Beatless

With great advancements in technology, mankind has created hIEs, human-like robots that act as public and personal servants for society. Unlike many others, the kind-hearted high school student Arato Endou treats hIEs as equals, but his financial situation keeps him from ever owning one.

However, his normal life is shattered when an ordinary run to the local grocery store goes horribly awry. Viciously assaulted by a hacked hIE, Arato is on the verge of death; but luckily, he is saved by an abnormal hIE carrying a weaponized coffin. Her name is Lacia, one of five highly advanced hIEs that recently escaped the clutches of the mysterious MemeFrame Corporation.

Faced with a hacked car threatening to run them over, Lacia offers Arato a deal: in exchange for saving his life, he must register as her new owner, thus taking full responsibility for her actions. With little choice, he decides to trust this artificial girl and allows her to live in his home. Though Lacia begins to adapt to her new, peaceful lifestyle, she warns the entranced Arato of one thing—she does not have a soul.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Lacia Main

Touyama, Nao Japanese

Endou, Arato Main

Yoshinaga, Takuto Japanese

Kouka Supporting

Tomioka, Misako Japanese

Methode Supporting

Amamiya, Sora Japanese

Kaidai, Shiori Supporting

Satake, Uki Japanese

Endou, Yuka Supporting

Ono, Saki Japanese

Snowdrop Supporting

Igarashi, Hiromi Japanese

Saturnus Supporting

Shimoji, Shino Japanese

Burrows, Erica Supporting

Suyama, Emiri Japanese

Tsutsumi, Mika Supporting

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Kamei, Hiroshi Producer

Aijima, Gouta Producer

Amano, Shouta Producer, Production Manager

Tamura, Junichirou Producer

Reviews

Jun 29, 2018

LegendAqua

Recommended

To be perfectly honest LA was drawn to Beatless because of Nao Touyama...

In a more serious note Beatless along with Toji no Miko had some of the shakiest pacing in animes from 2018, but Beatless didn't suffer from pacing issues...Beatless suffered from constant delays.

The thing is Beatless had ALOT of potential to be a good sci-fi anime though with it's very typical "meet cute" premise at the start with it's main character of Arato Endou voiced by Takuto Yoshinaga meeting the hIE Lacia voiced by the aforementioned Nao Touyama, Beatless was MUCH more than that and really disguising that starting premise into an introspective look ... at technology, AI, human fears of technology and societal pressures to conformity because of it in some sense as well. But these interesting elements takes some time for it to be established but the build up and tension is apt for Beatless to do, so really LA doesn't mind the pacing in this anime, it's the outside forces focuses on Beatless' pacing is something else but that a bit later.

Beatless in many ways takes Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" and both experiments with it's concepts as well as utter breaks it's rules concerning robotics. This considering Beatless' futuristic world where hIE's are mass produced working as either helpers or military might and Arato's world is one of those outlier people thinking that robots are more than just "objects or machines" for people to just use and through Arato's perspective we see Beatless' introspective look at robots are more than humans or not. So LA talked about what Beatless does with it's Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics", but breaking it's rules?...well the rules of Isaac Asimov did entail that the robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, that a robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law and finally a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law and those rule breakers comes from in the form of the special rogue hIE's trying to find masters for their sole purpose of disrupting the social order of robots and humans in the process in which Lacia, Methode, Snowdrop, Saturnus and Kouka are all set out to do, but Lacia, our main heroine has other motives and with the help of Arato tries to achieve this, this is what makes it a VERY interesting anime.

As much as LA said there isn't pacing issues with Beatless, Beatless "seems" like it dwindles screentime on mundane things from time to time and MANY people might seem so maybe just to have some random exposition of the hIE's and how they program like "analog hacking" and the sorts but as much as exposition in this anime is VERY HEAVY and subtle to say the least (it makes sense as this was adapted from a novel thus the heavy exposition), Beatless KNOWS it's world building as it's consistently slow paced nature and exposition heavy it is, Beatless' execution is thorough and self-introspective of Beatess own world. Because of this along with the simple but greatly built up premise Beatless had going for it, all things considered, Beatless' complicated plot DOES make a lot of sense in the grand scheme of things that again Beatless had lots of potential it had going for.

