Platinum End, the newest manga/anime series by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, shares remarkable narrative and philosophical elements with the creative duo's most famed work, Death Note. This includes the concept of ordinary humans having winged allies who grant them supernatural powers.
In some regards, the angels of Platinum End, such as Nasse, Revel and Baret, can be compared directly to Death Note's Shinigami -- but in many ways, the angels are more compelling and exciting as characters, despite not quite sharing the Shinigamis' philosophical depth about death and ethics.
Comparing Platinum End's Angels To Death Note's Shinigami
In broad strokes, Platinum End's angels such as Nasse and Revel can be compared to Shinigami like Ryuk and Rem, in that they are winged supernatural beings who follow humans around and lend them superhuman gifts. Angels can grant wings, red arrows and/or white arrows to their God candidate champions, while Shinigami can hand over cursed notebooks or just leave them laying around for a human to pick up. These beings rarely fight the villains or make history alone -- instead, they enable and guide their human champions, sometimes commenting on what is happening. Nasse gave Mirai Kakehashi many gifts, but how he uses them is up to him.
The angels and Shinigami also play up the theme of humanity's relationship to such concepts as abuse of power, destiny, higher powers, the nature of death and all kinds of moral, ethical and philosophical puzzles. These supernatural beings offer ordinary humans incredible gifts, which can either bring out the best or worst in those who wield them. Sometimes the humans might surprise themselves with what they begin to think or do in relation to these powers, or realize they actually don't want these powers after all -- especially the pacifistic Mirai. Platinum End and Death Note strike even in that sense, but in a vacuum, the angels are more compelling as characters and plot devices than the Shinigami.
The Active Hierarchy Of Platinum End's Angels
Death Note's philosophical and thematic depth derives from its human characters, such as Light Yagami's paradoxical descent into villainy or him and L being similar at heart despite their legal differences. The Shinigami are little more than enablers for all this, and the story makes it clear that they are apathetic and nihilistic about humanity and themselves, the exception being Rem's love for Misa. This keeps the Shinigami out of the way so the humans can take center stage and control the story, while the supernatural beings mostly lay around and complain idly in their own realm.
By contrast, Platinum End's angels are active agents, the intermediaries between the throne of God and humanity. A new God must be chosen soon, and the Angels all take a keen interest in who will win this battle royale and claim the heavenly throne. Angels actively choose their champions, encouraging them to fight hard and become their best selves so they can become a worthy god. They also have distinct and vivid personalities compared to Shinigami, such as Nasse's bloodthirsty but playful nature and Revel taking himself a bit too seriously. This active mindset, combined with distinct personalities, makes the angels better-rounded as characters.
It also helps that the angels can receive promotions or demotions in Heaven, giving them their own goals and stakes in the story, such as Revel's quest to gain knowledge and become a special-rank angel. Ryuk and Rem never did anything like that. The angels' gifts, such as the wings and arrows, likewise aren't so rigidly bound by rules as the notebooks are in Death Note. It's up to the humans to figure out their own use for them, such as when Metropoliman combined multiple arrows to extend his maximum range. The wings and arrows also serve more purposes than just killing in Platinum End. Humans can steal them, combine them or pass them around to create a more flexible and less predictable battle royale.
