Angels of Death (video game)

Rachel Gardner (レイチェル・ガードナー, Reicheru Gādonā) / Ray (レイ, Rei)

Voiced by: Haruka Chisuga[11] (Japanese); Meg McClain[12] (English)

The 13-year-old female protagonist of the story. After witnessing a murder, she is taken to a hospital for counselling, only to wake up on Floor B7 with no memories from her past. She later recovers them after a scuffle with Danny, the doctor responsible for counselling her, and reverts to an apathetic character. Believing death will be her salvation, she requests Zack's help to kill her in exchange that he can use her intelligence to help him escape the building. Under her emotionless and calm exterior though, Ray harbours a morbid interest in stitching up animals or people she deems imperfect and a twisted perception and blind faith in God.

Her interests stemmed from her parents, who hated each other. Ray then witnessed her father kill her mother, and in terror, killed her own father with a gun, before deciding to stitch up their corpses to turn them into her "perfect" parents. Taken to the hospital, Danny develops an interest in her blank blue eyes and uses his authority to make her the floor master of B1. Ray's floor is modelled after her house and is filled with many deadly traps with the exception of her bedroom and living room where the stitched corpse of her parents is placed.

Isaac Foster (アイザック・フォスター, Aizakku Fosutā) / Zack (ザック, Zakku)

Voiced by: Nobuhiko Okamoto (Adult),[11] Ryo Nishitani (Child) (Japanese); Dallas Reid[12] (English)

The 20-year-old male protagonist of the story. Once an infamous serial killer, he is now the floor master of B6. He is noticeable for his body being completed covered in bandages and wields a grim-reaper-like scythe. Bloodthirsty, Zack delights in destroying the happiness of his victims and filling them with despair. As Ray showed a severe lack in emotions, he found no interest in killing her and let her stay alive for him to use her intelligence to escape the building, in return that he will kill her once they escape.

Zack grew up only knowing how to kill due to being treated abusively as a child. Abandoned by his parents, his stepfather tried to burn him and his mother to death, wounding his body with burns that he covered up with bandages and causing him to develop an intense fear of fire. His mother then left him in the care of an illegal orphanage that trafficked children, where he faced subsequently more abusive treatment, becoming a tool of labour. Upon watching a slasher horror movie left by the head of the orphanage, Zack was inspired to go on a murder spree, with the heads of the orphanage being his first victims. He is subsequently found by Gray and became a floor master. His floor is modelled after a deserted, dirty network of alleyways.

Daniel Dickens (ダニエル・ディケンズ, Danieru Dikenzu) / Danny (ダニー, Danī)

Voiced by: Takahiro Sakurai[13] (Japanese); Derick Snow[12] (English)

A counsellor who has an insane obsession with eyes, especially Ray's blank, blue ones. Due to being born without a right eye, he was bullied for most of his childhood. His missing eye also caused fights between his parents until they divorced and his mother committed suicide. From there, Danny began to find blank, dead eyes like his mother's beautiful, becoming a counsellor to search for eyes that could satisfy him.

Prior to the series, he was a counsellor for prisoners and met Gray, who offered him the chance to become the floor master of B5. Believing it could satisfy him, Danny took on the offer and subsequently used his authority to bring Ray into Gray's experiment and make her the floor master of B1, hoping that he could live close to her eyes. He is ultimately killed by Gray in his pursuit for Ray. In the prequel manga Episode.0, he becomes the main character.

Edward Mason (エドワード・メイソン, Edowādo Meison) / Eddie (エディ, Edi)

Voiced by: Natsumi Fujiwara[13] (Japanese); Brittney Karbowski[14] (English)

A young boy characterised by his pumpkin mask and love for making graves. His floor is modelled after a graveyard and made completely out of stone. Born a child of grave-makers, Eddie was proud and skilled at his job, but became discontent with the fact that he was never given anything that could truly belong to him, for most of his things were hand-me-downs passed from one child to the next. He then began to kill his pets and bury them in his own graves, feeling that things only truly belonged to him once they were put in graves dug by him.

When he was invited by Grey and became the floor master of B4, he began building graves for those killed by the other floor masters, hardly ever killing anyone himself. However, he took it upon himself to kill Ray and bury her in a beautiful grave after falling in love with her at first sight. Due to constantly building graves in the dark, Eddie got used to seeing in a dark environment, which gives him the advantage when he kills. He is killed by Zack when Ray turns on the lights, and buried in the grave originally meant for her. In the game prequel Episode.Eddie, which focus more on his past before becoming floor master, he becomes the main character.

