WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Platinum End Episode 22, "Wings of Determination," now streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.
Platinum End tells the tale of a heavenly battle royale where 13 hand-picked candidates must compete with divine arrows and wings to determine who the next God should be. Unlike Death Note's shinigami Ryuk and Rem, however, these angels have their own goals and strategies in this battle -- and they might even use their God candidates as unwitting puppets.
Nasse is a playful angel who simply wants Platinum End's protagonist Kakehashi Mirai, her human champion, to find true happiness, while Revel is highly protective of Hanakago Saki. By contrast, the withered angel Muni, who chose Professor Yoneda Gaki, is scheming something and might even have deicide on her mind -- and Yoneda is a part of it.
Muni's Plot Against A Passive God in Platinum End
Platinum End's 13 God candidates have used their divine gifts for their own purposes: to reshape the world according to their views, abuse the red arrows for profit, succeed God as the benevolent protector of humanity, or some combination thereof. Most candidates saw the angels as mere tools and divine patrons to achieve their personal goals, but in Yoneda's case, the angel Muni is using her human instead.
Yoneda recently started an intriguing debate with his fellow candidates, arguing that God is actually a parasitic "creature" that was formed from human emotions and continues feeding on them. The professor plans to slay this creature to rid humanity of its supposed delusions and fantasies about gods and miracles.
The antagonist also has a deterministic point of view in Episode 22 of Platinum End, claiming that humanity has already determined its own future and faith in God is a distracting illusion that must be cleared out of the way. Yoneda believes he can use Muni's wings and arrow gifts to slay the other candidates (and himself) to prevent anyone from succeeding God, but the reality is different. Yoneda thinks he's fulfilling the predictions of his academic research, only for an angel to make a fool of him. It's actually Muni who wants God dead more than anyone.
How Muni the Angel Aims To Slay A God
Despite being created by this passive God, Muni has been plotting its demise since the start. She is the angel of destruction after all, and will destroy anything or anyone who gets in her way -- though she can't do it alone. The God selection process will shape the future for humanity and the angels alike, which is why the angels all have such a vested interest in seeing their respective candidates succeed. Muni doesn't want anyone to replace God -- if no replacement is chosen, she believes, the being will wither and die after enough people stop believing in Him. God's lifespan has been on a countdown ever since Platinum End's selection process began, with a time limit of 999 days. The other angels don't readily accept this idea -- especially not the new angel of wisdom Revel -- but it may be true.
Muni cannot slay her creator directly so she chose Professor Yoneda, who is perfectly happy to destroy the God "creature" and ensure humanity advances into the future all on its own. With Muni guiding him, Yoneda will first kill Mirai, Saki and Yuri, then have himself and Shujin shoot each other with their white arrows and die at the exact same time, ending the battle royale without a winner.
No doubt Muni is delighted with this simple but effective plan. If Mirai doesn't play his cards exactly right as Platinum End continues, both Yoneda and Muni will get what they want -- though it's only the angel who will get the last laugh. Yoneda will die fulfilling his nihilistic views and Muni will live on, satisfied with her ultimate victory. The only way to stop this plot is to somehow capture or kill Yoneda and Shujin, or God will cease to be.
