Death Billiards (2013) | Synopsis and Thoughts (With Spoilers)

Title: Death Billiards (デス・ビリヤード, Desu Biriyādo)

Type: short film/anime

Creator: Yuzuru Tachikawa

Animator: Shinichi Kurita

Studio: Madhouse

Language of Origin: Japanese

Version Reviewed: Japanese voice with English subtitles

Genre: mystery/psychological/thriller

Release Year: 2013

Recommended Age: mature

Number of Episodes: -

Length: ~25 minutes

Voice Actors: Jun Hasumi, Yuichi Nakamura, Tomoaki Maeno, Asami Seto

Main Characters: old man, young man, bartender, bartender's assistant

** SPOILERS! BEWARE!!! **

Synopsis:

A young man and an old man find themselves at a mysterious bar, both lacking the memories of how they got there. A male bartender welcomes them to Quindecim, and a female assistant offers drinks to the guests.

In this short anime, names are not the focus, instead, it is all about the game the guests are about to play.

Rules are explained to the guests, by the bartender:

Rule 1: The guests can't be told where they are.
Rule 2: The guests are about to play a game.
Rule 3: The game will be chosen by roulette.
Rule 4: The guests will risk their lives in this game.
Rule 5: The guests won't be allowed to leave until the game ends.

The young man panics at the thought of losing his life to a game. He frantically runs around the bar area, desperate for an escape, but finds no available exit. He asks the bartender what happens if he doesn't play the game, and the bartender's reply is, "I do not recommend that option."

Rule 6: The guests have one hour to decide if they want to play the game.

A room full of mannequins behind the bar is revealed to the guests, and they are both startled by this.

The old man presses the red button provided, to choose a game, and it lands on pool/eight-ball/deathball. Each ball has an image of a key body part for the guests/players, like eye, heart, liver, etc., and they will visually see the conditions of those organs as the pool game is played.

The pool game begins, and tension grows as the young man and old man become competitive. They both want to escape and get back to their lives. The idea that one of them may end up dying during or after the game becomes more real to them as their game continues.

The game nears its end, stress overcomes the young man, he attacks the old man with his pool stick, and the old man defends himself. They both fall against a jellyfish tank, breaking it, and the old man ends up falling to the floor. The young man thinks he's killed the old man, and doesn't understand the bartender's lack of shock for what has happened.

The young man is told the game is not over until the eight-ball is pocketed. He finishes the game, feeling like he has no other choice.

Surprisingly, the old man gets up from the floor when the game ends, and walks over to the young man, who is once again freaked out, this time because the old man is alive. While the old man was lying on the floor, he remembered his condition just before coming to Quindecim - a vegetative state. The young man also gets his memory back, and he remembers being stabbed by his girlfriend.

The bartender reveals he is there to judge both men, and that when two people die at the same time they come to Quindecim, where they will either go to heaven or hell, with few exceptions.

The young man asks which is which, wanting to know if he will go to hell, but the bartender says he cannot tell him. The young man rushes to attack the bartender for not answering, and his attack is immediately halted. Entwined by white, spiderweb-like ethereal strands, the young man is dragged away to the elevator to meet his fate.

The old man says something inaudible to the bartender, then the focus shifts back to the emotional young man who believes the entire game was predetermined. He thought that if he won the pool game he would go back to his life, not go to hell. The bartender explains that the young man and old man were equals when they came to Quindecim, but the young man disagrees with this. He believes that country of birth, time period, parents, location, etc., all factor into a life, making people unequal from the very beginning, and he believes that the bartender has been mocking him and lying to him the entire time. To live a life, which is complicated, only to end up being subjected to a game, seems completely unfair to the young man.

As the young man cries, the white, spiderweb-like ethereal strands loosen, he falls forward up against the body of the bartender, and the bartender lightly consoles him. The bartender admits he himself has no experience being alive, but he understands where the young man is coming from.

The young man and old man leave on the elevators, and it is not explicitly explained who went where (but the old man did get into an elevator with a devil mask above it).

The anime ends with the bartender's assistant wanting to know what the old man said to the bartender, and where the young man and old man went. The bartender doesn't answer either question, and so it ends with them greeting their next guests.

folium's thoughts:

This is a pretty, short watch. More depth is added to the plot and characters in the anime TV series, Death Parade, that followed.

The catchy theme song from the TV series is absent here. What little music is in Death Billiards, is mostly quiet, except for moments where the energy in scenes is amplified or a change is denoted.

The soft-glow, dream-like lighting and the fine-line approach of the artistic style serves the atmosphere, direction, and undertones of the story very well. There is a kind of looking-through-a-stained-glass-window coloration to everything, and that also suits the moralistic, subtly religious, mysterious theme.

I enjoy this anime, even with its brief runtime and morbid content (the mannequins are a creepy touch!). This is not an anime that I would watch regularly, but I would return to it at a later date. I really liked the idea that no one truly knows what is in another's thoughts and heart (unless they're a mind reader of course!). Morality is a slippery slope for anyone, without proper care and patience.

If you decide to watch this one, and you like it, I recommend you watch the Death Parade TV series, after you've watched Death Billiards. (A certain episode in the show may add a little something to a first watch of the movie, though.)