Catherine Ward (キャサリン・ワード, Kyasarin Wādo) / Cathy (キャシー, Kyashī)

Voiced by: Mariya Ise[13] (Japanese); Jamie Marchi[15] (English)

The floor master of B3, who is known widely as the "Condemner" due to her past as a former jail guard, with Danny as her prisoners' counsellor. A sadomasochistic woman, Cathy delights in uncovering her criminals' crimes and delivering punishment to them through torture, often killing them. Those who survive are then confined as her playthings.

She is the most formidable of all the floor masters due to her wide range of death traps and torture instruments. Viewing Zack as an exemplary sinner, she attempts to punish him thoroughly to her amusement but is killed when Ray catches her off guard with a gun. Her floor is modelled after a huge jail block, along with her private room where she controls the various traps on the rest of the floor and monitors her victims.

Abraham Gray (エイブラハム・グレイ, Eiburahamu Gurei) / Gray (グレイ, Gurei)

Voiced by: Hōchū Ōtsuka[16]

The floor master of B2 and a reverend who created the facility as an experiment to determine the definition of "religious faith", including gathering all the various floor masters and providing them with victims. He is extremely eloquent, able to mesmerise his listeners through words, and harbours a cold and logical heart without mercy. Gray also employs the use of drugs to make his victims hallucinate in order to see their true inner selves. His floor is modelled after a church, with the stained glass window concealing the exit of the building.

Lucy (ルーシー, Rūshī)

A character introduced in the manga adaptations, Lucy is Cathy's best friend who harbours a borderline insane admiration for her. After graduating school together, the both of them became jail guards that specialised in punishing criminals, often with Lucy dealing the finishing blow. When Cathy is invited to become a floor master by Danny, Lucy becomes her first victim, deeming her a sinner as well for all the prisoners she had killed.

Shin (シン, Shin)

A character in Episode.0 and the original floor master of B3 before being replaced by Eddie. Shin was originally a pair of twin brothers who owns a furniture store selling furniture made from human flesh. Deeming that the twins fit the criteria to become an angel for Gray's experiment, Danny invites them. However, Gray would only accept either one of them, deeming their dependency towards each other as imperfect. Driven by the idea that only one being is perfect, each twin decided to kill the other. It is unknown which twin succeeded killing the other as the survivor reappears and reintroduces himself as the "one complete" Shin. In the official Angels of Death guidebook, it is explained that while working on one of his furniture, Shin hurt his hand by accident, causing his blood to stain the furniture. Seeing the beauty in the furniture stained by his own blood, Shin used his own body as ingredients to make the furniture without a care of his own body, which resulted with his death.

A manga adaptation by Kudan Nazuka and Makoto Sanada began its serialization on the Monthly Comic Gene magazine on January 27, 2016[17] and ended its serialization on September 15, 2020.[18] The prequel of the game, Episode.0, also by Kudan Nazuka and Makoto Sanada began its serialization on the MFC Gene Pixiv series on March 3, 2017.[19] The first volume of a 4-koma manga series titled Satsuten! by Makoto Sanada and negiyan was released on February 27, 2017, and was serialized in the Monthly Comic Gene magazine; the series ended on March 15, 2021.[20][21]

A novelization of the game written by Kina Chiren and Makoto Sanada and illustrated by negiyan is published by Kadokawa label, Enterbrain. The novel series consisted of three volumes.

A 16-episode anime television series by J.C.Staff premiered on July 6, 2018.[16][25] The anime is directed by Kentarō Suzuki with scripts overseen by Yoshinobu Fujioka, music composed by Noisycroak at Lantis and character designs handled by Miki Matsumoto who is also serving as chief animation director.[11] Masaaki Endoh performed the opening theme titled "Vital," while Haruka Chisuga performed the ending theme titled "Pray" under her character name Rachel. The series is also streamed on Crunchyroll with English subtitles, while Funimation produced an English dub for the series and streamed it on their website.[26]

In November 2017, it was announced that the game had achieved 1M downloads in Japan.[27]

In a review of the game's PC version, Hardcore Gamer rated it a 4 out of 5, while noting the 'wonderfully odd chemistry' between Rachel and Zack. The game's creativity, storyline and gameplay were praised while its brevity, belated character development and low resolution graphics were criticized.[28]

Roundups of the first volume from ANN note that it is short on tension, suspense and horror and somewhat confused in its delivery; its characters seem unnatural and are perhaps more appropriate to a game than to this format; and while the environment art often works well, overall the illustrations do not serve the story.[29]

First impressions from ANN are mixed. Some criticized the pacing to be weak and writing repetitive that lacks scares in horror genre, but praise its episodic structure that strongly pushes the creepiness factor that deliver an intriguing plot.[30] Steve Jones from the same site, on the other hand, gives the anime more positive review. While he found the early episodes to be a campy romp and criticized the slow pacing, he praised the main characters' growth and interaction and the performance of the voice actors.[31] In Tokyo Anime Award Festival 2019, the anime ranked 72.[32]