In the arms of an Angel?

“Please let me believe in everything you believed in. Let me believe that life is great.” - Angel Beats

Are you like me, and have just THE hardest time picking your next anime to binge? I have a system now - but for a while I relied on silly things like 'top rated anime' google searches.

What you'll get if you do that - are the same 15 anime series that you've probably already seen, or if you haven't -have already decided that they aren't for you.

One of the anime series that comes up most often in my searches is a little 13 episode anime known as Angel Beats.

So uh... well... the thing is... I ... I don't like it. I mean, it has some redeeming features, so why do so many people rave about this show like it's a chosen anime from the heavens? Let's talk about it:

Music

TLDNR: Awesome

If you've read anything about this series, or ventured as far as to watch the opening credits - you'll know that music is a huge theme in this show. Unlike other anime where it assists the action sequences, openings, closings etc. this one legitimately incorporates music into the plot of the show.

As such the music is one of the things about this show that I genuinely appreciate. Is every song to my liking? No. Are they all beautifully done? Absolutely.

The soundtrack contains 47!!! original pieces composed and produced by Jun Maeda and members of Anant-Garde Eyes. That's a crazy number even if all of them weren't well done, but they are. They all add something, they either directly impact the story, or at the very least don't detract from it.

Music: 5/5

Animation

TLDNR: Great backgrounds sometimes. Subpar everything else

Nope. Nope to nopeseville. There's a difference between not liking a style and noticing when something is poorly produced. I don't particularly like the style, but I don't really like the Gurren Lagann style either. The difference here is that Gurren Lagann (2007) spent time and effort making things flawless whereas it looks like the entirety of the budget for Angel Beats (2010) was spent on the music.

Want examples?

I'm not saying that other anime don't do this exact same thing. I'm saying that when it happens you can tell.

Mix in lazy character animation, a kinda shoddy attempt at 3d mixed animation, and you get a weird mix. I see that they may have been trying for something here - it's not lost on me that in 2010 3d wasn't as flashy or as polished as it is today but the attempt (while it may have produced greater things down the road) detracts from everything else here.

I will say though, there are some scenes that are beautiful. The backgrounds are honestly pretty great. Here's the thing though, A.) It just shows how crappy the rest of it is in comparison and B.) Feels clashed against the rest of the animation

Animation: 2/5

Characters

TLDNR: It will focus on four of these people. It'll give honorable mentions to three others.

Normally I have a hard time deciding which characters to shed the spotlight on. Not here, there really are only 3 characters worth focusing on with an honorable mention to Hideki Hinata

*Spoilers Ahead*

Yuzuru Otonashi

The main character in a lot of ways - the first character you see, the eyes through which you experience a lot of the world. His character arc is decently flushed out with an okay series of flashbacks that work to flesh out why he exists in the world that everyone is in. His relationship with other characters is at times funny, at time sad, and overall he is a pivotal character in the story progression.

Yuzuru feels a little bland but it's pretty forgivable being that the first half of the show he doesn't even really know who he is (or what's going on). His relationship with Angel, Yuri, and Hinata are where his personality shines. If this anime does one thing decently beyond it's music it's relationships.

Yuri Nakamura

Yuri is a pretty complex character and needs to be. She has one of the more compelling back stories of any character in anime. At times I had wished that the show focused more on her. Complexity comes in all shapes and forms, and sometimes it comes in the form of an awesome sniper rifle or skills befitting an actual assassin.

She's one of the only characters that can do hand-to-hand combat with Angel. She's the leader of the Not-Yet-Dead-Battlefront and she's... well she's just heckin' cool.

Once again she shines in the area of relationships. Particularly with that of her rivalry/competition against Angel, and her respect/familiarity with Yuzuru.

Angel/Kanade Tachibana

Angel isn't a terribly complex character but she is so, so, cool. The silent antagonist of the first part of the series she establishes a presence forceful enough to attract the entire attention of the Not-Yet-Dead-Battlefront. She single-handedly deals with that battlefront and does it all without uttering a single word in most cases.

The plot has her going from antagonist to bystander, back to antagonist, and then finally to compatriot. I won't go into all of how that happens here, but her character development is pretty solid to say the least. Definitely the most dynamic in terms of actual changes.

It was nice to see the actual changes take place in such a short series, and again they happen primarily through relationship. Namely the relationship she has with Yuzuru. The dynamic of the two characters is in contrast to that of every other duo. It's unique, simple and endearing. One of the things this show gets right.

Now. You might think that after reading these character descriptions that the characters are a selling point for the show. If the show only had these three characters and maybe Hinata, you might even be right.

But then there's all of these guys: The others

I want to say that they're not all bad. In fact I enjoyed some of what went on with the other characters but that's where the good things train stops.

There's sooooooo many characters for 13 episodes to try and focus on. The time spent on some of the characters is entire episodes and less than three minutes on others. Seemingly without discrimination. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to why certain characters got the short end of the stick but the vast majority are underdeveloped cannon fodder.

It makes the work and relationships between the other three feel more meaningless than anything, even if the opposite effect is intended.