And if your thinking that the entire "meet cute" scenario of Lacia and Arato goes into a serious romantic subplot, well it does, but it really doesn't become the center focus of the anime at all, but more like it grows Lacia and Arato's relationship through all the trials and tribulations they go through to achieve their goal for the good of society. There are lots of shipping moments but their relationship feels strictly in the background unless needed with it's more serious major plotline that both are tied into.

So what made Beatless suffer soo much for Beatless to be a shaky anime and lose it's potential?...the recaps, and fine one recap episode is nothing to get annoyed by, but FOUR delays all spread throughout the early beginnings and halfway through the anime. Beatless was just plagued with delays as these four delays isn't enough, the "final arc" of Beatless has been delayed til September!. LA merely says this as Beatless had ALOT of plot twists and the such and for soo many delays and recaps leads to loss in traction and intensity of the plot it had ramped up, only for recaps to stop us in it's tracks and having to wait 2 weeks and the biggest one being that the final 4 episodes isn't coming out til after another season has passed in the time of writing this review...by then it's momentum died down. Sure maybe Beatless staff wanted to make it's finale perfect and for diomedea to keep it's consistent animation stable because of this and sure you can binge watch it again, but as a person who already knows what was going on, for it to stop when it was getting to great heights then kill off it's momentum is a major buzzkill to say the least. LA WILL watch the final 4 episodes as LA really liked where it was going but in terms of Beatless track record of delays this was something unprecedented in anime for LA that LA NEEDED to talk about.

Does this mean Beatless is unsalvageable because of it's constant delays?, no, as it's concept, strong world building and toying with Isaac Asimov's laws was greatly implemented in the form of anime along with interesting characters and plot doesn't discredit Beatless at all.

So into the element of Beatless itself...

The animation done by diomedea was actually pretty decent, from it's exotic character designs, futuristic yet urban city settings down pat along with HEY Beatless CAN do action scenes....well. LA will give diomedea props that it's animation was decently impressive to say the least with some less janky or derpy battles and though it's battles are mainly laserbeams or explosions, the action at the very least was fluid in some sense that it makes the battles decent animated as a result, but diomedea's strengths would definitely go to it's character designs. Overall Beatless' animation was decent at best and it's battles are a standard "slightly" above diomedea's norm though that isn't saying much.

Voice acting, well if you read LA's first statement of this review and Nao Touyama is in this and though she's mainly monotoned with some spurts of deadpan serious vocals injected into her role as Lacia. LA found Nao Touyama's performance.....ok. Beatless has alot of great voice actors under it's belt, with Sora Amamiya doing a brash vocally-type character as Methode, Kana Hanazawa as the genki type character, Misako Tomoka as Kouka as the rebel, no shit taking hIE and Hiromi Igarashi doing her typical loli-type character with an air of childish malice to her. Takuto Yoshinaga was voiced the main protagonist Arato did fine but really Beatless' voice cast was great all round with some playing against the type while some only going greater as their preferred strong character role. By default though Nao Touyama gets LA's MVP...LA's bias LA knows but....LA doesn't care!

Beatless maybe have been plagued with delays, it's heavy exposition got people out of it and away from the anime but for what Beatless had going for it, from Beatless' interesting concept of robots and AI and the talk of sentience with all this to it's interesting characters, decent animation from diomedea and a rather impressive voice cast, LA thinks Beatless DID deserve some backlash it got especially with it's delays but saying that Beatless is a terrible anime just because of that does not for LA, it's merely something of an excuse to make the anime look worse than it truly is and Beatless is much more than you realize in the long run. Beatless is introspective, it's detailed, it's many plot twists keeps you interested, it's character motivations and plans are interesting, it's world that Beatless built is interesting and it's basic premise turns that on it's head into something revolutionary for Beatless in terms of plot and it's characters.

