Platinum End Episode 12: The Worst Episode Yet

Platinum End episode 12 is perhaps the worst episode the show has put out yet. That’s truly saying something, as there have been a few letdowns in its twelve-episode run. To think, this is only the beginning, as Platinum End will be having a second cour later on. Oh boy. Let’s talk about this week’s episode in a spoiler-filled discussion.

But what about her happiness?

Platinum End episode 12 kicks off with Mirai in a bit of a tricky situation. He has to either sacrifice himself or get the entire world killed by a virus. Of course, he manages to get out of the situation with ease, using his white arrow to kill the virus that threatens to kill everyone. Hooray, good for him.

However, right after this, Mirai is rendered useless yet again. He can’t bring himself to take action against the bioterrorist standing in front of him. Using the white arrow on her seems like the most logical decision to make here, and yet he hesitates because he “values life”.

In a previous episode recap, I’d already mentioned how infuriating Mirai’s views on life are. The problems from then rear their ugly heads again in this episode. Despite it being obvious that using the white arrow will save more lives than it takes, Mirai hesitates. His hesitation not only causes the bioterrorist to die, but also causes the death of one of his teammates. Hajime, in trying to protect Saki who is trying to protect Mirai, takes the goop injection. As he melts away, we say goodbye to a real one.

But yeah, the sequence is full of really dumb contrivances. Mirai’s entire being is dumb on its own. But Saki being fast enough to stand in front of Mirai as a human shield instead of doing anything about the projectiles coming toward him? That’s quite dumb as well. Really, there’s so much idiotic nonsense in the episodes of this show that I’ve become numb to it. It’s just the standard for Platinum End at this point.

Mirai is the worst character

What Platinum End episode 12 does really well is establish just how awful Mirai is as a protagonist. Viewers everywhere already knew that he was bad. But this episode fully emphasizes Mirai as one of the worst characters in anime all year.

It’s already been discussed how his inaction results in constant negative effects on him and his friends. But in this episode, he confronts Metropoliman with a “holier than thou” type speech. It just comes off as so lame. The show treats his declaration that killing Metropoliman would be “beneath him” as some sort of a triumph.

First of all, it means nothing coming from a character who does not kill anyone. So that statement carries no emotional impact. Secondly, it really shows how flawed Mirai’s logic is. In his speech, he openly states that as long as Metropoliman is alive, he will be a threat to Mirai and to everyone he loves. So the show highlights that Mirai knows this and continues to not take action.

And lastly, it adds a further layer to how pathetic and incompetent Mirai is. A part of his speech discusses his “happiness” and how he won’t kill because it will jeopardize it. This puts his entire philosophy into question. Because your happiness is at stake, you’ll let a madman kill a bunch of innocent people? Innocent people, whose lives you supposedly value? Apparently, the answer is yes. Because he wants to be happy.

How much worse will it get?

The truly amazing part about Platinum End is that it can get so much worse. There’s a whole 12 more episodes that this anime will have. In those coming 12 episodes, the rest of the Platinum End manga will be adapted. Given how the show is going, there’s so much room for more stupidity and idiocy to develop.

It’s teased that the coming episodes will feature one big fight between Mirai and Metropoliman. This has so much potential to be one of the dumbest fights of the show so far. Metropoliman, who started off as a pretty interesting character, has regressed to some evil speech spouting lunatic in recent episodes too. So to see him face off against the spineless protagonist known as Mirai will surely be a treat to viewers everywhere. After all, anyone still watching this show is surely only watching to see just how bad it can get moving forward.

Platinum End is streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation. After a short break, episode 13 will air on January 7th, 2022.
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