6 THINGS ABOUT ‘DEATH PARADE’ YOU SHOULD KNOW

“The truth is, there are no lives that are nothing but pretty” – Nona

1. Jellyfish are a symbol of acceptance and faith (because they are taken wherever the current leads them). Maybe this is why jellyfish populate the tanks in Quindecim…

   

2. The names of the arbiters’ bars align with their Latin number. Quindecim is on the 15^th floor, Viginti is on the 20^th floor and Nona Ginta is on the 90^th. These numbers also correlate to the arbiters’ names as Decim works at Quindecim, Ginti works at Viginti and Nona lives at Nona Ginta

   

3. In episode 11, we get to briefly see a man who was a guest at Viginti and looked an awful lot like Light Yagami… What’s funny about this though is that in Death Parade the characters discuss how more people are dying a faster rate. Which means that if this dead man is Light Yagami, then he would have been contributing to the increased rate of death that the characters were talking about

   

4. The window Decim stands behind when greeting guests is thought to represent the belief of reincarnation. Reincarnation is known as samsara in many religions and is the belief that souls will continue to be born into different bodies until they reach enlightenment. For people who believe in samsara though, they believe that not only will their thoughts be judged, but also their actions. And this is essentially what arbiters do when they judge a person – they base their judgement upon a person’s actions and glimpses their memories

   

5. Clavis actually means ‘key.’ Which is interesting because he is the one who operates the elevator – taking everyone to where they need to go. He also is the one who holds the key to the secret floor…

   

6. Death Parade is actually based upon the OVA Death Billiards. And it’s been theorised that the woman who appears in episode 12 to play a ‘death game’ with Chiyuki is the Old Man (from Death Billiards)’s wife. She is shown to have a striking resemblance to his wife shown in the OVA, despite us never getting to see her face. And on her playing cards there is a picture of the Old Man. Death Billiards was also set before episode 12, meaning that this theory aligns with the timeline of both the OVA and the anime, as it was revealed in the OVA that the Old Man died before his wife