Charlotte

Mod Edit: This review may contain spoilers.
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Tell me if this description sounds familiar: “A group of ‘special’ highschoolers defined almost exclusively by archetypes and/or tragic pasts form an organization together. They don’t really get along at first, but they get to know each other extremely intimately over time, eventually culminating in a romance. Many tragic events take place as the innocent and sympathizable highschoolers are victimized by the cruel, cruel world. Eventually, they must accept sacrifice to fulfill their lives and destinies.” Some of you are probably thinking “That’s Angel Beats!”, while the rest of you are probably thinking “That’s Charlotte!” Well, good news: You’re ... both right, because for all intents and purposes, they are exactly the same show.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to criticize this anime on the sole basis that it isn’t even pretending to differentiate itself from another show; I’m going to criticize this show because not only does it contain all the same errors that the show it plagiarized (yes, I know they had the same writer, so it’s not technically stealing) also contained, but it managed to magnify those errors significantly. Horrible plotholes, absurd amounts of over-convenience, awful world-building, identity confused characters, my god; Charlotte is nothing but a fucking mess.

Let’s start with what is, in my opinion, the biggest problem the show has, the characters. They are completely shallow, completely one-dimensional, and more often than not, completely devoid of personality. Let’s take our protagonist, Yuu, for example: The first episode introduces him as a character brimming with personality. He’s intelligent, arrogant, devilish, etc. These are traits that at the very least gave him a personality and the potential for development. However, as soon as the ED played at the end of episode one, everything about him that was established in that first episode is COMPLETELY forgotten. Never again does he exhibit any of traits that supposedly define him. He instantaneously turns into literally Otanashi; A boring bland, personality-less nobody which is pretty much the worst thing a character can be. Did they really think that we wouldn’t notice if they stopped giving him individuality after a single episode? It’s either a laughable oversight or an attempt to trick the audience.

There really isn’t much to say about the rest of the cast; they are either completely indistinguishable or defined entirely by traits/quirks. There is one in particular I will go over though just so I can talk about how terrible the romance in this anime is: Nao. Nao is Yuu’s love interest which is a big problem for one simple reason: They fail to demonstrate so much as a single iota of chemistry or personal connection with each other at all. Rather than gradually growing together, we are instantaneously told that they are in love! No no no writers: that’s cheating. You can’t just skip all the necessary steps of a good romance and expect us to buy it. Seriously, what intimate moments did they ever share together? I can even recall a scene where Yuu watched Nao get brutally beaten by a mob with complete indifference, as he did nothing to even attempt to assist her. What a pair. This romance is so laughable that when a love confession is finally made, the other character remarks in a surprised/confused fashion “I don’t think there was ever a time for you to think favorably of me.” I mean… That pretty much hits the nail on the head. I don’t think there was either.

I haven’t even gotten to how shitty the plot of this show is and the reasons why it didn’t even remotely work. First of all, it doesn’t make sense. Being a show about superpowers, it’s obvious that plotholes are going to emerge from characters not using certain powers at certain times or in certain ways, but to THIS extent? You will pull your hair out trying to count how many times a situation that could have been easily resolved through superpowers is treated as a legitimate conflict. Every cardinal sin of story telling is present in Charlotte: Dues ex machine, plotholes, asspulls, you name it. It’s some of the worst melodrama to ever be animated.

The second big issue with the plot is the remarkably inconsistent tone and its total inability to incorporate elements of both comedy and tragedy without being clumsy and awkward. This is a problem that is seriously pervasive in anime as a whole; if you want your dramatic scene to be taken seriously, DON’T IMMEDIATELY PRECEED IT WITH CHILDISH COMEDY! Every time something that is supposed to be taken seriously happens, you better believe a heaping dosage of comic relief is right around the corner. Even scenes involving death can’t keep comedy out of the picture. This form of writing demonstrates an inherent immaturity and lack of understanding of said medium; it’s completely embarrassing and there is no excuse for it. This disturbing pattern NEEDS to disappear from anime.

The last thing I feel the need to especially stress is the god-awful pacing and stupendously rushed nature of Charlotte. If you want an example of how to rush your show so badly that even the most naïve audience members become alienated, watch episode 13 of Charlotte. Seriously; the world needs to see that miserable atrocity and learn from it so that history does not repeat itself. When you could literally turn the events of single episode into a series of its own, maybe spread your material out a little better? I’ve somehow gone multiple paragraphs without mentioning Angel Beats yet again, but this anime has the exact same issue with pacing; it’s very evident that these two shows had the same writer.

In conclusion, Charlotte is one of the worst anime dramas you will ever see. Even Angel Beats with all its flaws is noticeably superior. This rushed, childish, shallow emotion porn cannot be believed by a thinking person; you will literally be taken aback by how many obvious mistakes have been made. The animation and music may be nice, but I do not recommend this anime to anybody unless you want to see how NOT to write a good anime drama.

Oh Charlotte, where did we go so wrong? You looked like you’d be an interesting story revolving around students coping with super powers but instead you offered up a story with about as much direction as a goldfish with Alzheimer’s. The anime packed a tonne of ideas and characters into too small a space and it started to burst at the seams. Charlotte, from the mind of writer Jun Maeda and put to screen by P.A. Works, promised a lot. Script writer Maeda looked to address the pacing problems prevalent in his earlier work Angel Beats and deliver a similar emotional ‘punch’ at the same ... time. By some phenomenal fluke he actually managed to make a bigger meal of it in both areas. I’m not even mad. I’m impressed.

It’s such a huge disappointment that not enough time is dedicated towards any of Charlotte’s characters to help hammer home its more emotional set pieces. Time that could have been spent towards developing the cast is instead wasted on repetitive unfunny gags, irrelevant side stories and ridiculous new elements thrown into the narrative like it was some afterthought. Charlotte sets off in first gear as it lays the groundwork for its story but then it tries to change into fourth gear by ballooning out its cast size with people I don’t even know or care about. It’s an uncomfortable ride. At a certain point the show tries to accelerate ahead with exciting new ideas but instead it stalls, bogged down by pacing which can be called nothing short of atrocious. Charlotte dawdled around and then flashed ahead so quickly I get whiplash thinking about it. With paper-thin characters and an utter mess of a script Charlotte’s journey is unfulfilling, with a destination to match.

Yu Otosaka is our main man. We follow him as he starts to abuse his power to briefly take over others’ bodies, both for his own pleasure and his own gain. A boy who acts cocky and lacking in morals, he starts out as a nice change of pace from your standard high-school male lead. His personality came into conflict with a lot of people around him and for a brief period it led to some amusing results. However, Yu’s rebellious nature was at first refreshing but then it became non-existent. It was like a cheap drawcard to the show to have this cocksure lead, only to have him start to behave like ‘generic high-school lead guy’ within a short space of time. When this darker side of him emerges again later on in the series it actually feels out of character. The story does at least go out of the way to create ambitions and meaningful motivation for him but very little about Yu himself will stick for long in my mind. Nao Tomori is our other major player. A girl with a sharp tongue and unafraid to call things as she sees them, Nao is also an interesting character in the show’s early stages. She catches out Yu abusing his power and shows him a side of the world he didn’t know about. But like Yu she doesn’t go anywhere as our story plays out. Her ‘cold and disinterested’ shtick gets boring.

The dynamic between the two lead characters is almost non-existent yet the show tries its hardest to use their relationship as a means to drive many parts of the story. Because of that, many of the scenes I watch containing the pair of them feel static. One episode which tries to show a new side of both Yu and Nao actually turned out to have virtually no bearing on the rest of the show. Still, they at least have their role to play in the overarching story and that’s more than what can be said for their classmates Yusa and Joujirou. Yusa is a blonde-haired idol, an occupation that has zero importance to the story other than trying to justify having a cute girl as part of the show. Her power in the show actually had the most potential in terms of leaving an emotional impact on the viewer. But why do that when she can act cutesy and sing songs? In a series where so many characters are trying their hardest to claim the gold medal for wasted potential she might just come out on top. Joujirou spends most of his time on screen being obnoxious and completely useless in the grand scheme of the story. His purpose in Charlotte appears to worshipping the ground Yusa stands on before drowning everyone in the vicinity in his blood that explodes from his nostrils. His moments of ‘comic relief’ – please note the inverted commas – also come at horribly timed moments. These two cast members are just the tip of the iceberg. Not a single supporting character in this show feels valuable.

The show doesn’t explore Yu or those closest to him well enough at all.
There are moments you can almost feel the show begging you “This is the part where you cry now” and I’m sitting there throwing my hands in the air screaming “Why should I? I hardly know them”. Heck, there’s even times where it begs you to empathise with someone whose minutes of screen time you could count on one hand. Emotional moments have impact if characters have depth, and depth is something I can find more of in a petri dish than the cast of Charlotte. I couldn’t help but laugh when I was being assured by other viewers during the early episodes that there was nothing wrong with the slow pace because Maeda was clearly ‘saving up for something’ and taking his time to develop the cast. Once our lead quartet was introduced, not only were the initial episodes repetitive in their structure but they weren’t even entertaining. A lot of them revolve around the exploration of these super powers, such as their limits and the way others use them. That’s absolutely fair as a form of short exposition but I was at my wits end by the time this phase of the show finally drew to a close. You ended up viewing episodes whose entire purpose it was to later on have some cheap moment of meaning at the series’ end, not actually help maintain your interest in the story at its current point. Then, at a point later on, it just explodes with more characters who steal more screen time from our original bunch. It’s a mess.

When all is said and done Charlotte is hampered in many areas. The start is repetitive, the middle feels redundant and the ending is packed with conveniences. Maeda is definitely a man of ambition and cool ideas but I’d really like to see him make something minus the comic relief, better build up and a story that involves more of its cast. The story of Charlotte itself is interesting on paper but the way is what put to screen is incredibly underwhelming.

I was (mildly) hyped for this show.
I kept watching it thinking the next episode was going to be really good, and I almost got it with the last a couple minutes of a certain episode making me really hyped for the next one.
And here we are, all wrapped up, and with my score, you can probably tell what I thought of it.

The story for Charlotte is dreadful, being plagued by inconsistencies, with minimal character development, and most of the development is reverted anyway so who cares at this point. Nothing even happens in term of story progression or character development for the first, I don't ... even know, 8(?) episodes. If there's any indication as to how poorly thought out the story was, the show's namesake was literally only mentioned in a brief 1 minute scene more than halfway through the show and then almost never talked about again for the entire show. The pacing of the show is awful too, this show could've easily been 6 episodes if they trimmed all the garbage filler, and they could've told a much better story in the same amount of time if they redistributed the events to make the mood shift of the show around the 4th episode, with the last episode of the show being spread throughout the last 3 or so episodes.

The show's one redeeming factor is that it looks okay. The music is really generic japanese stuff. Neither are the spectacular, and are about what you've come to expect from a slice of life. I thought the Engrish was amusing at the beginning, but it became increasingly more annoying to listen to as the show progressed and probably ruined any chance of me being amused by VAs attempting to speak English in the near future.

The characters, as a result of having no development, are entirely one-dimensional and predictable, especially the side characters who are introduced for 5 minutes and convey their intent about as well as an LA Noire character, so by about the halfway point, you could pretty much guess verbatim what's going to happen. However, despite being completely predictable, they are incredibly inconsistent, and this is where my point earlier about reverted character development comes into play. Although, you can predict exactly what happens, characters will, very often, do the most random things, then quickly revert back to how they were before and do exactly what you predicted what happen with no consequences at all, so it just leads to pointless filler.

At this point, I'm not even sure if I want a second season so that they might learn where they messed up and try to make it good because this show had a lot of potential.

Watching this show was disgusting and insulting. They added in forced feels at the most random times, for characters that were quite literally introduced in the same episode so you feel no attachment to them, in addition to random moe garbage and humor, and some stuff that I think was supposed to be deep and philosophical but really made no sense, and they just expected the viewers of this show to be stupid enough and lap it all up. Charlotte is a show that's clearly made by the books to appeal to the lowest common denominator, and could even pass as an insulting satire mocking the anime industry and its viewers.

(This has been adapted from my blog/reddit thread. Spoilers ahead!)

You find it strange that a line is missing for the ride, but you chalk it up to luck. At some point, you find the lone worker, his nametag reading J.M. He instructs you to climb the ladder before you, with you more than willing to do so. J.M. smiles and waves you off, and you climb.

The climb was quick because of how thrilling it was along the way. You are now at the top, with you overlooking the entire park. A sign says to sit down on the platform. At first, you wonder why there ... is no seat and no seatbelt, but then the ride starts. From behind, you feel a push. You start to roll forward down a ramp. It is not pleasant but it is at least tolerable. Thankfully the incline is not steep, so you are not rolling fast. You start to develop bumps and bruises, thinking that this is some kind of experimental ride.