Look as much as LA points out the faults in Beatless and trust LA, LA got angry at Beatless from time to time too, but Beatless is still a good anime about robots and what it entails of sentience and humans fit into all this, it's just plagued with it's delays and being exposition heavy.

LA will be waiting to see if the final arc of Beatless, Beatless: Final Stage and hope for a climactic finale with Lacia and Arato trying to reach their goal, but until then...LA will give Beatless a battered but hard earned "decent anime" status.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Sep 29, 2018

erparom

Mixed Feelings

Funny

Beatless is not about robo bitches (or mechanical waifus) but about Brainless studio, writers and artists.

If you love tasteless fan service with lame characters and unbearable plot, this crap is for you.

But I won't give a 0/10 but instead aq 5/10 because this anime helped me learn a lot:
1-Even the guy that directed the first FMA can make absolute CRAP
2-Diomedea is CANCER
3-An anime can be dropped when the plot gets interesting (because it is plain retard)

But it was not meant to be bad. Even if not original, and even if the execution failed miserably, the story is compelling, should have been at least enjoyable, but ... it was not.

What went wrong? Lazy 2nd key and in between animation, a lot of argument mistakes of continuity and plot writing, very poor script and very lame characters.

I think, this could have been a very good seasonal ecchi anime, but even if it does not take itself seriously, you can make a very decent job with at least very smart writing.

For example, take Sora no Otoshimono. Is not a "good" anime, it does not take itself seriously (except when battle wise as this should have been), but is very enjoyable, is funny and characters even if cliche are very nice. In this, Beatless failed miserably. Bad Sci-fi, terrible argument and not even enjoyable characters.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jun 29, 2018

TakaCode

Not Recommended

What is a recap episode?

Recap episodes are the stuff that the creators put in because they either don’t have enough material to adapt further arcs of set anime or they want to have newcomers who are interested of watching set series to catch up. Unless you are a long-running anime that has 50+ episodes I find the recap episodes to be pointless and lazy because honestly why would you watch 20-minute clip show that summaries a couple of story arcs that very often leave out important stuff when you can easily go watch actual episodes themselves.

What does this have to do with Beatless?

Beatless is ... a perfect example of how to not run a producing schedule. The reason I'm saying this right out of the gate because if Beatless was done by any other studio it would have been function-able but because this show was done by Studio Diomedea who somehow have a worst record than fucking A1 Pictures this show was destined for failure from to become a massive failure. The show itself was poorly written crap from the very beginning and it’s only made worse thanks to shitty producing schedule with its horrid intermission episodes which by the way are RECAPS!!!


One-hundred years into the future. A world in which society is mostly operated by humanoid robots called hIE. With the introduction of an ultra-advanced AI that surpasses human intelligence, beings that mankind is yet to fully comprehend made from materials far too advanced for human technology begin coming into being. Lacia, an hIE equipped with a black coffin-shaped device, is one of these. In boy-meets-girl fashion, 17-year-old Arato Endo has a fateful encounter with the artificial Lacia. For what purpose were these artificial beings created? Amid questions regarding the coexistence of these artificial beings and humans, a 17-year-old boy makes a decision…

To say that Beatless story is a mess is an understatement this is one of the worse executed and produced plots I ever heard the displeasure of watching.
For starters, the story is very dull and boring for the most part. I didn’t care about many events in the story because I was bored with them and I thought they were poorly executed. It doesn’t help that many of the story elements in Beatless were done better in other anime before this.

The pacing in the show is terrible as lots of the events in the just seem to drag out way longer than they should make some of the actions scenes very boring to watch. Along with the shows horrible pacing, the direction is just abysmal. It’s Darling in the Franxx levels of bad where it rather wastes it’s time on tropey shit instead of establishing its own world and plot correctly.
It doesn’t help that the fact that this show tries to be more big and complex than it actually is having the show takes itself too seriously with its themes, symbolism and heavy dialogue but it utterly fails thanks to this show horrible pacing, tone shifts and directing the show becomes very pretentious as a result.

