WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Episode 3 of Platinum End, "Heart's Beloved," now streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.
Mirai Kakehashi's life changed when the cheerful but brutal angel Nesse saved his life and entered him into a battle royale to choose the next God from among thirteen human candidates, and Mirai has the power of angelic arrows and wings on his side. However, he soon learns that God candidates can have other weapons, too.
Mirai aims to live an ordinary and happy life, and he refuses to abuse his arrows and wings for crime or personal gain. By contrast, another God candidate makes routine use of them, and this candidate, Metropoliman, also harnesses the power of the media to get what he wants. His TV station of choice is Sakura TV, which should sound familiar to Death Note fans.
Death Note creators Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata clearly love to pay homage to their previous works in Bakuman and Platinum End, and the trend continues in the latter. The angels are already reminiscent of Shinigami such as Ryuk and Rem, and another Death Note tribute arrives in Episode 3 -- Sakura TV. There was a tabloid TV station by that name in Death Note run by a man named Hitoshi Demegawa, and the newest Platinum End episode features Sakura TV and a reporter named Mr. Demakawa -- a clear tribute. In the episode, Sakura TV hosts the armored hero Metropoliman's newest message, where Metropoliman invites the other eleven surviving God candidates to meet him for talks in the Jinbo baseball stadium.
So far, the media, including Sakura TV, has been Metropoliman's best weapon aside from his angelic gifts, and Metropoliman's original plan was to play up his heroic deeds on TV and goad the other candidates into fighting such an obvious rival and threat. His plan fails in Episode 3, however, with the other candidates fearing him too much for a violent confrontation. Metropoliman's patron angel agrees, so Metropoliman uses Sakura TV to host that meeting in Jinbo stadium. Whether or not the summit proceeds as planned, it's still impressive that Metropoliman can so easily use a TV station to spread his message clearly and efficiently like that.
The media plays a substantial role in the story of Platinum End with or without Metropoliman involved, making it an even broader parallel to the role the media played in Death Note before it. One God candidate, Tonma Rodriguez, made headlines when he used the red arrow to build his own harem, and he made headlines again when Metropoliman killed him. By watching the news, Mirai learned the names, actions and capabilities of his battle royale rivals, and even a cautious and humble character such as Mirai can use the media to study his rivals and predict their next moves. The angels know this too, with Nesse and Revel watching Metropoliman's summit invitation on TV and forming their own strategies.
It takes more than media coverage to become the next God, but as mortal human beings, Mirai, Saki and Metropoliman can use mundane as well as divine tools to get ahead, and the winner may be the one who combines these two worlds to maximum effect. That's how Light Yagami kept getting the edge on L, using both his supernatural notebook and the power of the media to keep L confused and plan his next moves. Now Mirai and Metropoliman can follow his example, with Sakura TV there to record it live.