I've read a few things that have said the series should've been longer, and I can agree to the extend that it would've been nice to see the other characters as fleshed out as the aforementioned.

Characters 2/5

Plot

TLDNR: It makes close to zero sense. Episodes 05 and 13 are nice.

Oh boy. There are ridiculous plots (Gurren Lagann, One Piece, JoJo) and then there are plots that string along expectations and then deliver nothing (Angel Beats).

This may be another instance of the series suffering from only being 13 episodes long, but wow. The disconnectedness is felt in it's entirety here. There are so many things that go unexplained. If you're considering this series, give it some serious thought as to how much of a story you want. I'll try to explain here: *Spoilers*

A guy dies, he goes to heaven (sort of but not really) in order to leave this place he needs to be content/happy but the not-yet-dead-battlefront (the name of the main group of characters) has decided that they've got unfinished business (see the plot of casper). It's a nice idea to give these kids a life they never had, and the way to do that is by having them go to a regular school (because that's the source of eternal happiness) Because by being a regular kid you can be freed of this purgatory even though everyone can tell the difference between the NPCs (they names that the characters in show give them) and real humans. Angel/Kanade Tachibana is the school class president so of course she has ultimate authority (not an actual complaint a lot of anime series do this) but she also has upgrades beyond that of everyone else through a computer system. She's not a robot though, she's an actual human. This never really gets explained as to why she's stronger. She just is. Everyone else can make guns out of dirt so they shoot at her whenever things go nuts. In order to distract the NPCs during operations against Angel a band plays music in 3d animation. It works for a little while, it's how the NYDB gets their meal tickets, because I guess they don't get to eat otherwise. Even though they can't die in that world anyway if they don't eat.

Still with me?

Cool. So halfway through the series Angel gets dethroned due to a prank her classmates pull on her. Then a secondary antagonist Ayato Naoi ets introduced, and they spend about a full episode developing him. He also learned hypnotism (unexplained). Yuzuru has a Naruto moment with him and talks him out of being homicidal. Their relationship for the rest of the show is kind of funny - but still. Two people find happiness so they disappear. There's a love story about a baseball player and a guitarist (very cute, very unexplained) Yuzuru decides to make it his after-life's mission to get everyone to be happy so they get out of purgatory. He teams up with angel. Christ(self-entitled) and Yuri mess with Angel's program (even though she's just a human) and there ends up being like ten evil Angels.

After they clear up the evil angel business is around the time that Yuzuru gets his mission on track. Then the NPCs start turning into weird void zombies. Also Humans can turn into them if they stay in the void shadow for long enough. Yuri goes to see what's up with that, and she shoots her way down into a long series of tunnels.

Eventually she faces the actual antagonist (some guy we've never heard of before) and she destroys all of his computers. That he stole from the school. Because this purgatory is some type of simulation? (still fuzzy on that) yeah, it's a simulation purgatory that's controlled with computers from inside the simulation. The reason things started turning into zombies was because love wasn't supposed to exist in that world, because as soon as it did you were supposed to go 'poof' and disappear.

But somehow love was happening, and that can't happen in purgatory otherwise people won't wanna leave I guess? Even though Yuzuru's plan was working so it was evidence to the contrary. Anyway- they don't kill the antagonist, they just wreck his computers and he's like "Okay I guess?" and then talks about some other creator which is maybe God? but also maybe just another human.

After the computer crash incident, everyone's like "I guess I'm happy now" even though there were still quite a few unresolved issues and backstories. Yuri also decides to forgive herself (for reasons I honestly couldn't figure out. Like she deserves to forgive herself, but nothing happened that really warranted it, it's like she had a Naruto moment off screen or something)

The five characters that are left hold a graduation ceremony. Which is - probably the most heart touching part of the series. It's done incredibly well and even though I didn't like most of the series it captures the feeling it's trying to evoke well enough.

The last scene also ties up a thing that the show had been eluding to for a short time, which is nice.

All in all, there were so many unnecessary twists and turns, climaxes, anti-climaxes that the story suffers so much. The touching moments are nice pauses in the middle of this, but they only help to lessen the suffering not eliminate it.

Once again many people have said that the show suffers from not having enough episodes and I can agree with that, but the fact remains that it had 13 episodes so I have to go based on that, not on the episodes that it didn't get.

Plot 1/5 (The one is for the heartwarming moments feathered throughout)

Overall

I have no idea why this is ranked so high on a lot of must-watch lists. It's OST is impeccable and evokes emotion. Everything else though kind of falls flat, if you want to watch this show just be flexible with your expectations. It's silly and quirky at times. There's also an episode that made me laugh like no other anime has in a while : Episode 05 "Favorite Flavor" This show isn't without it's appeal and obviously it is on a lot of top lists for a reason. I don't know what that reason is, but people obviously like it for something other than the reasons I've listed here.

My final score 2.5/5 Other people seem to like it

Extras:

If you want me to review an anime let me know at [email protected], I'll watch and review the anime you don't have time to.