The story – the plot for Angel Beats! was written by Jun Maeda, who worked on various other titles such as Air, Clannad, and Little Busters!. All of these titles are highly praised for their quality, rightly so as all of them were enjoyable, if not tolerable. But with Angel Beats!, the plot felt a little . . . weak. I cannot dispute the fact that Angel Beats! is a unique story, but I felt that there were a lot of plot holes in the story, which sort of nagged at me from the back of my head. Now when I say this I do not mean that the idea for Angel Beats! was hot garbage; I mean that they could have developed more on that storyline, along with the characters.
The characters – the only thing I have to say about the characters is: “GOD DAMMIT WHY ARE THERE SO MANY UNDERDEVELOPED CHARACTERS. THOSE CHARACTERS HAVE SO MUCH POTENTIAL.” Yep, characters like T.K, Hisako, Fujimaki, hell even Hinata could have used more development (let’s not forget best mysterious girl Shiina). The characters that were developed the most provided me with a decent understanding of their actions during the show and their personality. Including that, the backstories of those characters added to the . . . emotions? They were pretty heavy in the emotions department, as literally all the students who attend at the school lived an unfair life.
The art – decent I guess. It was not the best, but it was not in any way bad (although there were some minor character design inconsistencies from the actions/music scenes). Not worth mentioning, with praise nor complaints.
The sound – ah yes, Angel Beats! never ceases to amaze me with its OST. Hell I even downloaded a bunch of the OST and the theme song (amazing) and I listen to it on my phone a lot. When I jump into a show, I always want it to contain some song that I can listen to without the context and still enjoy it. Angel Beats! does this. Soooooo well (*awestruck face*). Ahem, back on topic, the music was executed beautifully, enhancing scenes, making the lighthearted ones give off a fuzzy feeling and the tragic ones an endless pit of sadness in the stomach.
My Enjoyment – when I finished Angel Beats!, it left a bitter taste in my mouth. I wanted more. I wanted to see a full complete story of it. I didn’t want it to end at just a rushed ending. But this feeling only lasted for a short time. I felt happy I watched it. Angel Beats! taught me a perspective changing, life lesson (I’m not going to state what that is. Watch it, and figure out yourself :p ) while throwing in hilarious scenes and antics of the cast. I feel that my enjoyment of Angel Beats! could have been through the roof, that this show could have been a masterpiece, but it was still pretty damn good.
In conclusion, I want you, the reader to watch Angel Beats!. It teaches a nice lesson for everyone while making you laugh as well. The only concern I have is that most of the comedy is slapstick comedy (which always gets me). But other than that, I give you the green light for this show!
