Angel Beats!

Death is one of many mysteries that has left humanity in the dark since the dawn of time. However, the burning question of what happens to the soul after one dies is soon answered to 17-year-old Yuzuru Otonashi. Waking up with no previous memories in a dimension between life and death, he discovers the unsettling truth of the afterlife.

Taking the form of a high school, this bizarre dimension is designated to shelter those who died unwanted deaths. Feeling wronged by God during their earthly lives, the school's residents have decided to form the Afterlife Battlefront—a rebellious faction determined to oppose their god-like student council president, Kanade "Angel" Tachibana. The group's leader, Yuri Nakamura, recruits Otonashi in their fight against Angel in order to take control of their own lives. However, questioning the morality behind their actions, Otonashi takes a step behind the enemy lines to understand the opposing side of their common fate.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Tachibana, Kanade Main

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Nakamura, Yuri Main

Sakurai, Harumi Japanese

Otonashi, Yuzuru Main

Kamiya, Hiroshi Japanese

Yui Supporting

Kitamura, Eri Japanese

T.K. Supporting

Rivas, Michael Japanese

Iwasawa, Masami Supporting

Sawashiro, Miyuki Japanese

Hinata, Hideki Supporting

Kimura, Ryouhei Japanese

Naoi, Ayato Supporting

Ogata, Megumi Japanese

Shiina Supporting

Saito, Fuuko Japanese

Noda Supporting

Takagi, Shun Japanese

Horikawa, Kenji Producer

Toba, Yousuke Producer

Maruyama, Hiroo Producer

Tsuji, Mitsuhito Producer

Reviews

Sep 22, 2025

AzeezVeesk

Recommended

This show is deceptively good. Starting out as a light hearted riff on the afterlife, the story becomes a deep cutting, heartfelt, & emotional rollercoaster of a show. The different emotional tones set up as the episodes continue are all carried out near flawlessly and makes the large cast of the show into something truly memorable.

This show definitely earned it's reputation and has aged wonderfully. The art style is good but it's absolutely carried by the emotion behind the amazing soundtrack, stellar voice acting, and genuinely terrific writing.

Definitely a must watch for those who can enjoy a good heartfelt story on top of some ... late 2000s humor.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Mar 27, 2025

Supersonic_Pain

Mixed Feelings

This show is way too short for how much they try to fit in.

Short shows, even shows half the size, have gotten high scores, even 10s from me, but they tended to have a better sense of scope.

A Key work, Kanon (2006) is twice the length and Clannad (in total) is roughly 4 times the length so I get the feeling that they were more used to writing lengthier works than this 13 episode size.

And it shows in every aspect of the story.

There are way too many characters that serve as nothing but warm bodies and occasional comedic relief. TK? Judo guy (Matsushita is his ... name, apparently, I just called him Five/Fifth)? Takamatsu? Ooyama? I genuinely can't tell you ONE character trait about Fujimaki other than he can't swim and that was a one-off gag.

The story is also held together by tears, glitter glue, and leftover tape.

So, they're in Purgatory, right?
Uh huh.

They're mad at God for giving them crappy lives when they were alive so they're gonna rebel.
Okay, with you so far.

So they're gonna kill this Angel.
Here's the problem.

How did they know this would work?

The main characters cannot die so why would they assume that an agent of God could? Even if she COULD die, why would God not just send more Angels after them?

Their way of trying to kill her is stupid too.

The vast majority of them are carrying around guns, which is a solid strategy... for an enemy that doesn't have a "fuck you, deflect bullets" spell. And their strategy for the entirety of the battle with Angel is to fire guns at her, even though it clearly doesn't work.

Their way of "rebellion" also seems very sketchy.

So, if you obey Angel and have a fun school life, you get "obliterated" and reborn (which is much less of a threat than it comes across as, they bring up the fact that you could be reborn as something totally shitty like once).

Okay, sure, fine.

But you're telling me they're NOT having fun?

I guess they aren't doing their academics but they do a baseball tournament, hold concerts for the "normal students", go fishing, it all seems very convenient that being obliterated doesn't concern any of these things.

