Review: Death Parade “Alcohol Poison”

“Alcohol Poisoning,” the latest episode of Death Parade, expands the Quindecim even further. We go back to before Decim was the Arbiter of Quindecim, when the place was run by Quin (kind of appropriate, eh?). What I didn’t know, was how much Quin bitches. She was bitches when she was an arbiter, and now that she’s in information gathering. Now, there’s even doubt from Nona about Decim’s ability to judge the dead.

Moving along, Mayu is still around in Ginti’s bar, causing shit to go wrong at every turn. This dude just hates people. “Alcohol Poison” seems to be sort of a bridge episode. Nothing really happens, but we get all of the back story that should have been conveyed during the game episodes. The underlying theme of “Alcohol Poison” is this picture book named “Chawot.” It’s been in a few episodes, as the focus of a nightmare the Raven-Haired Woman had, and appeared in quite a few places this week.

I’m really digging how the exposition is being brought to us. Seeing as though so much of the normal episode is getting taken up by the game, and the people in the game, there has to be a way to expand the facility’s outlying story and history. Hell, we even got a bit of insight behind why Decim keeps the mannequins in the bar. That’s been bugging me for weeks!

At the end of the day, we got a bit of history. That’s all I can want. We know that Decim hasn’t really been an Arbiter long, according to whatever measurement of time these beings use. I say beings, because Ginti made it quite apparent that they aren’t human. I really dig how Death Parade is coming along. The writers found a way to make the show different, have the episodes flow differently, and make the story flow differently all while making sure that it all came together and worked. “Alcohol Poison” is a testament to that.