Then, suddenly, you start to fall down steps. You start to hear bones snap as the hard edges of the stairs jut into your limbs. The stairs are made of wood, so your bruises start to scrape and then bleed. You start to panic, wanting off this wild ride, wishing that your parents had said no like they always did. At the same time, the steepness starts to increase, speeding you up at intermittent intervals.

Just before you cannot take any more, you are in freefall. You believe that it is over, that a trampoline will cushion your landing. But it does not. Instead, you land on a landmine, blowing your arms clean off. The steep steps continue, except now that you have no arms the angular velocity of your person increases, forcing you to shut your eyes lest the spinning-induced nausea makes you vomit. With each new step, you lose a tooth, and with every other new step, you lose a memory, the repeated impacts putting you in and out of consciousness.

You cannot tell who is what or what is where. And just when you cannot take any more for the second time, you land on a massive spike, impaling your chest, your insides now your outsides. Your breathing is sporadic and splinters have sewed your right eye shut. So with the last of your strength, you raise your left eyelid to discover the name of the ride you just rode. There, in white letters with a comet here and a swooping star there, it reads: Charlotte.

STORY

Charlotte is a poor excuse for an anime, and nowhere is that more evident than in the narrative it attempts to construct. A slew of problems plague it, sickening each of its areas to the point that no remedy available could possibly cure its ailments. From inconsistencies in the plot to the minutiae of the writing, the show is kept bedridden, prevented from performing at an acceptable level. It is a downhill tumble down a mountain, dwindling the health of the show and leading to its inevitable death.

Like any descent, it is best to start at the summit. The first episode of Charlotte is quite well-done. While the “high school kids with superpowers” is an overused formula, it managed to establish its setting in an interesting manner, placing the abilities and the main character in a negative light. The negativity, the intriguing side cast, and the supposed theme of self-correction poised the show as something grand. Then the problems start.

The most prevalent problem of Charlotte is the pacing. Pacing is the spacing of events – the more that goes on in a short amount of time, the faster the pacing and vice versa. For most shows, pacing is not a detriment so long as it is neither too fast nor too slow. It needs to rest in the Goldilocks region to maintain a leveled approach and keep its plot from careening out of control. Charlotte, however, effectively murders the golden-hair invader and dumps the molten porridge over her lifeless body. The anime transitions from tolerably slow to whiplashing the audience as it continuously ramps up the speed of the pacing. Yuu’s mental breakdown is the first sign – a high school student to a might-as-well-be drug addict over the course of a couple of weeks or so. Time travel is introduced shortly after. Terrorists follow, with the finale of the anime cramming together a literal worldwide, person-to-person vacation. The events are not illogical or even uninteresting but they happen so fast and so often that it becomes a disconnected smorgasbord of scenarios rather than a connected grouping of instances.

Pacing speaks nothing of the actual events themselves, which are arguably worse. Many of the plot lines or plot points within Charlotte either lead to dead ends or are forgotten about entirely, both usually the byproduct of the aforementioned pacing. Nao’s older brother receives a resolution halfway through the season, only to never be mentioned again. The lead singer of “Zhiend” serves as a trigger to push events forward, but has no spot in the narrative beyond her final song. Ayumi’s resolution is overly clean, with her likewise tossed on the wayside after her conflict is taken care of. When this or any anime does this, it causes the plot to feel disconnected, therefore reducing its cohesiveness and subsequently the strength of its narrative. Interestingly the show did take advantage of its own plot developments at times – having his original girlfriend appear and try to help him out of his rut demonstrates the show’s awareness of its own material. But the majority of the time, the anime exists in the former camp, cumulative fragments that turn the plot into an indiscernible mess.

Charlotte’s mess continues in other areas, specifically dealing with the writing itself. Again, to be fair, the anime does have its moments – Nao telling each of the earlier ability users to never use their abilities again to maintain the ruse against Yuu was clever. But a large amount of its other moments do not live up to even half of this execution. For example, Yusa’s “spells” are a comedic gag that treads into overused territory, the same reactions occurring every time. Also the time travel reveal, which is little more than a huge exposition dump. Worse still is the hospital visits near the end, where a series of characters appears one after another to make up for spending so little time on them in the first place. It leads to repetition and in most cases a distinct lack of purpose since each subsequent event is supposed to build off of the previous ones. But because the previous events are so weak due to a combination of the poor pacing, unused plot points, and the stagnant writing, the shaky tower they create is never capable of standing upright.

This trifecta sees its lowest point during episode eleven, now infamous for being absolutely asinine. The character whose family was conveniently taken hostage, Shun having never known of this character’s extended family despite countlessly time travelling, and Yuu going to the warehouse alone despite the group tailing him moments later are more than enough to constitute a failed narrative. The entire confrontation was not even about Nao, the terrorists, or even Pooh; the whole point was to remove the time travel variable from the equation. Any other situation could have been chosen yet the show decided on this one for a reason, the reason being to avenge Pooh and to “payback” Nao. But both bonds are not exactly taut: the former he barely knew and the latter he had always butted heads with no signs of affection. In other words, Yuu’s inspiration was likewise lax. So while not entirely representative of the anime, this episode made it evident how broken the show truly was.

Halfway through the descent, Charlotte has already broke but it does not stop hitting itself. Another issue is the title of the show, which is irrelevant. The comet it is named after is never seen or, perhaps obviously, never used throughout. It is simply mentioned as the source of the strange particle or virus that causes the people to gain the abilities. Granted it might be unimportant; the actual comet means nothing in the grand scheme of things, moving the attention away from it and to the abilities it technically contains.

At least, that would be the argument if it did keep attention on its abilities. Instead, one of the show’s biggest focal points is confusingly ignored. Besides “invisible” – which gets used a lot earlier – and “plunder” – which gets used a lot later – abilities often go severely underutilized, appearing only a handful of times. Some hardly get used at all – the opening episodes contain abilities that, once stolen, are used to a minimal extent. The time travel is even purposely prevented from being used. Charlotte’s finale also follows this trend: Yuu plundered thousands of abilities, but no more than ten were shown. To play devil’s advocate, similar to the comet the abilities might not even be the point of the anime. If space rocks and superpowers are not what the anime is about, then something else must be.

This is when the bottom of the mountain is reached because there is no point to Charlotte; there is no thematic presence. It never centers on one specific notion, with a fairytale ending of “living happy lives from now on” when they had been doing that (or trying to) from the beginning. There might be something about never giving up even in the face of ridiculous adversity, but the use of abilities makes this a moot point since the abilities lessen the adversity considerably. One might also argue that the show is about having and pursuing goals. Nao fighting to save others to have them avoid a fate like her brother’s, Yuu plundering everyone to earn a romantic relationship, and Shun time traveling to the point of blindness to protect his family and other “ability-wielders” (as they call them) showcase how a goal motivates and pushes people to do the impossible. But since Nao’s and Shun’s dreams fall on Yuu, and Yuu’s own goal is lost, this theme loses merit as well.

Thus, after falling down a mountain while crashing into rocks formed of horrible pacing, weak writing, and nonexistent themes, Charlotte’s narrative lands at the bottom, perishing in the process.

ANIMATION

If Charlotte does anything correct, it is in regards to its art and its animation.

The art itself is vibrant, with locations varying. Schools, parks, and warehouses are featured, each filled with details that make them realistic in their presentations, appropriate for the realistic setting. Lighting is nuanced, with sunlight and fixtures casting shadows and shine where needed. Camera angles are likewise well-done, with low shots, up-close shots, and landscape ones constantly shuffled through to give the show a dynamic feel. Other tricks, like reflections in mirrors and rippling water, demonstrate the anime’s regard for its visuals.

The style of the abilities, when they are used, is also interesting. Invisible has a rainbow sheen combined with transparency, plunder makes Yuu’s eyes go green, and “collapse” causes the wielder to glow and essentially explode. A distinction for each ability is given – telekinesis has a purple outline, disintegration has a sparkly effect, and combustion produces flames – that makes each come off as unique as they are.

Unfortunately the character designs dip in execution. Many are rather plain: Yuu, Joujirou, and Ayumi, to name a few. Nao as well, but for her, her deep blue eyes and white hair contrast, coinciding with her outward cuteness and inward abrasiveness. Surprisingly it is Yusa’s older sister that has the best design. Her orange hair, red outfit, and ruby-colored eyes are a perfect fit for her fiery personality. Similar to episode eleven, she might be an outlier, but she showed where they could have gone had the designs refrained from being so plain.

Actual animation mirrors the art, staying consistently high throughout the season. Even disregarding the abilities, characters walk, flail, and react in nearly all situations, standing still for natural lengths of time. Alongside moving background objects, ruffling hair, and shattering glass, the anime always keeps its parts going, giving the show much needed strength.

CHARACTERS

Just when Charlotte starts to climb back up the mountain with its art and animation, it quickly falls down again when its cast is investigated thoroughly.

Investigating the side cast first is simple since the majority of them are either missing characterization, development, or purpose, sometimes a combination of the three. Joujirou, the Yusa-obsessed man in glasses, has that to his name alone. He is a huge fan of a pop star. Nothing else is learned or given about him past a certain point since the anime decided to ditch him to focus on the latter half of the show – Shun, time traveling, and world plundering. Yusa is arguably worse; she can sing and dance, her bubbly behavior allowing her to befriend anyone. But the development she receives is shoved into the span of a few minutes rather than throughout the season with her older sister visiting her family to eat food and her older sister writing her a letter. That is to say, while she does receive development, it is arguably worse than having none at all since what she was given was so lazy and lame.

Laziness and lameness are also found in Ayumi and Shun who oppose each other in a negative sense. Ayumi is the little sister, her adorableness and worrying attitude acting as a rock for Yuu. Plus, her pizza sauce skills know no bounds. She was poised to be a worthwhile character for the rest of the cast to connect with, but similar to Joujirou, following her death avoidance her presence diminishes nearly entirely. The worst part, though, is that this ruins her relationship with Yuu, which was a major driving force for his character. Shun is on the opposite side of the spectrum. The older brother, he was introduced late, so very little is known about him besides his friendship with Pooh, and even then the audience does not get enough of the two together to understand how connected they were. Meaning when Pooh dies, Shun’s breakdown does not have the necessary emotions established with the viewer to let them feel his plight. Furthermore, and opposite to Ayumi, Shun’s relationship with Yuu has no weight not because they stop focusing on it but because they never focused on it to begin with. Not during flashbacks and not during the present, either. Shun even purposefully hid himself from Yuu to keep Yuu out of harm’s way, meaning a relationship of any kind would not have the chance to exist. So when Shun gets emotional with Yuu or vice versa, once again the effect is not as strong as it portrays itself.

Moving beyond the side cast of Joujirou, Yusa, Ayumi, and Shun are Nao and Yuu, arguably the worst characters of the anime considering the proportion of on-screen time and development they undergo. Nao is a seemingly distraught person. She lost her family at an early age and she is bullied in school (questionable, since it only happens once and is never touched on again). As a result, she trusts and believes in almost nobody, keeping people away to stop herself from losing anyone ever again. This explains why she uses a camcorder: she places an obstacle between her and the world, treating the world with the same distance as she does people. It is clear that she is someone who is afraid of connecting with others, a person in need of help. She has traits that would supposedly see change, but she never gets it. As the leader of the group, she has to act as such, never exposing her faulty interior. During more private moments, she cracks slightly but only to the point that her emotions evaporate. Taking a step back and looking at the season altogether reveals that Nao never truly had the spotlight all to herself, so she never could progress past her problems. The ending tries to instill the idea that she has changed for the better – that she will start using her camcorder to record “happy everyday life” – but it literally occurs within the last minute of the show, indicating how much of a failed character she is.

But the worst character is undoubtedly Yuu for one reason: passiveness. Yuu, like the first episode, starts off really strong, a troubled person who was extremely full of himself. But after the first episode, he is sidelined, Nao, Joujirou, and Yusa taking center stage with Yuu making a comment or two here and there. The focus then shifts to Ayumi and Sara (the lead singer of “Zhiend”). Here, Yuu does not so much develop as he becomes an entirely different person, with the outcome having him go back to square one. The focus shifts once more to Shun, where both sides of his conflict use Yuu as a pawn. The final episode is the first instance where Charlotte puts Yuu at the forefront of its happenings. But as it was during Ayumi’s death, he becomes an entirely different person that has no relation to his earlier self, with this outcome even worse since he regresses not back to square one but to square zero. Sympathy is not possible since it is “too little, too late” to care about or have feelings towards him since he was relegated to being a side character for the majority of the show. In short, passiveness did him in.

