English Dub Review: Angels of Death “Swear you will be killed by me.”

A revolutionary shift.

Overview:

Zack and Rachel confront each other.

Our Take:

Rachel makes her choice and decides to confront Zack without Danny’s help. In the end, whatever Danny’s obsession is, it’s secondary to what Rachel wants and feels. She wants to fight Zack, and nobody will get in her way- her single-mindedness is a consistent trait of hers.

Zack is surprisingly, the most reasonable person in the entire cast. Zack, of all people. I never would have expected that, considering he’s a maniacal serial killer, but that’s how it turns out to be. This revelation is solidified with one thing: he doesn’t delude himself at all. Zack knows what he is. He’s a killer. He murders people because he enjoys it. He’s not very smart with puzzles and he doesn’t know how to read. He doesn’t sugarcoat this- and so he is fully aware of who he is and what he is. He can’t really be deceived by words and yes it’s because he isn’t exactly intelligent, but also because he is fiercely committed to what he is and not changing that. So someone like Rachel, who tricks themselves constantly, is something that Zack doesn’t appreciate. But at the same time, he likes Rachel, he made a promise to Rachel, and so he’s going to snap her out of it.

He succeeds. Rachel is finally forced to confront all the layers of mental gymnastics that she set up around herself, and breaks down. She finally admits that she’s been deluding herself all this time. She explains that her forcing Zack into the role of God isn’t just because of her religious beliefs, but because she wants someone else to make the choice for her. She wanted to give someone else the blame for her actions, to judge her, to decide whether her actions were good or bad. She gave that role to Zack solely because she wanted to shirk responsibility. Zack calls her out on it and she finally admits that she wants to live. She may still believe that her actions are worthy of punishment, but there’s a specific way that she wants to die, and she won’t allow any substitutes. However, that doesn’t change the fact that she is still fundamentally self-serving and selfish. It does mean that she’s managed to let Zack into her world, and so it had expanded, just a little. It’s a little strange to say that Rachel is growing as a person considering how backwards she is, but she is getting herself together bit by bit.