Here’s where the rubber really meets the road for this adaptation.  While there were a few skeevy moments right from the start, it was with the introduction of Sokotani Hajime that I really started to feel something seriously “off” with the Platinum End manga.  While Ashirogi Muto were certainly capable of very sharp edges (look no further than Death Note – as indeed they clearly did with this series), this turn brought Platinum End to a very unpleasant place for me.  The whole thing played as very bitter and mean-spirited.  Almost as if the authors didn’t want to be doing it (as was also the case with the last arc of Death Note, though it manifested different there, with half-assed and disinterested writing).

When you have a truly distasteful character, can you place any of the blame on a seiyuu when they give a distasteful performance?  It’s the Zenitsu-Shimono question I suppose.  And while Maeno Tomoaki is certainly the better seiyuu in my book, his work here is annoying and frankly awful.  The character is too, though (like Zenitsu), so I suppose he’s just being faithful to what’s on the page.  This adaptation has done admirably at making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear so far, but that’s partly because the early portions of the manga have a bit of silk to them.  Presented with the likes of Sokotani there’s not a whole lot anyone can do to salvage the day, I don’t think.

And that’s the problem.  Unless the anime decides to totally reshape the story (and judging by this episode it isn’t) Platinum End doesn’t offer a lot going forward.  There are still peaks and valleys but things get broadly more perverse and ludicrous as it progresses.  Fortunately as terrible as Sokotani-Maeno is Midorikawa Hikaru is far better as his angel, Balta (a far better character).  And often the angels are more interesting than their candidates – Revel, with his neurotic perpetual labor pains, is certainly vastly more watchable than the eternal mope Saki for example.  Mukaido and Baret (who’s sort of a bore) are really the only major exception.

Given the course of the story, it was inevitable that Mukaidou’s wife and daughter were going to get caught in the crossfire.  There are some good moments to come with that thread, but I just wish Sokotani wasn’t involved because for me he’s close to a deal-breaker.  Not just because of how grating he is, but because his existence is so depressing in what it says about Platinum End as a whole.  And that sort of problem is going to become a regular occurrence going forward in any faithful adaptation, which is going to leave the anime with what may be an insurmountable obstacle to overcome.