seemingly immortal beings in the end. When Shuji-God kills himself, they lament that his death has prevented their own deaths that they long for and simply reset everything by planting a new God Seed and trying again.
- Mad Doctor: Fuyoko combines this trope with Hospital Hottie.
- Military School: While never directly stated, it seems like Kanade’s school is one of these. The students wear military-esque uniforms, and one scene features girls doing archery in one of the school courtyards.
- Nipple and Dimed: The women who have sex with Rodriguez have their nipples exposed.
- Only Six Faces: Most of the girls have the same face.
- Our Angels Are Different: Physically, they mostly fit the traditional appearance of an angel (young-looking and slender, with wings and a halo, bathed in light), but as said above, Nasse at least doesn't seem to see anything wrong with stealing or even killing people if it's out of retribution.
- Power Levels: The angel ranking system is a mild form of this.
- Production Throwback: To Death Note, we have Sakura TV and a reporter with the name "Demakawa", which sounds similar to Demegawa.
- Psycho for Hire: Ryuji and Fuyoko are a pair of psychos who were granted wings in order to kill the other God candidates.
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: Well, God committed suicide and took pretty much all life with him. But the resulting destruction did give birth to a new universe, one that has the opportunity to be better than the previous one.
- Rings of Activation: Whenever God candidates summon their Arrows to their hands, rings of light manifest around their hands as the Arrows appear.
- Shout-Out:
- At one point Susumu compares Kanade to Tony Stark.
- A shot of a phone being hacked in the anime has direct references
to PlayStation Portable homebrew firmware hacking.
- Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe: Not only are all of the God Candidates from Japan, at least four of them live in Tokyo.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: The being(s) that created God and humanity are immortal aliens bored with eternity and seeking to die. They created God and humanity in the hope they'd find a way to kill them.