The timeline also seems way off.

Our main character wakes up at the beginning of the series as fresh meat, a new entry into Purgatory. But there are people who have canonically died AFTER him who were in Purgatory before him for a significant period of time. What, was God busy the day the MC died or something?

They have to rush character relationships (for the characters they even bother to develop at all, see above) because of the short runtime and it makes it seem so artificial. I'm trying to be as spoiler-free as I can but a lot of the relationships, romantic or not, don't feel that fleshed out because there are like 20 named people in the Battlefront. Why does Noda like Yuri? Hinata claims Judo Guy is his "bosom buddy" but how many scenes do we get with them? Hell, Judo Guy just fucks off to the mountains for a couple episodes, he is so unimportant.

There's this running subplot (well, it's tied in with the main plot but they are their own team within the Battlefront, so I'll call them a subplot) with the rock band and I think it would be cool but Yui is around the main squad so much, she doesn't really feel all that attached to the band. I think that would've been a solid plotline to work off of but even when she talks about her dreams, the band isn't first, second, third, or even fourth. It's to the point where why did they even bother making Yui a part of the band at all?

The last couple episodes were kind of not very good. A show where you are fighting God has to inherently make God a pretty big threat if you're taking it seriously. The problem with Angel Beats is (among other things) that the main characters cannot die and being "obliterated" isn't really that much of a threat. If their soul was DESTROYED or something, that'd be one thing, but they're just being reborn, which seems like a pretty fair deal to me. I can't really say much more about God without spoilers but it's not very good.

I did give this a decent score, so what did I like about it?

As with the other Key anime I've seen so far, the music is pretty good. As mentioned above, there's a rock band and we do get a few songs out of them, we even get LiSA to sing on a couple tracks. The OP is a banger and both the OP and the ED have so many cool little touches as the episodes go by. One of my favorite parts is when they scroll through the Angel Beats logo and you can see a preview of the episode you're about to watch. The opening movie is one of my favorites, it's simple but Kanade playing the piano throughout the OP is just spectacular work.

It can be really funny when it wants to. Some of the characters (like TK and the guy who INSISTS you call him Christ) flop and there are a couple running gags I could do without, but overall, I was satisfied with the amount of laughter I got from the show.

I wasn't sobbing or anything (the final episode especially only got me in the OP at the beginning, the episode itself was kind of a bore) but it did manage to make me tear up a little bit and I suppose that does deserve its props for a show like Angel Beats famous for that.

It has a really cool premise, even if it doesn't really get to flesh it out as much as I would've hoped.

Should you watch it?

I dunno, I was entertained.

Will I forget everyone's name except Kanade's in a week? Probably. Will I tear up remembering this show? I doubt it. Did I enjoy it? I guess so.

This show needed more episodes and more time. As is, it crumbles under the weight of its ambition.

Give the OP a listen though. Best thing from this show by miles.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Sep 2, 2025

Notlol

Not Recommended

I am a diehard Key fan, but this show is just not it, man. Jun Maeda can make beautiful stories when he wants to, but then you have shows like this where it makes me wonder what Maeda even wanted to write in the first place. When I want to consume a Key work, I consume it with the intent to laugh and cry. This show does none of these things and I came out disappointed.

Some of the characters are simply rehashed from other Key works which it makes it super boring to watch(one egregious example being Yuri who is literally just Saya from ... Little Busters!) the sad scenes are sprinkled throughout the story with no rhyme or reason, this is a Key staple but I hate the fact that 90% of the show is wasted on slice of life bullshit with the characters that are trying too hard to be funny, and the contrived romance subplot shoved in at the very last episode. These aspects of the show frustrated me to the core that it still puzzles me on how this show even got its praises.

The few praises I will give to this show is that the music is really awesome and it shows that Maeda is better at composing music than writing stories. The animation is nothing home to write about and I'm fairly satisfied by the voice cast.

Key has a formula that works, but they need to stop using it in everything they make. Anyway, please read the First Beat VN for a much better experience.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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