WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Season 1 of Platinum End as well as brief discussion of suicide.
Platinum End, a philosophical thriller anime by the same creators behind Death Note and Bakuman, stars the pacifist hero Kakehashi Mirai and his quest to end a heavenly battle royale bloodlessly and appoint a new God who can give humanity hope. Along the way, Mirai has his own patron angel watching over him: the brutal but playful Nasse.
Throughout most of the story, Nasse is merely a supporting character who will explain the competition's rules or make personal comments, but she is far more than a prettier Ryuk. She is actually the oldest and most important angel from the heavens, and her role is highly symbolic in Platinum End.
The Hopeful Origins Of Nasse The Angel
Unlike most angels found in anime, Platinum End's Nasse actually has her origins revealed, and her backstory is surprisingly humble. Eons ago, a race of unknown beings who longed for an end to their immortality created a powerful being known as God, who ventured to the primordial Earth and found a microbe living deep in the ocean. This was the first form of life God had ever seen, and once that microbe fused with God's divine essence, it grew into the angel Nasse -- and she has been the same ever since.
Nasse went on to become a special-rank angel, meaning she can grant wings, red arrows and white arrows to any God candidate she appoints during a battle royale to choose a replacement God. She has seniority over all other angels and also seems to have served as their template. Nasse was an experimental novelty upon conception, and evidently God approved of this creation and made more angels loosely based on her, such as the more masculine Revel and the cautious Ogaro.
However, Nasse boasts more than simple seniority over the other angels in Heaven. She is also the most optimistic; since she was created from an early form of life on Earth rather than simple thin air, Nasse symbolizes rugged tenacity in the face of adversity. Life was struggling to take root on the young planet Earth back then, and Nasse's personality in Platinum End fits that mold.
She represents the strength of spirit necessary for life to go on, which makes her the opposite of the angel of destruction, Muni. Unlike Nasse, Muni seeks to destroy Heaven and everyone in it, meaning they are like light and dark, competing to see whose ideology will dictate the future of Heaven and the human race. While Muni desires to end all life, Nasse strives to preserve the human race as the champion of all life forms on Earth. As a God-touched microbe, she can do no less.
Nasse's Role In Platinum End's Main Story
Nasse was one of the first characters to appear in Platinum End, literally swooping in to save Mirai from meeting his untimely end in Episode 1. Like all other angels, she needed to select a human champion who had once wanted to end their own lives, but Nasse chose Mirai for other reasons as well. She approves of Mirai's goal of living a peaceful and happy life free of bloodshed, and he represents the persistence of hope in the face of hardship and adversity.
Even if Mirai sabotages himself with his own philosophy at times, he insists that a pacifistic, happiness-oriented lifestyle is the best one, and Nasse, the ultimate champion of life and hope, agrees. She needs a way to prove Muni's destructive desires wrong and can express her own view via her human champion, Mirai. After all, the angels cannot compete directly to choose the next God -- it's in the hands of human candidates like Mirai and Professor Yoneda.
At times, Nasse seemingly contradicts herself by making light of the possibility or reality of other people dying during the battle royale, as well as encouraging Mirai to use the most brutal tactics possible against foes such as Metropoliman. In her eyes, this ideological compromise is necessary so her human champion, Mirai, can win the fateful battle royale and guide humanity in a better direction. Nasse cannot allow Muni's champion Yoneda to win, or else Nasse will lose the age-old conflict between herself and the forces of darkness.
With the entire human race and her own optimistic philosophy on the line, Nasse will say or do whatever she must to ensure Yoneda and Muni's defeat -- even if it means sacrificing her rank to protect Mirai from harm during the final battle. What's a loss of rank compared to humanity's salvation? That's how Nasse operates, and if it weren't for Nakaumi's final act to destroy himself as God, Nasse could have claimed eternal victory.
For more information on the warning signs and prevention of suicide, click here. If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or considering suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you live outside the U.S., click here for a list of international hotlines.
