Angels of Death

Episode 4

Rachel and Zack narrowly managed to outsmart (or at least out-murder) Eddie Mason, but their exit elevator only takes them to yet another floor full of frights and obtuse puzzles. The theme this time is prison, and their jailer is the joyfully sadistic warden Cathy. She watches every one of their moves through a network of security cameras, she talks a lot about execution and punishment, and she has her own fake TV show through which she communicates with the protagonists. So basically she's sexy Monokuma.

If the crux of the last floor was firmly establishing Rachel and Zack's motley alliance, this floor strengthens that central relationship. Outwardly, things haven't changed much. Zack is still brash and loud, and Rachel is still small and creepy. There's some subtle but nice storyboarding in the pre-OP segment where the camera lingers on the back of Rachel's head and her hand, twitching as it moves to open the messenger bag she's been carrying all this time. We're deliberately not shown what her face looks like, and even when we do eventually see it, it's a sinister kind of blank that differs markedly from her default lack of expression. Angels of Death isn't ready to let itself get too serious yet though, and Zack immediately undercuts the tension with his obliviousness and apparently instinctual sense of comedic timing. Viewers looking for some answers about Rachel's past might be frustrated, but at this point I'm more interested in the dynamic between Zack and Rachel than any of the mysteries surrounding their current predicament. Horror and intrigue are important, but so are characters.

Zack and Rachel have grown closer, even if it's not immediately obvious. Probably the best indicator is how much Zack is willing to listen to Rachel now. This entire floor has its doors and hallways locked behind sturdy iron bars, as if to specifically deny Zack the pleasure of smashing through every obstacle again. Of course he still tries, and Rachel dryly admonishes him for not listening to her. Later in the episode, he parrot her words back to her when she asks him to try smashing another door, which seems to bewilder her. It's a very manzai kind of comedy routine, but it works for me because of the wide disparity between their personalities, and the fact that all this is happening in the context of an absurd death game. The Zack of a couple floors ago also definitely would have smashed that camera sooner than indulge Cathy's mugshot request, but Rachel manages to talk him down into just banging it hard enough to take a crappy out-of-focus picture. Zack is still foul-mouthed, loud, and has zero patience for puzzle-solving, so this growth is not a matter of Rachel taming him so much as it is the two of them growing comfortable leaning on each other's strengths.

Any good relationship is a two-way street, and Zack also manages to help Rachel throughout this episode. Rachel's natural inquisitiveness helps her deduce the various triggers and mechanisms that allow them to progress, but it also means she pays attention to everything and thus easily gets hung up on the words of her captors. Last floor, this almost led to her surrendering her life to Eddie; this floor, Zack doesn't take any chances and literally drags her through the environment before she can let Cathy's words about sin and punishment sink in and slow her down. Later, Zack also hands Rachel the sole gas mask without a second thought. Naturally, he frames it as self-preservation, since he needs her alive in order to escape this building, but it's pretty clear he's actually nicer than he lets on. My favorite part, however, is how Rachel solves the electric chair puzzle by smashing all of the mannequins, which is not only the most Zack solution but also the exact solution he proposed before he trapped himself. For better or worse, the two of them are rubbing off on each other.

Cathy, the latest in this line of homicidal floor masters, gets a memorable introduction this episode. Like her predecessors, she embodies a familiar character trope from horror and exploitation films, being the sadistic and sexy lady prison warden. Also like her predecessors, she's brought to life by impeccable voice casting, and this time it's the talented Mariya Ise who gets to execute her perfectly unhinged laugh. The episode itself has fun with her exaggerated personality, animating her in abstract purple and pink while coyly using low-angle shots and close-ups of her boot to titillate a very specific audience. In a less tonally consistent show, she'd be a distracting cliche, but she fits right in with Angels of Death's keen sense of camp horror.

This episode doesn't end so much as it runs out of time. Rachel is smack dab in the middle of solving a puzzle, so it's far from a graceful point of transition, but at least the episode as a whole was entertaining enough. We don't get as much of the weird otome vibe that had me cackling at the previous arc, but Rachel and Zack are still fun to watch together, and Cathy dominates during her screentime. Some messy plotting aside, we move through the episode at a good clip, and the set pieces for this floor's traps are the most striking yet, full of creepy mannequins and bloody handprints. Hands down the best moment in the entire episode happens while Zack is being electrocuted and we hear him scream off-camera through the entire eyecatch. Angels of Death can be wickedly funny when it wants to be, and its brand of macabre humor continues to make it stand out among other horror offerings.

Rating: B+

Angels of Death is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Steve is a longtime anime fan who can be found making bad posts about anime on his Twitter.