Lastly, themes for characters are passive in a way, since they are at the mercy of the characters that control them. In order to investigate what message the cast is relaying, their abilities should give the answer because each individual person has a power of their own. Joujirou’s speed makes sense given his overzealous outbursts. Yusa’s dual-self coincides with her normal student and super star status. Shun’s time travel represents his determination and willingness to sacrifice himself for something bigger. Nao’s invisibility makes sense given her loner persona. Yuu’s plundering strangely works since he is a person who has no discernable qualities of his own. Thus, the superficial view is that…people have traits that make them who they are. This is too commonplace and inherent to be a theme. Instead, it could do with uniqueness of traits – that everyone is different – but this fails since the abilities of people sometimes overlap – Pooh’s ability-wielder-finder ability exists in others. It might deal with the abilities themselves; each one has a peculiar caveat attached to them. Joujirou’s speed cannot be controlled, Nao’s invisibility can be applied only to one person at a time, Yuu’s plundering causes him to pass out for five seconds, and so on. So it might be that people are imperfect, that everyone has something about them that is off-kilter. Sadly this does not work as well since the reasoning for the defects is not expounded on, the imperfections a penalty rather than a talking point.

Therefore there is no point. The abilities do not provide a meaningful message, an expected answer since the narrative also proved that the abilities were not what mattered most. Thus the characters are without themes and, coupled with their missing development, are left in dire straits at the bottom of the mountain once more.

SOUND

The opening theme is the last strong point of Charlotte. The piano and vocalist are in harmony throughout, creating a hopeful piece, fitting the tone of the anime. The ghostly reverb in the beginning, the quick, soft lyrics in the middle, and the resounding violins in the end combine to make a piece that is simultaneously familiar and otherworldly, once again finding comfort within the confines of the show. The ending theme somewhat counteracts its counterpart, the piece filled mostly with a repetitive middle section despite the strong vocals. The start of the song with its onomatopoeia is a soft lead in to the soft piece, said softness more or less matching Nao’s longing. The guitar, violins, and slow lyrics pad the song further, making it, if nothing else, an alright method of easing the audience out of each episode.

The remainder of the soundtrack is filled with a variety of pieces to fit the occasion. Lots of piano tracks to heighten the somber moments, hard violin pieces to maximize tenseness, and silly sounding instruments to increase the comedy. While the OST is not particularly memorable, it effectively bolsters the scenes it takes part in.

Voice acting is similar, resting somewhere around average. Kouki Uchiyama as Yuu has a voice that is too old for his character. Plus, his screaming was never convincing. Ayane Sakura as Nao passes due to the incredulity she can include in her speaking to give her that mean yet cute edge. Maaya Uchida as Yusa is the only strong performance, doing the voices for both the younger and the older sister, capturing their personalities nicely through the performances she gives.

ENJOYMENT

I would be lying if I said that the first episode did not impress me. Because it did. Then the rest of the anime happened, and I could not believe how it continued to shoot itself in the foot with each new episode. I did find Nao and Yusa cute and funny, but as individual characters they were so poorly presented that my disappointment nearly cancelled out the laughs. Yuu was a boring main character, Ayumi’s adorableness not being around was a bad move, and Joujirou’s shtick got old quick. None of the characters were engaging enough for me to resonate with, leaving me to simply follow the flow of the show.

I also had no real emotional connection to the anime. I did not cry when Yusa was reading aloud her letter from her older sister, Pooh’s death did not impact me in the slightest, and I did not care for Yuu when he was going rogue or journeying alone. The anime’s events never made me feel anything, thereby reducing the amount of entertainment I got out of it. Still, I found myself wanting to know what was going to happen next. I was not invested in the show, but it piqued my interest when Yuu time travelled or set out on his unrealistic adventure.

Something trivial that ticked me off was the order in which Yuu plundered abilities during his mega journey. The first official one he stole to start it off was Nao’s. It would have been infinitely more poetic to have her be the last one. Yuu fights and travels and steals, surviving as much as he can, until the very end where he finally meets her, with a touching yet heartbreaking reunion. Instead, the last one is some random girl in some random village with Yuu somehow getting hit with arrows despite being the strongest human to have ever lived, and then a helicopter coming down to save him as his arm is outstretched towards Nao’s gift. It is somewhat silly to be mad about this since this is not my anime. However the idea of going full-circle – starting at the beginning and ending at the beginning – is powerful narrative-wise, so seeing such a hugely missed opportunity irks me.

Charlotte deserves almost no praise. Outside of the art and bits of its music, the anime crashes and burns, its story and characters abysmal in their overall execution. Needless to say, this is one ride that nobody should ever have to endure.

SUMMARY

Story: Terrible, poor pacing, forgotten plot points, weak writing, irrelevant content, and no extensive thematic presence

Animation: Good, beautiful art, cool-looking abilities, okay character designs, and above average actual animation

Characters: Terrible, Joujirou, Yusa, Shun, Nao, and Yuu are underdeveloped, underused, or both, with their abilities meaning nothing to them or grander themes

Sound: Fine, good OP, okay ED, okay OST, and okay VA performances

Enjoyment: Bad, zero resonance, no emotional connections, and an irking directional decision, yet still interesting enough to follow through to the end

Final Score: 3/10

I'll have a rant with Charlotte. It deserves it. Why isn't there a zero score for 'story'?

It is oft repeated that everybody, well not everybody, but many people, had high hopes for Charlotte, and that 'people' includes me in the ranks. It was the first name on my team sheet for the summer season. Such a waste.

It's also repeated that it started okay and plunged down after a certain point. This plays true to the words, it shot up the horribility scale after about EP8. Everything went wrong. The pacing, the character development. But especially the plot. The believability of that plot. Plot holes are ... galore. It's really depressing trying to talk about every one of them. The last episode was especially a huge pile of garbage on that front, which you have to see to believe. How is that even possible? There were too many 'red dots' on one map in one city and too much time taken for him to erase one dot at a time for me to believe any second of it.

The characters were a big problem too. Nao is well-loved and praised, at least round here in my part of the Earth. She is well-designed, no doubt about it. However she plays too little a part in the short and appalling main plot, think about it again, doesn't she? About all the others, well...there are too many come-and-go characters that just slip in, do their part which have wildly varying impacts on the plot, and then vanish with slim explanation on their past or future actions and intentions. Even two 'main characters' in the main party, glasses guy and idol girl, really do nothing to complement the anime outside of giving the odd giggle(or, to put it better, vain attempt at making you giggle) and being a kind of christmas visual decoration. We still don't know virtually anything about them after the end of the last episode. It's impossible to like the character as a moving character that has flesh and blood, even though they're 'main characters'. Ms. Zhiend and Nao's older bro clog up more than one episode of the anime, and the whole of EP8, for literally nothing, as their forced drama is reversed when the MC turns back time. What was the point?

Pacing and production, to a lesser extent was also to blame. Look at the flashback scene in EP9 and...It’s really bad. I'll have a moan with the main band Zhiend as well. They're vaguely listenable, but how on earth are they a post-rock band? And why did Maeda try to emphasize that?

That leaves the art. It's not a masterwork in design and movement, but it's certainly commendable and faults were hard to find in the quality throughout the series. That's it though. It doesn't leave waves of astonishment for that, and is just...a little better than the average anime you get. There's no trying to leave from the tradition neither, everything is standard. Is it better enough than your average 'moe anime' or whatever they call them to cover up its gaping shortcomings in just about every department excepting the art? Nah... it just serves to make this shit look a bit less shit.

That's Charlotte then for me. I was planning to give this a long, critical mind you, but still long review up until EP11 or something. I lost the remaining love for this over the next couple of weeks, and gave up on giving it a long review as it was a waste of time. That leaves this rant. No recommendation people, don't watch it. No chance I'm waiting for another series from Maeda. Not in a million years.

-THIS REVIEW CONTAINS A FEW SPOILERS-


Charlotte seems to be the "Key" title that sticks out the most from the bunch. Not only is it an original story, but it also has a darker and more complicated story. Yes. COMPLICATED. As it is a Key title, many people got hyped up for it before it came out and it has become one of the most popular shows of not only the Summer 2015 season, but in 2015 as well. So how is it really?

Story: 3/10

As with all the Key titles, Charlotte starts off as this happy, school feeling slice-of-life show. A few episode later it dives ... down into deeper and darker themes with the characters revealing something different about them. The entire show mostly plays out on the darker moments rather than the school life and that is something I appreciate from it. However, it doesn't save the story from being a rushed mess. Like Gakkou Gurashi, Charlotte's story doesn't know what it wants to be. It jumbles from a happy slice-of-life show to dark action show with a hint of mystery. The story seems as if it's changing it's mind every 5 minutes from the two themes since it wants to be both but it doesn't know how. Also, it's very rushed. We have a death in episode 6 from a character we should care about but the anime gives us so little time with that character. Instead, it gives us a baseball episode and a camping episode. Those episodes should've been used for us to learn about the characters more. Every episode after episode 6 is a Steins;Gate wannabe mindfuck. Only not that good kind. With a rushed story and such little episodes, everything seems to complicated to follow.

Art: 5/10

Charlotte was brought to us by studio P.A. Works. Responsible for shows like Angel Beats (another Key anime) and Nagi no Asukara. And the production values for those shows are beautiful to look at. While the shows themselves may not hold up well, they still have beautiful art and animation all around. This however, kind of does that, just in a very toned down kind of way. The animation in the opening is beautiful and really brings out P.A. Works potential with their animation skills. Not only that, but the colors and backgrounds (excluding some of the character designs) mix in pretty well. Another thing I like is how when the tone shifts, the color pallets would change in tone and it does it wonderfully. But the rest of the animation is pretty mediocre. The characters movements seem very sloppy and a bit too quick for the type of anime this is. Also, the hair and the eye combination for some of these characters just doesn't mix well together. Nao's sea foam type hair and dark blue eyes just seem so off. The lead singer for the band who is blind has pink hair and light blue eyes just looks so mismatched. The animation isn't terrible or bad by any means, but for P.A. Works, it's kind of a let down.

Sound: 5/10

Highlight of the show. This show gets props for having a great opening and ending song. The opening gives out a happy, cheerful but subtle deep themes that just fit perfectly for the show. The ending is a much more so somber that also fits the show well. Also, the show has a great cast of voices that all put great effort into their performances. However, even if the sound is good, the soundtrack on the other hand is lacking. It sounds just like a bunch of things we've heard of before and some of the soundtracks that play do not match with the scene the anime is showing us. However, that doesn't weigh out the good performances by the cast.

Characters: 2/10

OH BOY HERE WE GO. The worst part of Charlotte. Nao while actually a pretty interesting character doesn't do much or develops. Otosaka, the main lead, goes from a bad ass to a bland and uninteresting character by episode 3. Otosaka's sister plays a major role in the show but she's the same moeshit, "ONIICHAN!" stereotype we've seen in a billion of other shows. Rest of the characters? Who cares? They don't do much to the show or show up at all. Even the new character don't do much at all. They're just there to give Otosaka his orders while just standing around. What am I supposed to feel for this idol chick with her dead sister ability? NOTHING. Since the anime barley gives her any screen time. The guy with the glasses not only has no point to the anime, but he's one of the most pointless characters I've ever seen. Key's worst characters to date.


Enjoyment: 3/10

I liked some of the action moments and watching Nao. That's it. Most of the time I was just checking the time and begging this anime to be over and done with. It was painful to sit through to the point I felt like dropping it. I very much dislike dropping series and I didn't want this to be my first.

Overall:

Wasted Potential: The Anime.
Charlotte has a misguided and jumbled story, average animation (though not exactly a bad thing), HORRENDOUS CHARACTERS, and a rushed ending that makes you go, "What was the point of it all? Why did I watch this atrocity?" P.A. Works has never really been good at drama anime or good at anything in the matter, but this feels like a new low for the studio. And I though Glasslip from last summer was a bad anime by P.A. Works- and even though it's bad, it's not Charlotte bad. I really would like to see something good from P.A. Works for once. FOR ONCE. I guess that's too much to ask. I recommend staying away from this series. Even though it has a good opening and ending and a good cast that gave out great performances, it doesn't save the show at all.

3/10

It was the summer of 2006, the heat rather modest (a rarity in my hometown of Augusta, GA), and I was aiming to make a quick buck. Roused by the success of my parents’ yard sale earlier that day, I convinced my little brother to follow me door-to-door, selling T-shirts and books, my books. I aspired to become an author (even back then) yet lacked the necessities to further my vision. What I did was borrow the books on my shelf, glue my name where the author’s should be, and sold other people’s products as though it were my own. It was an utterly disgusting ... act, one I reflect on in shame.

(You’re not gonna believe this but I managed to earn two dollars from my scheme).

