In the series finale, the truth of God’s selection process comes out and it’s grim.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Platinum End Episode 24, “The Final Arrow,” now streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.
The divine royal battle is over. Nakaumi Shuji became the new God in Episode 23 and became an ascended being in the distant heavens, and in Episode 24, the series finale, the new God deals with the reality and responsibilities of his elevated role. . Shuji’s consciousness begins to merge with that of the original God and Shuji doesn’t like it.
God-Shuji, however, lacks Metropoliman’s arrogant god complex. Instead, the new God still seeks his own death, and not even angels like Ogaro and Nasse can stop him. The new God commits suicide and in doing so reveals the truth of the God selection process. This was always destined to happen.
As a mortal child, Nakaumi Shuji yearned to end his own life, until Kakehashi Mirai and Saki convinced him to live and play an active role in God’s selection process. For a while, Shuji had been the favorite to be chosen as the new God, with Yuri and the playful Susumu supporting him. Then, after the battle with Professor Yoneda, Shuji became the new God, and now, the God Shuji in the sky is in anguish. He refuses to completely merge his mind with that of the original God, though he talks with the older God to get some ideas.
The Elder God resolves the “chicken and egg” paradox of God and humanity creating each other and explains that God had been created by another party, but not by humanity, thus dispelling the “parasitic creature” theory of Yoneda. God actually created humanity on Earth, as God explains in Episode 24, and even created the angel Nasse from a microscopic life form found on young Earth, serving as a role model for all angels.
God-Shuji, however, no longer has an interest in watching over humanity and takes action. He distracts Ogaro for a moment, then impales himself on a huge white arrow, ending his divine life with a single blow. Immediately, the angels dissolve one by one, and all the humans on Earth disappear, starting with the youngest. In the eyes of God-Shuji, it is better that humanity perish now to escape future pain, ending the cycle of misery and hatred on Earth once and for all. Shuji can’t find a way to save or protect humanity from his inner darkness.
As senior angels, Nasse and Muni die last and watch as the other angels, God, and humanity perish en masse. Nasse comments how this is what Muni, the angel of destruction, wanted all along, and Muni confirms this. This also confirms an earlier theory that Muni had been using Yoneda all along as a tool to destroy the heavens and kill God forever. Muni and Nasse then die as well, and the heavens crumble as the Earth is stripped of all life. All along, Muni had been an agent of whatever entity or party first created the original God, and the goal had always been deicide. In the divine battle royal to choose the next God, there was never going to be a true winner.
Instead, God’s creators seek their own death and envy humanity’s ability to die. The creators evidently used God, angels, and the divine battle royale to find a way to end their lives at last, with the battle royale being a giant experiment, but it all ended in failure. Appointing a self-destructive God had been the means, but the creators never achieved the ends, and they live in despair, unable to bear their own immortality. They manage to destroy God and humanity in Episode 24, but they don’t get what they really want, so the creators could just move to a new planet and create a new God to start the process all over again. But Mirai won’t be around to see it.
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