Dead Mount Death Play has released episode 1, and it delivered an interesting premiere with a somewhat shocking twist. Studio GEEKTOYS is animating, and the animation was decent enough considering the amount of action, though I will focus on the story presuming you’ve already seen the episode.
The first part episode focuses on the fight between the legendary Calamity Crusher, Shagrua Edith Lugrid, and the necromancer Corpse God. We see the Corpse God brutally killing soldiers, but the hero manages to stand his ground and protect everyone. An important ability they both have is the Evil Eye, which allows them to see the souls of everyone they’ve killed. The Corpse God uses that ability to play with the souls and use them to fight for his sake, while Shagrua withstands their curse and still fights for humanity. A point is made that most people with Evil Eye choose to spend their time in churches.
Near the end of the fight, the Corpse God uses some spell unknown to Shagrua. He gets his brain pierced, and we then see a big explosion and don’t know how the fight concluded.
Enter Polka Shinoyama, a boy with a slit throat who woke up in a ditch with vague memories of the battle. He wonders around the modern world, seeing happy people with smart phones and having no idea where he is. This surprises a man who was monitoring him, and calls someone to cancel a retrieval. We could then tell that the murder was planned, and that they would be likely to want to finish the job.
The police stops him and Polka realizes he’s pulling information from the new body, and he manages to speak his name in Japanese. When a random girl comes to save him and takes him to another ditch, it was already shady enough to expect a ‘plot twist’ of her actually wanting to kill him. This is exactly what happens, though it also turns out she’s psychotic and has fun killing people. Her name is Misaki Sakimiya, and she proceeds to chase Polka while seemingly toying around.
However, Polka ends up being able to use the Evil Eye and has enough magic in a place where many were killed. It turns out he’s not the reincarnation of the hero Shagrua as we were slightly lead to believe, but rather the Corpse God. He ends up accidentally killing Misaki in a single move. We also see that his goal in the previous life was to attain peaceful life, though his methods ended up being way too brutal. It’s unclear just how much of his power he can use in the new world, though it’s likely he’ll be able to resurrect the girl and learn something about his situation.
The ending shows that Shagrua won the fight, but that he realized that the Corpse God’s soul vanished a bit too quickly. His party reassures him that he saved the world, but he still doubts the necromancer really perished. Shagrua is likely to somehow get some more screen time, and I’m curious to see whether he accepts the Corpse God’s death.
Dead Mount Death Play episode 1 is streaming on Crunchyroll, and you can also vote for it in our weekly Spring 2023 anime ranking polls.
Images via Crunchyroll
© Ryogo Narita, Shinta Fujimoto / Square Enix, “Dead Mount Death Play” Production Committee