For those of us that have viewed Charlotte in its entirety, this anecdote likely sounds very familiar. This is an anime that exists by blatantly pilfering the ideas, the mood, and the essence from other entities; it siphons from its own decency and originality for a profit. Charlotte is, in short, a Jun Maeda work through and through. Of course, it’s possible to be distracted from the rampant plagiarism, thanks to the excess of stunning scenery porn (another feat of visual excellence by P.A. Works). Charlotte is the equivalent of the Anchor Arms from SpongeBob; it projects a self-assured exterior that does absolutely nothing to repair its fragile inner workings. The crux of Charlotte’s glaring imperfections is that it mounted too much pressure on itself and then crumpled under the weight. Charlotte champions itself as a slice-of-life, a time travel epic, a Code Geass knockoff, a tearjerker of a romance, a modern take on the superhero genre, and a mystery simultaneously. However, Charlotte flounders in every facet, especially when it involves mystery.

Every recognizable cast member contains some sort of superpower and this enables the characters to settle each case without a hitch. Cold cases don’t exist in the world of Charlotte; “suspects”, “second-guessing”, and “nabbing the wrong guy” are foreign concepts here as well. In fact, Charlotte’s detective work is completely and utterly devoid of realism. It’s the superpowers that can identify, locate, and apprehend any criminal (It doesn’t require Sherlock Holmes to arrest robbers anymore, not when someone with invisibility can do the job). In the rare occasion that powers aren’t of any use, Charlotte’s cast is still able to solve cases thanks to the miracle of plot convenience (You cannot fathom how effortless the interrogation scenes are). Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man that popularized the mystery genre, likely rolls in his grave at the existence of Charlotte.

“Elementary” is how I’d describe Charlotte’s approach to detective work, and the same could be said for its characterization. The central cast members are Self-Insert MC, followed by Haruhi Ripoff, Quirky Glasses Guy, Cute Pop Idol, and Jailbait Chef. They (and every other character in Charlotte) are pure, benevolent, and utterly righteous beings that take actions for noble causes. One person seeks to follow their dreams while another aims for a second chance with his crush and all of them – all of them – are concerned with protecting their friends and family. Charlotte’s characters are absolutely not allowed to display any personality flaws; if they do, the show will ensure said character returns to the path of righteousness as soon as possible (this is exactly what I despised about Once Upon A Time). When one character embarks in the lifestyle of a degenerate, it’s an apology and a good meal that causes him to make a turnaround. As you and I both know, our world is filled with sunshine and rainbows and Mary Sues. Charlotte has no time for anything else.

There is no doubt you’ve heard people claim this show is riddled with plot holes, logical fallacies, pacing issues, and unintentional hilarity. All of this is certainly true but one thing needs to be said here: Charlotte is dull; it’s wildly, relentlessly, colossally dull. Both the theme song and ending theme are legitimate sleeping pills while the utter lack of visual creativity never fails to disappoint (especially in comparison to Angel Beats). If that doesn’t lower your expectations, I guarantee that Charlotte’s putrid sense of humor will do the trick. The fanboy monologues from Quirky Glasses Guy, the oh-so-funny catchphrases (“Big turnoff!”), and the nosebleeds are where the eyerolls will commence. Charlotte has a fascination for introducing unbearable gags, i.e. episode 3’s name gag, and lingering over them (a Jun Maeda trademark) like no other. The “witty” asides are guaranteed to fall flat every time; for a show that enjoys dubbing each character’s power as “half-assed”, it’s a fitting description for its sense of humor.

No review of Charlotte (or any Jun Maeda work for that matter) can be complete without mentioning the inability to understand subtlety. You don’t get a moment of silence with Charlotte. It’s nothing but noise with this show, as if muting the inspirational strings and sappy dialogue just once is too much to ask for. Charlotte exterminates the “show; don’t tell” concept with its tiresome monologues and excessive narration; every instance of character development is spelled out for you, as if you can’t observe what’s happening for yourself. Even Angel Beats has more tact that this hunk of garbage.

Ask Charlotte for a finale that’s respectable and it goes for convoluted instead.
Ask Charlotte to be original and it quits before episode 2.
Ask Charlotte to aspire for higher standards and it wallows in its own stupidity.

If there are a few tips I’d give to potential viewers of this travesty, it would be to prepare for disappointment. It would be to not misconstrue a copy-and-paste job for originality. It would be to not be deceived by pretty colors and gorgeous midafternoon skies. It would be to be wary of cop outs and deus ex machinas and an egregious confession of love. Better yet, it would be to take a glance at the legion of negative reviews, alongside the glut of low scores, and stay far, far, far away from Charlotte.

You know, for all the flak that PA Works gets for focusing a lot of their shows on crappy dramas, I think a good portion of their works suck because they don’t have enough drama. There was Angel Beats, which seemed to think that every single part of the story needed to be on dope because it thought subtlety would put viewers to sleep. Hanasaku Iroha had 20% of worthwhile material in its runtime buried under boring “anime comedy” and teen drama that refused to move the story and characters forward. Tari Tari wanted to be cheese. Shirobako had the director wear a cowboy outfit. ... Glasslip is something we all want to forget. And now we’ve got Charlotte, which as the making-of-interview (that has since been taken down so I’m not going to link it) flat-out stated wants so hard to be energetic that the definition of context escaped their brain, went go-karting with Bowser, and came back a jittery wreck.

Now I haven’t been paying much attention to the reaction this show has gotten since it’s written by Jun Maeda and anything he’s involved in is pretty much doomed to spontaneously combust all over itself before the first episode airs. And honestly, I’m surprised he’s still trying to be noticed after all this time. I mean it’s been awhile since Key has been relevant, as you only see them mentioned these days because someone just keeps on discovering the existence of Clannad rather than through any real effort on the company’s own part, which is so knee-deep in irony that the amount of tears shed by the fanbase just can’t compare. And let me tell you, when someone wants to recapture nostalgia in the anime industry, it almost never ends well, as Steins;Gate just can’t seem to get through its overinflated skull.

But let’s not bash the man too much. I mean it’s not like I have anything to add given the number of hammers with his name on it that most people I talk to own. I’m actually kind of glad that Charlotte exists, because I personally found it kind of interesting in how it succumbs to and (barely) avoids a lot of things I don’t like about “visual novel anime”, and this is a good opportunity to list off my issues with that flawed medium using it as a framing device. Perhaps I can convince VN writers who come across this list to actually make a smooth transition into the medium. And then maybe I can become Iron Man and wipe out all terrorism in the world.

1) Please Establish Personal Stakes Within The First Episode

When I watch a premiere, I want to have an idea of what I’m watching and why I should care about it. Since almost all first episodes are only 22 minutes, this usually works by focusing only on one character, finding out what makes him tick, and then introducing a conflict that is both engaging in terms of scale whilst having enough of a narrow focus so that it affects the character in a significant way. Most visual novel anime unfortunately decide the best way to start is to have the characters dick around or participate in unestablished, usually saccharine events whilst trying to find the plot through the various characters and plot elements it (slowly) meets whilst doing so, hoping the audience will have enough trust in what could be rather than what actually is. And anyone who falls for this method gets funny looks from me, especially when they fall for it fifty gazillion times.

Now this is actually one of the things that Charlotte does do right for the most part: having Yu discover his powers, abusing them, getting punished for it, and then given a chance to become a better person. It’s one mistake was that it didn’t make it clear how said redemption would occur. Which didn’t turn out great for the show, but we’ll let the rest of the steps take care of that.

2) Stop Confusing Setup For Story Progression

I’m aware that exposition is important in real life as well as in fiction, but visual novels in general seem to only use it as an excuse to world-build or move plot points along, and world-building/plot progression for its own sake is about as interesting as watching somebody play a videogame with said game being The Order 1886. But at least there’s some interaction when you’re doing that sort of stuff with the actual source. Anime doesn’t have any physical interaction from the viewer at all, and thus watching the characters finding random super powered people who will never be important again after they’re dealt with, or establishing rules that will only pay off later and don’t have much of a current purpose is really fucking boring. Puzzle-piece anime needs more to it than just solving a puzzle, because otherwise you’d get those awful walking simulator games like Gone Home or the once-mighty now pitiable Durarara adaptation. And god knows I have enough boredom in my life as is.

3) Quit Using Time Travel as a Story Mechanic

Not that it was that badly used in this anime. I did like how it acknowledged at the end that time travel shouldn't be used as a Deus Ex solution and proceeded to ignore its existence. But I still think something’s gone horribly wrong when you’re blatantly ripping off Madoka, and it wasn’t exactly used well there either.

4) Don’t Masturbate Character Interactions

This one sort of crosses over into Number 2, but my point is that characters should drive the story. Story should not drive the characters. When I watch characters on-screen, I do not want to see them hang out like they’re at every single party I’ve ever been too (remember, I had kinda strict Asian parents) or watch idol vidoes or the importance of building robots for over four hours! I want to see them go through challenges in their lives with personal stakes and growth at the end of it all. You can have them relax in-between tense moments ala Persona 4, but the tension and central narrative must always still be there because otherwise you’d just get Persona 4 Golden’s nauseatingly sickening additional friendship scenes. And even then, some of said scenes were funny. But as we established sometime ago, anime humor sucks major balls, so good luck with getting me involved in what’s happening by getting me to laugh.

5) Don’t Include Useless Characters In General

So Charlotte has these two characters - a glasses guy who is basically Youhei Sunohara by way of post-90s Sonic the Hedgehog, and an annoying idol who is slightly more tolerable when she’s possessed by her dead gangster sister - and to say that they add fuck all to the narrative would be such an understatement that it’d make “this is bad” sound like an accurate representation of your entire apartment complex burning down. An actually good VN anime would have them go surf on a tidal wave and into a volcano far away from me or give them minimal, yet vital screen time whilst convincing me they have lives even if it’s not related to the story. But as we established far back, Charlotte is not a good VN anime and I honestly can’t decide whether it’s good or bad that the show never gave them anything important to do because their present-day screen time was already testing my patience. And that’s not even including everyone else, who either exist to die or just exist to be blatant plot points that could have easily been tackled by characters that had actual meat to them.

What is up with visual novel writers wanting to put in every stereotype imaginable in the narrative anyways? Yes Maeda, I know fans really loved the fishing guy from Angel Beats, but fans also really love Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2, and he hasn’t had any dignity since then.

6) Enough With The Large Number of Poorly Connected Set Pieces

You know how visual novels all have multiple routes, usually in the form of each character having their own story and all that? And how visual novel adaptations in the old days decided the best way to please the fans would be to cram them all into the narrative no matter how disjointed and artificial it seemed? Well that practice is all but dead now, but old habits die hard. And a lot of these types of anime seem to come from the school of “coming up with the set pieces first and then stringing a plot around them”. And boy does it show, because there’s this rock group in Charlotte that pretty much exists solely to have a concert that is barely connected to the plot and could easily have been replaced by something else. And to make matters worse, the concert was nowhere near as good as the one in Angel Beats, let alone something decent like Nana.

Not that it’s an inherently bad method of telling a story, as James Cameron’s Terminator film has proven back in the 80s, but even Naughty Dog hasn’t done a great job at perfecting that method with their Uncharted games so what makes you think people far-less skilled than the best AAA storytellers in the world would do any better, let alone pull off what happened in Episode 11 naturally?

7) Rushed, Poorly-Connected Endings Need to Die

Charlotte's ending isn't actually too bad, but it could have been a lot better than it actually was. Most visual novel anime realize at the end that they had neglected to connect their large number of plot threads throughout their runtime and attempt to tie up as many of them as they can in the final episode to the point that it feels rushed to the point of either deus ex or horrendously lacking in substance beyond those connections. Charlotte keeps its focus on the main character for its finale and unlike Plastic Memories, actually makes him go through real struggles with actual consequences that are brought out by himself as well as his environment before ending on a bittersweet note that nicely caps off his personal journey from dick to flawed Christ. However, it does this at the sacrifice of botching its "super power as a metaphor for puberty" angle (because personally, I've never seen a human with the ability to take away teenage angst just by looking at them) and its main female lead ultimately ends up as nothing more than a bit player due to this. It's pretty clearly early on that Nao is supposed to represent the hopeful side of what happens after you "grow up", but that doesn't excuse how little she actually gets to do.

8) In Conclusion...

Charlotte has the bones of a half-decent superpower drama, but either it didn’t drink enough milk to grow them properly or said milk was always chocolate and the sugar high caused it to drop down a sewer somewhere. This is probably the first time anybody’s said this, but this is one Key anime that really could have benefitted from having more drama in it. The actual bits where the main has to overcome obstacles that actually progress the story are alright, even if the setup to them is wonky as hell. And the important characters are slightly above average when they're not trying to do bad stand-up comedy. But its visual novel-rooted failures are just too major to really recommend, and it just doesn't go far enough to deliver satisfactorily on its promising start - which is the one thing Maeda has been getting better at over the years admittedly, so baby steps along with a personal note from me that he should quit whilst he’s ahead because I'm pretty sure he's run out of ideas by this point.

So overall, the show is a bit of a wash, but I did got a lot of mileage out of finishing the thing. That’s not saying much though, because I also finished and have written quite a bit on Classroom Crisis - another original anime written by a popular VN writer - as well. Thanks for the experience Maruto, although I doubt you’ll be returning said thanks once my review goes up tomorrow.

