Death Parade

[Buffalobiian]

Decim already knew that the dude was a victim. He knew that the girl cheated.

That's not what I mean. Decim can only view memories as a movie. He does not know what the person is thinking during those memories unless they said it out loud, hence the need for this game. He knows the girl cheated. He does not know whether she married her husband because she loved him or because she was in it for the money.

That's where he got tricked and thought the man flipped rightly because his wife never loved him in the first place. On the other hand, the truth is that the wife cheated on him for an unknown reason (was she drunk and ended up in a one-night-stand?), but truly loved him. In the first case, he was clearly a victim.

Seeing him act like a nut isn't a good reason to give him a second chance. However, it did serve to doom the wife after she acted too well and even fooled the arbiter. But she didn't know that. She did all that without consideration of the consequences because she had no idea what would trigger what conclusion.

Why did Decim send the man back for reincarnation again then? My interpretation was that Decim thought the man deserved a second life because he his cheating, unloving wife raised his suspicions and ultimately caused his motor vehicle collision and death. The truth is, she cheated on him but still loves him and there really was a person named Matchy. The husband happened to be correct about the cheating, but his outbursts and accusations were not based on accurate observations. The cheating, and his suspicions (leading to death) were coincidental, not causative.

As we have seen this episode, the arbiters are perfectly capable of sending both persons to reincarnation (and presumably the void). Decim chose not to, despite the man's under-performance. I can only think of the above reason to explain why he got his second life.

Decim wondered whether or not he made a wrong decision because he mistakenly interpreted the outburst. Nona scolded him for mistaking how human's express their emotions. That was what she meant by "mistake."Even at the end of the episode, Nona lowered her rating of the black haired girl because her view was too naive. If Decim had been completely off base, I would think Nona would scold him a bit more.

Actually, could you quote what Nona actually said in Japanese, and your interpretation afterwards? Specifically the line after she said "Saiteisha no kuseni,-" (You're an Arbiter; E02 18:31)

It doesn't make sense that Decim could have wrongly interpreted the outburst yet made the correct decision. Decim would only be upset if wrongly interpreting the outburst changed the outcome. Nona actually scolded him pretty sternly for that.

The elevator boy said it's rare for Nona not to put someone down, but that's not necessarily to their face. In fact, she smiled most of the time in an impressed why while listening to Kuro's interpretation (right up until she said they'd be happy had the guy not misunderstood the Matchy gossip). Kuro's was much more insightful than Decim's (who couldn't even comprehend the idea of someone lying in this scenario since they're dead). It's just a habit of hers to not say anything bad about someone. It wasn't until after the event that Nona rationalised why "Happy End" didn't actually sit well with her - and she had the benefit of memory-vision.

We never heard to answer "How'd Decim go" after all. At the very least, she sees that Decim needs extra help.