It starts out well and extremely promising, although it's based at first on a simple idea.

So the first episode i would rate on it's on a clean spotless shinning impeccable 10. Job well done there.

But then there is a random yandere grill popping in with her friendly basement dork friend who ruin the day of the main character and the worth of continuing to watch the anime. So i continued watching in the hopes that the main character would come back to "life" and be once more exciting to watch how he goes through exciting adventures of great deeds.

I liked the art, it's not perfect, ... but it's alright > okeyish no doubt there.

Sound was a bit irritating at times due to the squeaky voices of some characters and nonsense that was poured into the show.

Characters and character development all went downhill, as there is a complete difference from what went on in the first episode and every episode after that.

Enjoyment wasn't there after the first episode, but i was very curious to know what happens and how it's going to end so i kept watching.

So basically the yandere grill ruins the main character's relation with the school's alpha bitch, just so she (the yandere grill) could have him. Hell, he even looses all his memories. Really fucked up anime to be honest and that's not because of the killings and blood, you can see that on the news all day, it's part of your world, therefore you shouldn't rant it's abnormal unless you actually do something about it, which you obviously don't since you waste time checking for conformist reviews.

Just simply looking at the synopsis of this anime makes me want to doze off. There isn’t not a single thing that I found remotely interesting or original in this anime. High schools, teenagers with superpowers, overused slapstick humor, all the typical shit plague most anime nowadays. And it doesn’t help that it is also written by Jun Maeda, a writer whose work always are far more concerned with manipulation the viewers emotions even when it doesn’t make any logical sense. But since I didn’t have anything good to do with my time, I decided to watch this anime despite being put off at first. ... Now thirteen episodes later, what do I think of it now? Well to put it simply, this show was one of the worst experience with anime I had all year.

To be blunt, the story of Charlotte is messy and stupid. For the first half of the show, the show is just another slice of life nonsense. To make myself clear, I have nothing against slice of life shows, but this one completely devoid of any charm or wit. None of the humor is particularly funny, since most of it comprised of overused gags and slapstick. Nothing occurs plot wise since all the characters do is dicking around playing baseball, go camping, and help other superpower teens. And you know what? If that was all the show was, I would just discarded as another forgettable rom com and would even bother to write this review. But atlas, Charlotte takes a sudden tone shift and becomes almost an entirely different show. Without spoiling much, the writer tries to make the series far more dramatic and serious. But since there was almost zero effort put in to make the viewers care about the characters or story, everything comes off more comically stupid rather that emotionally touching. The thing becomes unfocused mess with one of the most erratic and inconsistent tone I have seen. It alternates between comedy, moe, sad, intense, and boring at a whim as if this was written by Hideo Kojima. And it doesn’t help that the show rushes so much plot at end it becomes ridiculous. Then the show end on a grand whimper, resolving everything with plot conveniences and deus ex machinas,

As for the characters, they are flat and shallow as you can get. There are far too many characters for a twelve episode series, and it doesn’t help that the show does very little to make the viewer care for the characters. Instead of trying to flesh the existing characters so the viewer can get to care about them, the show just waste its time on comedy and constantly introducing new characters. Honestly, I can only remember the characters for whatever superpower they have instead of any characteristics or traits. The only character I remember was Yuu because he is just basically a copy of lelouch vi britannia.

Even the animation and soundtrack fail to stick out from the norm. While PA works shows generally look polished and crisp, but this is one looks mediocre at best. The character designs are bland and the only thing about the animation that does stick out were the detailed backgrounds. And even those were wasted on a dull and uninteresting setting.

Charlotte is a show that tried to be everything. It tried to be a comedy, it tried to be a thriller, it tried to be a tear jerk, and tried to be sci fi. Yet it doesn't focus on any of those aspects and fail to accomplish anything. Charlotte fails to be funny, it fails to have memorable or relatable characters, it fails to have an interesting or coherent world, and it fails make any sense whatsoever. It felt if Jun Maeda wanted to jam a dozen concept in the show instead of being focusing on anything. Half of the show was is the character dicking around, and when the show decided to get an actual plot, the show was almost over. In the end, this show broken beyond repair and should be avoided at all cost.


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If there's anything for me to be thankful of Charlotte, it have motivated me to write a review about the anime. I was one of those "silent lurkers" in the site. I know I'm late to the party - being a Summer 2015 anime, I am almost a year too late to say about it. Now that I have time and it looked interesting, I thought it would be a good anime trip. Boy, I was wrong.

Let's start with the story. My interest was piqued when I first saw its first episode aired on Animax last year that laid out a decent opening. The more ... episodes I watch, the more I wonder about the plot of the story. I don't see where Charlotte is going at all, right to the very end. It seemed to be building something every episode, but I don't receive what it was building. Fortunately for Charlotte that was what keeps me going on. I am not sure if I am that dense to not notice such a thing, frankly. The first 6 episodes are pointless and episodic, then they started to roll out a plot at episode 7. With the foreshadowing on earlier episodes, the plot given is predictable. As it only has 13 episodes, the plot is rushed, crammed in the last 7 episodes, the last being the most guilty of the rush as it could easily expanded, if possible, but they fit it into one. Most of the events in Charlotte are bland. If there is ever a spike or climax, it will be gone in the next or few episodes later as it has been resolved. There were many little things that are briefly mentioned in the anime, as an example, the reason why the anime is called "Charlotte", but it was quickly tossed aside and acted as if nothing has ever happen, leaving confusion of why such things have happened. Supposedly, "for plot purposes". Charlotte felt like it was trying to please many different groups of people at once, but ended up in disappointment to everyone, with seemingly "romance", "comedy" and "tragedy" that had me panned face throughout the episodes. I am disappointed of how it have ended. The expectations that it have been building are not shown to me.

Next, the characters. Pure disappointment. We have an interesting male lead (Yuu Ohtosaka) who isn't the generic protagonists of being an idiot, overpowered, straightforward, and wants to be a hero. However, his traits have vanished into thin air after first episode and turned into a generic lead instead. I don't see his narcissistic self anymore after episode 1 as he was continued to be pushed around by female lead (Nao Tomori) and friends, being a character that is just... there. At episode 7, Charlotte emphasizes his presence of being a main character, but he has turned into a useless one at that point. Nao Tomori is your Kuudere, and since she is a Kuudere, there is not much change of herself. The rest of the gang (Jojiro Takajo and Yusa Nishimori) are just for comedic purposes. Most interesting characters have little screen time that one wonders if they were created just to fill in some holes. None of the characters are fleshed out at all. None of them particularly stand out or memorable to me. Apart of being more trusting towards each other between the four main characters, there is not much to say, because there is nothing to say. Supposedly Nao Tomori is the love interest of Yuu Ohtosaka, but there was NOTHING that portrays how one falls for the other. It's magic, snap your fingers and voila - they are in love. The last two episodes are the worst representative of love between the two characters. The supposedly "character development" of the first half of Charlotte didn't make any impact of how I view those characters - it is as if they are just put up on stage for us to know, "Oh look these are these characters with this thing".

The art of Charlotte seems to be its only saving point, though there is not much to save as it is not too spectacular either. I have a personal hate against its female characters that have huge irises that takes up 95% of their eyes, but I bear with it. The background of the anime is rather outstanding and realistic, a plus point. As usual of anime, the characters have odd colored hair and eyes to stand out from the rest. I don't have much to say about the art of Charlotte as it is quite the norm for most anime.

The opening of Charlotte is rather catchy, especially its rapping-like parts. I always skipped the ending so I can't say anything about it. The soundtracks of the anime seemed to be nonexistent, but I do tend to ignore most of it if it wasn't too memorable, and until now I could not recall any soundtracks in that anime itself despite finishing it just the day before writing this.

My enjoyment of the anime? None. I am surprised that people rate this anime a 10, from browsing through the scores of the reviews, and seeing that it has almost 8 out of 10 from the total score. Charlotte seems to be a wasted potential, as it continues to build something but nothing from start to finish has surprised me or gone above my expectation (which is average). It has absolutely no re-watch value in my opinion, because there isn't anything I would enjoy at all. Nothing in the anime stands out and it will be forgotten within weeks. If anyone mentions Charlotte, the first thought will not be "that anime" but "a person's name".

Overall it was disappointing. I am unsure what Charlotte wants to show to me, or it have shown to me everything but manages to not live my expectation of being an average show. I cannot say that it is "the worst anime ever" as that would change at every few seasons or so, but it is definitely one of the bad ones I've watched. It is but a bland anime with little to no plot, with a great dose of rush at the end.

Being a long lasting fan of Jun Maeda's stories and him never actually having disappointed me before, I dived into Charlotte with high expectations; everything was his style: the music, the designs, the characters, the same formula used for the first episodes of random. I armed myself with patience knowing that after random-fun times, my heart will start breaking bit by bit for every character of the story...and I had that to a certain degree, though forced, till all the plot crumbled and hit its face flat on the floor instead (after episode 7 if my memory isn't playing tricks on me). Review might contain ... minor spoilers, nothing big, but just to give an idea of what I'm talking about.

Why? Because I tend to believe that Jun Maeda just sat one night at his desk and layered down all possible outcomes and ideas for Charlotte and then a storm came and ravaged his desk, messed up the papers of the original outline of the story and somebody went like "f**k that! Let's make it all fit instead of sticking to one idea, even though we have no idea how to execute it!". GENIUS!-not.

First main problem was the execution of the antagonist (evil scientists). They weren't present whatsoever through the show, but we were shown the consequences of their work instead. That would have been marvellous, but then there's no actual consistency to it, though they try. Trying not to spoil, they appear only to once again disappear as if nothing ever happened.

Then we have the fact that Charlotte didn't know how to let certain dead people stay dead. I know that Maeda-san did something similar in Little Busters and Clannad but it was never that out of the blue, it was a consequence to a process, a consequence of the end of a journey or a parallel world. In Charlotte it was none of it, it was just convenience. And even after all that, we still do not know what happened to a certain yandere....Not the first time and not later either.

As a consequence of the story being quite fast and a whole load of ideas being smashed against eachother, I had no time to actually get attached to any of the characters. I didn't cry or feel sorry for neither of them, even though some moments had the right atmosphere to make me feel sorry (at lest Maeda-san didn't fail me on that), I almost WANTED to feel sorry, but looking at how they got there equaled in a big NOPE.

The main characters had potential. I loved Yuu as a main character and his geass-like powers, I loved Nao as well for being quite unique, but that's where my love stops, since as I said before I didn't have any time to get to know Yusa or Takajou or the other side characters, but for some reason they were treated like important during the last few episodes, that they were part of something when the plot just shoved them to a side because TWIST= more important side characters.

Lastly, the whole last episode. (or last two) It's a huge sin on its own. It's literally mixing together what could have been the premise of a whole season in only 25 minutes. I'm not joking. It's like when you make a character go visit, all of a sudden, every country in the world in the last episode and you see months go by, years gone by, your character grows, but you see not even a quarter of it all...oh wait. Hello, Charlotte!

I didn't even appreciate the OST this time mostly because of the ZHIEND songs (I think it was LIA?) which were in a VERY bad Engrish with lyrics that were mostly nonsense. I do save some of the background tracks however.

Art-wise it was really beautiful. The Opening had one of the best animations I've seen this year, shame that it didn't really count anything in the end.

Overall, my enjoyment for it died at the first half when I started to try and put 1+1 together. I can forgive. Really. I can forgive maybe one disappointment, two, but Charlotte made me want to play CinemaSins by the end of it.

TL:DR. For someone who is a Key fanboy and considers Clannad as one of the best animes in existence, this one is a sad miss from Key and PA Works. The first half might be underwhelming but at least, it knows where it intends to go. In my opinion, the anime ends at episode ten and I am afraid to say that the cohesiveness of the show also ended there. It can be also noted that Charlotte is a fascinating case of how hype can crush a show towards the end. If you are looking for drama bombs that could blur your logic as you ... are bawling from those poignant scenes, this is not the anime you hoped to look for. Yes, I lowered my grade for this one. Rewatching it left a very sour taste in my mouth.

Now for the full review. Minor spoilers ahead.

Charlotte is probably the most hyped show this season for a good reason. Key is the reason behind Clannad and Kanon 2006 and it also collaborated with PA Works in the hit Angel Beats! last 2010. The two paired again this time yet it is not exactly as great like the last one.

The first episode of Charlotte was probably the one I liked the most from a Key anime. It was as if it peeked some from Kyoto Animation's joke book and implemented it PA Works style. The next two episodes aired and Charlotte was still coherent as we were introduced to other main characters. The jokes were still funny that time and Maeda did a commendable job for introducing us the world the characters have and their circumstances in a span of three episodes.

While not at the level of other Key titles when it comes to artwork, this is one of the best looking animes this season. The character designs are pretty good to the extent that I can differentiate them from other PA Works show. The hues were also masterfully used in this show. Light colors are used during comedic scenes but when something ominous is about to happen, the shades change to very dark colors. Artwork is also consistent with only minor hiccups (some in episode 3 and 4) but not noticeable enough to distract the viewers.

The animation is also good and is mostly well timed with the jokes and crucial events. The background drawings also have good detail which can be said as one of their best.

As regards to background music, it has been shown in the past that Key animes are strong musically and this one is not an exception. The opening song of Charlotte is probably my most favorite this season. Even the story failed as a whole, it's the section where it tries to resuscitate its plot and it nearly worked.

Then episode four came then it became the worst Charlotte episode which showed the dullest baseball match from Key and aired twenty minutes of nothingness. It has been erratic since then. Episode five is a bit better but could've been good if it focused on the interaction between the two main leads and showed some of their circumstances, especially Yuu's. In addition, it suffered from horrible fast pacing given that its preceding episode is a filler. My opinion is that these two episodes should've been merged as one because it did not add anything major in the show. One may argue that these are shown to focus with the character development of the four leads but Takajo and Yusa have only been used for comedic purposes so far and they did not contribute anything with Charlotte's legitimately good episodes. Worse, these fillers caused the show to cram its contents on the last parts, much to the viewer's chagrin and dismay.

Some episodes were considerably better but Key has shown its glaring weaknesses in the past with its execution. Introducing a new character in the former to move the plot forward is a good idea in paper but Charlotte's execution was not good enough to warrant their importance in the series. The latter showed how good Maeda is in portraying depression but its effect was reduced because it has to be hooked with good past episodes for some sense of belief. Also, the problem presented in these episodes was resolved all too quick.

Episode eight is one of the better Charlotte moments but it is still plagued by some questionable execution with its first half. The humor feels off and I sincerely believe that Takajo was reduced to a comic relief that is a hit or miss. However, this episode benefited from some organic drama that somehow forged the main leads' connection further.

What made me really frustrated with it is the sheer greatness of episode 9. That episode alone is enough to change my perception with this show from meh to something that has potential. It's perfectly executed, the plot is evenly paced and it gave answers to the fundamental questions the viewers have in this show. While the tenth episode continues to give us answers in a Charlotte universe, its manner of storytelling honestly killed the excitement I had the last episode. The same can be said with the penultimate episode. Although it's now late to save the show from being mediocre to good at that point, it forged touching character interaction that somehow made me invest with the leads.

The first ten episodes already told an already complete story that is not stellar but at least coherent. Then it suffered from a schizophrenic plot and told the last parts as if it came from its sequel.

While not as bad as episode four, episode eleven is one of the worst Charlotte episodes which really hurt this series more. The show is now suffering from the fillers it had in the past because things are happening in a very awful fast pacing. Shunsuke was reduced to a panicking leader and it dropped a drama bomb that didn't feel anything in my opinion. Its worst flaw is it feels like an episode from a sequel and not as one of the climactic moments of this series.

To add more salt in its flaws, I sincerely believe that Charlotte has failed to incorporate the sense of possibility (or impossibility) when it tried to land for a grand ending. As a result, the finale needs to be patched because of glaring plot holes (seriously, how can a passport got powerful like that) and any poignant moment, was totally off the heads of the viewers now since they got more questions to ask as if we are still in the middle of a single cour series. The ending is also a typical Key ending with Deus Ex Machina being thrown for the sake of happy ending.

The way on how the characters are handled is the worst aspect of the show. Aside from Yuu, all other characters are sorely underdeveloped. They are mostly cheap plot device or they exist for comedic purposes. Even with its good episodes, I suppose that its problem with giving proper role and development with its characters is its biggest flaw. Take Shunsuke and the Zhiend singer for example, they only appeared at the latter part of their respective episodes but they practically stole the show from everyone else who made an appearance beforehand while Yusa and Takajo are relegated for Charlotte's comedic hijinks. The latter two also do not have prominent roles in the show's crucial moments which makes me question their existence for that long as Charlotte is concerned.

In the end, Charlotte is nowhere near the worst but the hype due to the writing staff as well as PA Works' visual prowess crushed it which will be forever remembered as one of the traits of 2015 anime summer season.

Honestly I wasn't planning on watching Charlotte just because the synopsis sounded not so special and the trailer wasn't too interesting either, but I watched it anyway just to see how it went as there was a lot of excitement surrounding it and I had absolutely no idea where it was coming from at the time. I actually did not find out the name attached to the series til I was a few episodes in having not watched any of Jun Maeda's stories. But Charlotte only proved that's it's possible to take a simple superpower story and completely botch it by getting too complicated.

Story:
Kids get ... magic powers which they some how lose when they grow out of adolescence. An organization is formed to protect these kids. A huge organization that is literally in broad daylight in the form of numerous schools in Japan. MC, Otosaka Yuu, uses his ability to advance himself throughout middle school with no one the wiser before being caught by the superpower police, the student council of the special school.

Afterwards, the idea of hiding your abilities is frequently reiterated throughout the start of the series, but the main characters seem to try their very best to make sure that someone can find out. Partially this is for comedic effect, but nonetheless it completely disregards any notion of secrecy the show constantly mentions. At one point the head of the student council tapes someone using his ability and shows it to a normal who can't believe what just happened, but absolutely nothing comes of this. It's video evidence for Christ's sake. Can this really be called caution and secrecy?

The crew goes about collecting ability users and getting them to agree to stop being blatant idiots with their abilities so they won't get caught. This was the perfect time to make thoughtful cases of how kids used there abilities had to stop doing so. But they were all straight forward. The only occasion where someone used there ability somewhat discreetly in public and was forced to stop was MC in episode 1, and there was no somewhat controversial case in which you have sympathy towards someone perhaps needing to use their ability based on circumstance and the student council having to stop them anyways.

The show later takes a absolute turn towards hell. Some ridiculous plot is revealed in which the cast's fear of being caught by researchers comes into play and is revealed in the most convoluted way possible. It felt like I skipped a good 5 episode when I watched that one, that was how hard to plot twisted. Since I could hardly take the show seriously before, I was definitely couldn't be bothered when things actually got serious.

Characters:
Another point that fell flat, mainly because the MC was butchered for the sake of a terrible plot. The first episode was interesting as we got a main character using his ability like an asshole. It would remained interesting had he occasionally took the risk to due continue doing so, yet he does not.

The characterization becomes inexcusable when MC has his little passage of character development after learning to continue living when his life hits the dumps. This is completely ruined when it was inevitably revealed that he could just use a time travel ability to fix it. What the hell? Why did we have to go through all the horse crap? His characterization is literally taking a step backwards in time. Why wasn't the time travel immediately revealed instead of yanking me around first, or better yet, not revealed at all? I'm sure most people are still busy thinking of the "FEELS BRUH" here. At this point I would drop, but I'm more than half way through and I finish at this point.

Otherwise there are no noteworthy characters. MC's sister isn't cute, she's damn annoying. Speed guy is funny, but nothing more than a source of comedic entertainment. Tomori, the student council president, hardly has a set character. She's too much at once, which simultaneously makes her too little with this number of episodes. This again has to do with the flipping from the serious side of the show to not so serious.

Overall:
I won't deny that I was somewhat entertained here but it wasn't in the most positive way. I said earlier that I would've dropped the show, but that wasn't because I was bored with it, but because I was becoming increasing dissatisfied with it's direction. But I wanted to see just how ridiculous it got.

The ending of the show seemed to be going down a solid path, but in the end they should've left the last episode up to viewer imagination. Even so, we got to this path by trudging through troughs of garbage. It would've been best had the show just stuck to whatever antics it wished and tried not to be serious, because it just turned out contrived. This show can be summed up like this.

It sure felt like summer.

I am a big fan of Jun Maeda. While his style of characterization is always a bit direct, and he is a bit preachy with his themes, he's always been careful to try to weave fully-developed people into these fictional worlds of his. He's master at crafting characters that audiences are guaranteed to care about, making their eventual death all the more painful.

For these reasons, as well as the overall premise, Charlotte caught my interest. Unfortunately, as the series rolled on, I started to wonder to myself whether this show was capable of doing anything right as it slides like a derailed locomotive to its ... inevitable doom.

Minor spoilers for the first 3 to 4 episodes ahead:

Story (3/10): One thing I have never recognized Maeda as is a strong storyteller. His characters have always been the thing that keeps his rather simplistic plots together. In his romance dramas (Kanon, Air and Clannad), most of the big emotional plot turns had something to do with fantastical elements that either affected people's memories, or caused big changes in the plot. So, naturally, it would seem this is the first time Maeda has tackled a story that's almost as plot driven as it is character-driven (especially during the second half).

Does it work? No, it doesn't work at all.

It started off with the declaration that powers were temporary. I was disappointed by this reveal greatly because it meant learning to control your powers would ultimately be pointless, as one would just lose them once adolescence ends. It also nips the potential plot point of having to live with such powers for the rest of one's life in the bud. However, unlike my siblings, I was willing to forgive this.

I could not, however, forgive the numerous other issues that cropped up in the series.

First of all, our antagonists are a faceless void, a combination of government-funded research organizations and criminal syndicates. When they discover that these young people have powers, they forcibly take them from their homes and experiment on them to see exactly how strong their powers are. In fact, their experimentation is so torturous, it cause those who undergo it to become nearly lifeless husks of their former selves that are discarded once they cannot work anymore. Despite how controversial this would be if it was made public, not a single person blows the whistle on the fact that all of these teenagers are being taken from their homes and brought into facilities where they are treated very poorly. Maeda never tries to rationalize why these groups would do this instead of offering these people health care, extra cash, or an increased rep. to get them to work for them. Why earn these folks' disdain if you can get loyal servants through more diplomatic means? If they can find these super beings so effectively, why do they have to routinely capture and torture those who show up? Furthermore, where are the filmmakers who take advantage of these abilities and put them on the big screen? Where is the outcry of rage against this horrible mistreatment? Where are the dissentors at all? Why experiment with these super-powered humans until they became unable to function when you can use their present applications to great effect? All you have to do is test their abilities in safer ways, and if it doesn't work, you bring them back to their homes. But these scientists and syndicates never even try to act rational throughout the course of the series.

Unfortunately, Maeda does little to answer any of these complaints. There are no alternatives to the grand scheme hatched by the heroes near the end of the story; there is no non-linearity and there is no alternatives to the plot he's created. Everything feels so railroaded in this story; there was only ONE twist in this show that legitimately made me go "Huh, that's actually pretty clever" and that was the only time I felt that way about this show. Everything that happens in the plot is a result of stupid evil on the part of the villains, and chronic idiocy on the part of our heroes. And although I cannot speak about the latter half of the show in detail, as it is riddled in spoilers, the story consistently finds new ways to remind you of how unintelligent it is about resolving its conflicts.

Art (7/10): After watching Tari Tari, Charlotte was a surprising disappointment for me in this department. The colors feel washed out, and the animation is surprisingly limited at times. There are moments where the latter shines, but for the most part, it's a rather lackluster affair.

Redeeming it, however, are those BEAUTIFUL landscapes P.A Works loves to boast it has. Every layout is rendered with detail and care. Whenever the on-screen action wasn't catching my eye, I'd turn to those amazing backgrounds, and go "Wow, this is what art is capable of . . ."

Finally, the character designs aren't great, but they get the job done. Na-Ga has basically settled on what design he likes for his characters, and they are quite appealing. There isn't a lot of variety, and our lead in particular has a boring design, but I still found them fitting nevertheless.

Sound (6/10): It's rare for me to say that a soundtrack by Key is lacking in quality, but this one really is. None of the scores are memorable at all. I can only recall pieces of a couple of tracks that might have been decent.

The opening, however, has a really strong impact. It's well-animated, and the atmosphere of the music and the vocals sets the tone for this series very well. It's a shame the ED is nowhere near as memorable. There are a couple of insert songs that the show uses. One is particularly effective (despite its awkward English), but the others are rather forgettable.

Character (5/10): As I mentioned before, Maeda's characters are normally pretty good. Here, unfortunately, most of them range from inconsistent to utterly under-developed.

Yuu Otosaka is our main character. He is a sociopathic teenager who uses his ability to posses others to his own advantage. He cheats on tests, sexually harasses his classmates, and beats up people he doesn't like. He even stages a car accident that has to be precisely timed, just so he can earn the affection of the school's madonna. Once his tactics are exposed by Nao and crew, however, he's forced to transfer to a new school and only use his powers when he's instructed to.

So far, this is actually a pretty interesting character. The marketing wasn't lying when they tease him as being the worst Key lead yet.

Unfortunately . . . He shows very little dissatisfaction with his new state of affairs. He's only passively resentful of the fact he's stuck working with these new friends of his and warms up to them much quicker than one would expect. Need I remind you, these people came out of nowhere, and took him out of his self-indulgent lifestyle BY FORCE. Yet, he show little signs of really despising these people. This could have been played for drama as well as the gradual character development Maeda normally employs, but instead, our writer decides to change his demeanor into something much more reminiscent of our archetypal high school protagonist.

Predictably, Yuu eventually becomes a much nicer person overtime. There is some continuity that recognizes his selfish nature from before, but the show is way too fast to turn him into a decent enough guy. However, the biggest problem with his development is one that's more subtle.

Yuu develops an EXTREMELY strong empathy for total strangers by the time we reach the last third of the series that's never really explained. While he has had time to grow close friends with the Student Council and to care for his school at large, he hasn't really been shown a solid reason to care for everyone on the same level. At the core of it, he's still a self-absorbed person who fights and does things either for himself, or the people he cares about. The only reason he willingly gave up his former lifestyle was because his friends (particularly his love interest) wanted him to. Yes, he has a soft spot for his little sister, but that didn't stop him from acting like a total jerk before. Maeda never adequately explains why he becomes such a chivalrous, boy-scout like hero, a plot point that comes up in a rather infamous episode late in the series. This inconsistent characterization was the central reason I never really felt invested in his character.

Meanwhile, Nao Tomori is our only solid character in the class. She keeps a tight leash on our lead to ensure he doesn't misbehave. Of the cast, she's the only one I was truly captivated by. Her range of interests, emotions, and convictions really reach the par for the craftsmanship Maeda normally shows in his characters. Even better, she's rather unique for a Key lead as well. Not normally do we have a lead who defaults to a more blunt, rather abrasive demeanor without coming off as a tsundere. From her character design to her seemingly uncharacteristic (yet fitting) fangirling over her favorite band Zheind, Nao really was a joy to watch, and she MADE the romance between her and Yuu work.

Joujiro Takajou is our next main character, and at the start of the show, he had a lot of potential. Since our lead was established as a rather over-the-top jerk, he's a foil in a much different way. He's polite, friendly, and rather calm about the awkward situations around him. He provides information about different aspects of the characters for our lead in an understandable fashion, and I couldn't wait for Maeda to elaborate more about his character.

Only . . . Maeda never does. Joujiro never gets a chance to become a fleshed out character. After episode 1, his dialogue tends to get drowned out in running gags that are only funny the first couple times, and he only has one especially meaningful conversation that reveals something about his character in episode 5. After the first half, he and fellow lead Yusa/Misa become very unimportant, and that's disappointing for people who were billed as main characters.

Speaking of, Yusa and Misa are two characters in one. One is a giddy, super-friendly pop star, the other a hilariously abrasive older sister. The contrast between the two makes up a number of the gags in the first half of the series. Unfortunately . . . They don't get a lot of adequate development either. Much like Joujiro, her dialogue is overwhelmingly filled with gags that don't really expand on her character at all. They just repeat broad traits about her over and over again. Unlike Takajou, however, she does get an arc that's resolved. It's not as much as I'd like, but her resolution does remind me that Maeda can write convincing characters when he puts his mind to it.

Ayumi is exactly the type of character you'd expect her to be; she's a very childish archetypal "onii-chan" character who's only distinctive quality is how overbearingly happy she is. She never develops a significant character beyond this, however. It's rather depressing when we see a scene from when she was eight years old, and her dialogue sounds more mature than it does now when she's a middle schooler. Hah . . .

There are a decent number of supporting characters and episodic plot characters who encompass the "find a super-powered being, and get him to stop using it" part of the first five episodes' formula. While a couple of these characters get close to being meaningful, none of them ultimately stuck out to me as being effective. There are a bunch of other characters who I can't talk about in detail without spoiling certain aspects of the plot, but the ones who aren't painfully flat never have their potential fully realized, a flaw which seems to be a theme for this series.

Enjoyment (4/10): What really upsets me about Charlotte, however, is I rarely found myself enjoying it.

There were times I'd get excited about the once-a-week plots, only to find out they never lived up to what they promised they would be. I normally like Jun Maeda's sense of humor, but here, it just didn't work for me. There were too many gags that would only work a couple of times that were played ad nauseum with very little variety, and they did little to establish the characters and their interactions beyond what we already know. Worse, the plot didn't have a lot of luster for me because inside I knew many of the people I would see in the plot weren't going to get adequately developed. That feeling of anticipating failure is not a fun way to watch a series, and it really hurt my enjoyment of this show when I knew it wasn't going to meet my expectations in various ways.

Now, every so often, there was an occasional gag that hit the mark, and Nao was a solid character that made the show a tiny bit palatable. But, the ridiculous number of plot-holes, the inconsistent/under-developed nature of the rest of our cast, and the underwhelming artwork made this feel like a show the creators didn't really try their best at.

Then, there's one other thing about this show that really ticked me off; the thematic conclusion of the series. The super powers are treated by the main cast like they are disease. Despite the fact only a couple are activated subconsciously, the consensus seems to be the world would be better without them. Why? Because these uber-powerful evil organizations want to persecute us for them, so it would be best if they go away. That's right; these special gifts that can be used to help people are deconstructed into a sickness that causes trouble for no rational reason. These powers are even used to benefit others a couple of times in the show, but this is seen as not enough to justify them. Why would you take away gifts that can be used to benefit mankind? If someone can find a way to use a limited version of invisibility, or healing, or pyrokinises to help the world, why in the world should they have them taking away before its time? Has Jun Maeda heard anything of compromise? This is a rather important part of the show's theme, and it really ticks me off that the show reaches a thematic conclusion that I'd find wrong even in-universe.

Overall (4/10): I wasn't asking for the next Clannad for this show; all I wanted was a well-executed series that delivered, if nothing else, solid characters that made a questionable plot worked. All the pieces were there, so there is no reason the series should have been much less than that.

Unfortunately, it was. Charlotte fails to deliver in nearly every category, proving itself to be the first work by Maeda/Key Visual Arts I can confidently say is bad.

Warning: if you haven’t seen Charlotte and are planning to for some reason, do not read this review if you don’t want to be spoiled. I will be talking about the plot, which pretty much involves me spoiling the whole thing. Also, if you are a fan of this series and don’t like hearing other people hate on it, stop now, because you won’t like what I have to say about it.

Charlotte. How does one even describe this show. Some love it. Some sing its praises. "Such a great show", "So feelsy", "I cried every time". Hahaha.

Charlotte is a show that fails on every level. ... The characters are awful, the story is pathetic, the pacing is terrible, the plot holes are more prevalent than they are in Sword Art Online. The attempt at feels is laughable and nothing in it makes any sense. It basically took every problem I had with Angel Beats and made them worse. And the worst part is that it didn't have to be this way. The plot had so much potential and it was wasted. I actually considered giving this anime a 10/10 just because it was so hilariously bad that I actually enjoyed watching it, but changed my mind after I started writing.

Plot: 1/10
The plot starts off pretty okay. We have a lelouche-like protagonist (who I swear to god is an expy of him. He even has the geass). The show begins with an interesting premise, interesting power(s), and potential for development of characters and relationships. Unfortunately none of that actually happens. It seems to be a pretty common theme among Jun Maeda’s works that they start out with a strong premise and interesting concepts and then fail because of garbage writing, leaving us with a mess of a story with plot holes and cardboard characters that falls apart the moment you start thinking about what you’re watching.

Let’s talk about what the anime did right first. It had a good premise and interesting ideas.
Okay, now let’s talk about what this anime did wrong. Where do I even begin… The plot starts out with the idea that “we need to save these teenagers from becoming subjects of scientific experiments”. Now, there’s a few problems with this. The first one is scientific ethics. It is actually illegal to do what those scientists were doing. And even if it wasn’t, there are not very many scientists who would actually perform human experiments cruel enough to mentally destroy the subjects. True, there will be a few Dr. Mengeles out there, but not a whole organization of them. And second, if there was an organization like that in real life, the government would shut it down because IT’S ILLEGAL. This is why Elfen Lied is one of the only anime that got this right. Nobody sees the Diclonius as humans, therefore it’s deemed acceptable to experiment on them. And even then, there were people in the organization who didn’t completely agree with what they were doing. Society does not feel this way about people with psychic abilities, at least not in this anime. The only reason they’re in any danger at all is because of this mysterious group of scientists. But let’s say for the sake of argument that it wasn’t illegal and scientists could just do whatever they wanted to people who they believed to have psychic powers. Why is a highschool a safe place for them? In episode 10 it’s made clear that they aren’t safe even if they’re gathered in a group, so why is the highschool any different? What’s stopping this group of scientists from just marching into the school and taking people with psychic abilities? So right off the bat we have a plot that makes no sense. I initially also thought the idea that abilities disappeared after you became an adult was kind of cool until I realized that it was only an excuse as to why all of the characters were in high school. And maybe it was just the art style, but the guy who had the power to fly looked very much not like a highschooler. Maybe that was just me. Anyways moving on.

There really isn’t much to say about this other than “needs more focus”. At least, not until episode 6. Everything up to episode 6 was just boring Psychic Power of the Week that only served to introduce new steriotype- I mean new characters, which is something I’ll talk about later. Something notable was that there was a baseball episode in this one too and, just like the one in Angel Beats, felt completely pointless. Jun Maeda must really like baseball. However, we get to episode 6 and I was just like “WHAT THE FUCK”. This is one of the worst episodes in the anime, not counting the last 4. At first it seems like a fine episode. They have a conflict that actually seems legitimate now. The MC’s sister is in danger. So he keeps her home. But then she sneaks out. This entire scene is ridiculous. First of all, why is there a security guard sitting at a desk in their apartment building. I have only ever seen that in workplaces. Whatever. And why does she need to sneak out? Her brother isn’t there to stop her. Did he say “he security dude, my sister is kinda sick so I need you to keep her from leaving the house”? His sister should be able to just walk out. There is no reason for her to sneak. And of all the ways to sneak out, she used a window in a bathroom. I have never, ever seen a window in a bathroom that you can open. I have been in many bathrooms in many apartments and public spaces. Not once has there been a window that can both open and that is big enough for a person to slide through. His sister manages to make it to school all right, but then is intercepted by this crazy yandere loli bitch. This was a pretty sweet idea and if it was delivered in a better way, I might actually be praising this show. But given the content of the show, it feels like it was just thrown in there because it was an idea that Maeda had. Now comes the part that really, truly made me give up any hope that the show was going to be good. The little sister’s death. This scene, I swear to god, was one of the dumbest and most avoidable deaths in any anime ever. The group of main characters in the student council realize that there’s going to be an ability user at the middle school and that it’s the main character’s sister. They also have reason to believe that she may have gone to school today despite the fact that her brother told her not to. So they decide to hurry by running on foot. But wait, don’t they have somebody who can teleport? He could have gotten them there in just a few seconds. The commotion he caused by crashing into the wall or tree or whatever may have served as a way to distract the crazy Gasai Yuno Loli Bitch, and even if it wasn’t, they still would have gotten there in time to save the sister and hopefully kill Gasai Yuno Jr. But no, they decide to run on foot instead and what do you know, it resulted in the death of the little sister. So much for their plan to help people. This is not the only time in this show where you will be banging your head against the wall. There’s so many problems that could have been solved with super powers and rather than find creative and interesting ways to work those super powers into the conflict and weave a story that integrates them in ways that don’t feel stupid, the story chose to ignore the fact that they existed in order to kill off the little sister for dramatic effect. And it doesn’t even matter because she comes back in episode 9 ANYWAYS. THE ENTIRE EPISODE WAS POINTLESS. This marks the place where the story gets darker and less episodic. It had the opportunity to focus on the little sister’s death and show how it affected the main character and over the course of the story have him slowly come to terms with the fact that she was dead with the support of his friends. But that doesn’t happen. No instead we get more pointless side stories.

Episodes 7 is actually a pretty great episode. That was another thing I noticed about Angel Beats. It had good episodes amidst all the unorganized garbage. Sadly, one good episode is not enough to raise the score above a 1. This episode is devoted to the main character’s reaction to his sister’s death. He basically goes crazy. At first he’s depressed and just eats cup noodles (which I found kind of funny because I was watching Kokkuri-san as well and there’s a lot of cup noodle jokes in that). He brushes off any attempts by people to help him. This, while dangerous and self-destructive, is not unrealistic. I know plenty of people who simply refuse help when it’s offered to them. It’s one of the sad realities of depression. One things that I did find kind of stupid about this episode was that Nao was following him being invisible the whole time. But she can only be invisible to one person right? So then when the one girl came into his house to see if she could cheer him up, why didn’t she notice Nao. To her it would seem like there was just this random white haired girl in the corner of the main character’s room. And what about all those times he was fighting the gangs of people. Did not a single one of them notice this random white haired girl watching? Why did she wait so long to reveal herself to him? It’s almost as if the plot forgot she could only be invisible to one person. Whatever. It’s not like that’s the last time we’re going to see something like that.

Episode 8 is devoted to this completely pointless side story about the main singer of Zhiend. She never shows up again after that episode. The main character learns nothing new, at least nothing that matters. We see her brother finally recognize his sister because reasons. But none of this ever shows up or is mentioned again. The entire episode could have been removed and the anime would actually have been better. Why am I even questioning this anymore…

Episode 9. Oh dear god where do I even begin with this episode. The only episodes that rival this are episodes 6 and 10. The episode starts off with the main character and his sister in some sort of prison. I assume it’s the research facility or something, although it’s never explained. Things are very confusing but that’s fine because I’m sure everything will be cleared up eventually right? Nope. It’s never explained why they are there or how they got there. The plot seemed to just forget his sister was dead. We have the whole conflict of “you need to save your sister because she’s going to be dissected.” Um excuse me, what? Did you just say dissected? If that made no sense to you, don’t worry, you aren’t alone. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY would dissect a human being unless they were descended from Dr. Mengele. There is no way this is legal. Even Elfen Lied didn’t go this far. This anime is basically ignoring any pretenses of continuity and realism and discarding them for cheap dramatic effect that falls apart the moment you turn on your brain and THINK about what YOU ARE WATCHING. If this had been going on for a long time, as it has been implied it has, then the government would have eventually found out and shut them down for inhumane experiments. Human experimentation is already illegal. Even if psychics were seen as nothing more than animals, there are still laws in place to protect animals from cruelty, which seems to be what is happening to the psychics, even the ones who aren’t being dissected. It also is in this episode we learn about the main character’s ability to “steal other people’s powers”. Yes, you read that right. This whole time he has had the ability to steal other people’s powers. But then how did he get his power? I suppose his power could have come with the ability to possess them as well, but he certainly used his power on plenty of other ability users. Why did he literally never notice anything different? He he had stolen so many abilities it would have been simple for him to save his sister. It’s implied that Nao at least already knew about this. Why didn’t she just tell him “here take all our powers and go save your sister. While you’re at it, go destroy that research facility since you’re so powerful”. I feel bad for this series’ ass. It must hurt from all the things that were pulled out of it. So then we learn that the main character has a big brother. A big brother that we heard nothing about before. And he can time travel too, but he can’t do it because he’s blind and needs to see in order for it to work. Um excuse me? Why is this? This makes no sense. Then again, the main character needs to be able to see his victims before he can take them over, so many it’s a genetic thing? But then his little sister doesn’t need to see in order to use her ability. Whatever. We never learn anything about the research facility or why the main character’s sister was still alive. I really think the anime just forgot she was dead.
Episode 10 is basically episode 10 of madoka. There isn’t much to say about it. We switch main characters and he goes back in time over and over in order to save the psychics from despair. The episode itself is pretty stupid because we have all these half-assed this set up. Like Mr. Drip doesn’t actually have to be wet in order to use his power. It’s just a disguise. Because nobody would ever recognize him with his hair in his eyes… Then the big brother is like “I know, I’ll disappear from the lives of my family. We’ll just erase their memories.” But how does he erase their memories? No power of memory alteration was mentioned up until now. The guy who goes in and does it is also never mentioned before.
Episode 12 worked fine as a final episode. All the problems felt resolved although we have this awful romance between the main character and Nao. Just because you have two characters doesn’t mean that they will work together in a romance. This is exactly what happens in Charlotte. Even the characters themselves admit that they don’t work together. I can even remember a scene where the main character watched Nao get beaten by a group of older students and did nothing, despite the fact that he had the power to control them and make them stop. It’s just stupid and cliche. But why is there an episode 13 if episode 12 felt like a such a relatively satisfying ending? Well, your guess is as good as mine. What posessed them to include this episode is beyond me. It would have worked great as a beginning to a second season, but not as a final episode. It felt rushed and pointless. The story was already over. We didn’t need more. Episode 13 is pretty much season two packed into one episode. It was a rushed progression of events that should have had a series all to itself and had no place in this season.


Characters: 1/10
Right up till the very end we are presented with a cast of two dimensional characters who we’re for some reason suppose to care about. We have someone who can teleport, has a creepy obsession with idols, and… that’s about it. He never develops, he never learns from anything. He’s just a cardboard cutout that things happen to. We have Mr. Drip who has to be wet to use his power except no just kidding it’s actually a disguise (like seriously wtf). We have our main character who’s selfish and self-centered only using his power for himself. He’s pretty badass. But then all of that leaves in episode 2 and we never see any of that agian. It’s like the tempted you into it with this pretty sweet MC and cool hook and then went and destroyed any semblance of what could have been good. We have the idol girl, Yusa who’s basically Misa-Misa but with less personality. She can channel the dead, or more specifically, her dead big sister. Her dead big sister has the ability of pyrokinetics. But wait, her dead big sister is at least 20 years old, right? Why does she still have her powers? Whatever. She doesn’t have much more personality than her younger sister. She’s the Action Girl who talks like a man and insults you. It’s been done so many times. Mr. Drip gets almost no personality. His major character trait was “Big Brother’s best friend”, and he doesn’t develop at all. They play his death off as if it were supposed to be super sad and tragic and all I could think was “why on earth am I supposed to care if this guy dies?”. The little sister was cute but could get annoying at times and had no personality other than “genki girl”. Nao is the only marginally interesting character. She has an actual backstory. Sadly, she’s the only good character in the show. I don’t really feel like talking about this anymore, I said most of it in the beginning. The characters are just plain boring, about on par with Sword Art Online characters. In fact, these characters just might be worse.

Art: 8/10
Just like with Angel Beats, the art in this was decent. The character designs were good, although there were times I couldn’t tell some characters apart. Other than that, the general look of things was very pretty. Especially Nao <3

Sound: 6/10
The voice acting was fine, but nothing spectacular. The music was good and fit the scenes and tone very well, but unfortunately wasn’t memorable enough for me to listen to it and say “Ah, that’s Charlotte music”.

tl;dr this is one of the worst anime I have ever seen in my life. Nothing about it was good. The plot was a mess with Deus Ex Machina and asspulls right and left, more holes than swiss cheese, and poor characters that I cared nothing about. There were more plot holes than I care to count and events so ridiculous that I’m pretty sure an episode of scooby doo would have had more credibility. Watch this anime if you wanna have a good laugh, but don’t expect anything special.

Some kids got rid of my review AGAIN but I guess I'll have to say it again : Charlotte started out strong. We were expecting a really strong protagonist from episode 1 and a really good anime, however Charlotte didn't deliver at all.

The plot had as lot of potential but they simply did not exploit it at all.

The art and the sound were good but this is just the minimum, nobody would watch a really beautiful show if it was boring as hell just like Charlotte is.

The character is what makes a good show a good show and this is where Charlotte is REALLY ... BAD. First we've got our potagonist that was supposed to be Lelouch number 2 but instead he literally is a carbon copy of 80 % other protagonists, a weak and meek guy who can't do anything by himself.

Ayumi is the single most unbelievable character I have ever seen. NO LITTLE SISTER WOULD ACT LIKE THAT FOR ANY REASON EVER. Not only that but she was really really annoying.

Nao was a really creepy stalker that followed the MC for no reasons at all or maybe because he was the MC.

As for the rest of the cast I have nothing to say, they are just boring.

The enjoyment was good in three episodes, episode 1.7 and 8. The rest of the time it was torture.

Overall this anime just isn't very good, it could be worse like Nabari no Ou but still it's really really bad, it felt like none of these characters were believable or relatable to, it felt like they weren't humans.

Story: ???/10
Story was all over the place as it jumped around way too much. It's follow-able, but not enjoyable. Emotional moments never had enough build up to warrant an emotional response. It seemed like the show was stuffed with too many on-hand emotional moments to try to hit close to home at least once with any viewer.

Art: 10/10
Some of the best animation and general presentation.

Sound: 7/10
Not too picky on sound but some of the songs weren't that great.

Characters: 6/10
Either the characters remain stagnant and do the same gags consistently, or they undergo an immediate change of heart. Characters felt either ... ripped straight from a common archetype or injected with too many conflicting personality traits.

Enjoyment: 3/10
In short, I was disappointed with what I expected. I had seen short clips from various episodes and wanted to see how they all fit only to find out they did not match up how I thought.

Overall: 3/10
If not for the art quality and the unanswered questions I had each episode, I would have dropped this show very early on.

WARNING: SLIGHT SPOILERS.


When I picked up Charlotte, I didn't know what to expect. It looked promising. The show itself is breathtaking in its art direction and design. The opening and ending themes are beautiful. The animation is great, in my opinion. The main reason why I was hesitant is the writer: Jun Maeda. On the one hand, he wrote Clannad, a show that recieved praise for being really good. On the other hand, he wrote Angel Beats: a show that suffered from having not enough episodes and too many characters to actually fully develop in those episodes. Unfortunately, Charlotte is another Angel Beats. A good ... premise that suffers from horrible execution with a plot so convoluted it can be described as a rollercoaster ride, but not the fun ones with excitement and terror and anxious feelings. This a ride that makes you feel empty and cheated.

The show's main character is a young boy named Yuu/Yu. Yu seems to be a perfect student. Perfect grades, perfect manners and perfect looks, the usual. However, this isn't the case. Yuu/Yu is an ability wielder, his ability being to take over a person's body for 5 seconds until he's thrown back into his own body. Because of this ability, Yuu/Yu has cruised through life easily by using his ability to cheat on tests as well as manipulating others to do certain actions, like taking over a person's body to punch another person (ALSO, BE PREPARED TO SEE THIS ALOT). However, his life changes when he meets a girl named Nao Tomori. Tomori is the Student Body President of a nearby school that secretly houses other ability users like herself and Yu. After catching Yuu in the act and threatening him, Yuu transfers into Tamori's school and joins the Student council, where he helps Tomori stop and gather more ability users to keep them safe. And so begins, Charlotte. Overall the story is a mess. Essentially over Charlotte's 13 episode long season the plot starts off as the poor man's X-Men, with the main characters tracking down others like them in the hopes of either getting them to join the academy or forcing them to stop using their abilities. However, as the story progresses, the plot devovles into the poor man's Stein's Gate, with completely unnecessary time travel that makes the plot really complicated for no reason. And finally, the story devovles into the poor man's Darker than Black, with the main character becoming a black trenchcoat wearing badass going around the world, "saving people. During the last episode. For no reason whatsoever. Honestly the show started out strong, but unfortunately like Angel Beats it tries to fit in too much in too little time causing the show to feel rushed and causing character interactions to feel nonexistent or forced. And even more unfortunate is the shows plot holes. Oh god, the plot holes. Be prepared to say, " What? " and "How did that happen?!!" and "Why didn't he/she/they do that!!?" ALOT.

Overall, Charlotte is just disappointing. Don't bother with it, unless you enjoy seeing terrible shows trying to be edgy and serious.

4/10

If I could describe Charlotte in one phrase it would be: "Wasted Potential".

Charlotte is basically the anime version of the american tv show "Heroes". If you have seen that or that kind of genre you will find probably have some interest.

I really liked the idea of Charlotte. And I think the author did too, but he just wasn't able to execute the events in a way that could truly engage the viewers feelings. It had the potential for more romance, for more sci fi, for more everything but it just didn't deliver.

This is not an original story, it has been done, but thats ... okay when its done right. Sadly it wasn't.

Story: Was alright. it takes a few twists for the better and turns from episodic to main story, but overall its nothing you will awe over.

Characters: I usually find the most interesting in an anime, but the characters in this anime just seemed shallow. No one you will really get "really attached" too. The relationships don't go real deep or grow much either, it's just kinda there.

As for the ideas and reasoning, this is subjective, but... Id say "what a stupid idea, totally unrealistic". But its an anime and i'm suppose to roll with it.

Art: Loved the art, specially the backgrounds, skies, space, stars, graphics in general. All very pretty background material. The animation was average modern quality art though.

sound: Im going to make this the music section. The soundtrack wasn't that special but I did like the band songs. Zhiend!!

Finally, the ending... they had the right idea, but golden time did it 10x better.


Overall: Charlotte wasn't that bad, it did have its moments, but there is no feeling of attachment or lingering emotions of "its ended now, im sad". Its more like a feeling of nostalgia that you've just watched it and only think of certain ideas on the authors ideas + a little time lapse.

Charlotte would have been a cool steins gate / heroes mix, but there was just very little weight behind its punches. I was more disappointed than anything because it had lots of potential. Its a shame really... Everything was just shown in a way that just didn't really make you care too deeply about it. The emphasis wasn't there, and you didn't get a sense of bonding with anyone, nor do they make you feel like backing up the characters goal. Serious parts felt brushed by when everything just returns to normal again within an episode. And the character growth was insignificant. It could have turned epic in so many ways, but failed to do so in all of them. The end also felt really rushed.