The worst thing about this show that single-handy killed the show is the frequent intermission/recap episodes. For an anime that has 24 episodes this show has so many recap episodes it’s insane.
These are recap episodes alone killed the pacing and narrative as it only makes the show even more insufferable to watch. The moment I saw intermission 4 pop up 2 episodes after intermission 3 I wanted to drop dead because how can a show have 2 episodes of barely anything happening and decided to have another intermission based on these episodes.
The only good thing about the story is that it can be pretty funny at times other than that it’s a mess that is filled with so problems.

Now if you thought the story was awful you haven’t seen anything yet because the characters are somehow even worse.

Our main protagonist Arota is your typical naive character that we all seen before. He barely has any motivation at all and he just spends most of the series whining and being an incompetent idiot for the sake of it.

Laica is an empty husk of a female lead. She barely any personality at all other to just serve Arota and be waifu bait for the audience.

The rest of the characters are just walking cliches like the Arota’s annoying sister little Yuka who is basically a walking Imouto, Ryo the edgy smart childhood friend character to the spunky hot-headed Kouka who despite being the most entertaining character in the series is still a very below average character at best.
In short, the chararters in Beatless are just as bad as the story.

Moving to the production side of things Beatless are at best very underwhelming especially for an anime from 2018
For starters, the character designs of the anime are a big downgrade to the light novel where certain characters of the show are missing a lot of detail and polish. I know it’s not fair to compare the character designs from different mediums with each other but for this case, I couldn’t because the characters designs are a complete dumpster fire compare to the light novel counterparts. The best example of this was our protagonist Aroto where in the anime he looks like a typical nice boy while in light novel art he looks like more a serious threat.

It also doesn’t help the fact the character designs constancy goes off-model especially in the fights where the art constantly, for the most part, is at an all-time low.
The background scenery is terrible and uninspiring to look at.
The animation is below average at best as it has a lot of still frames, poor fight choreography at times and choppy movement.


If there’s is any silver lining for Beatless that saved it from being a total crapfeash it would be the soundtrack
The soundtrack is just a joy to listen as it perfectly captures the sci-fi setting well with its amazing use of dubstep and futuristic tracks that were played in this anime.
Opening 1 Error by GARNiDELia is a great and catchy opening theme that fits well with the first half of the series.
Opening 2 Truth.” by TrySail is amazing opening that I adore to death and it’s by far the best thing to come out from this anime.

Like with the openings themes both ending themes are great and catchy especially the first one Primalove” by ClariS which is my favourite ending theme of 2018.
The Seiyuus did a decent job with the roles that they were given and the overall acting is above average.
At the anime of this review, Beatless hasn’t got an English Dub but then again why would anyone even bother picking up this series since the series was a failure.

So there you have it Beatless is a horrendous anime.
It is likely one of the worst produced and scripted anime I have seen.
Other than the soundtrack and the kick-ass opening and ending themes there was not a single thing that I enjoyed about this show from it’s poorly executed plot, intermissions/recap episodes up the ass, shitty production values, stupid charterers and atrocious writing.
However, despite Beatless ended up being a train-wreck I will give the show this. Least you're not Darling In the Franxx.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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	Poll: Beatless Episode 20 Discussion Stark700 - Aug 8, 2018	13 replies	by yveltalkyogre »» Apr 13, 2:32 PM
	Why does this have such a low average score? ( 1 2 ) KiraShitpostKage - Jan 28, 2018	79 replies	by Mattenan »» Dec 30, 2024 11:46 PM
	Poll: Beatless Episode 16 Discussion Stark700 - May 25, 2018	40 replies	by DolFunDolphinVT »» Aug 30, 2024 1:48 AM
	Poll: Beatless Episode 15 Discussion Stark700 - May 18, 2018	40 replies	by DolFunDolphinVT »» Aug 30, 2024 1:47 AM
	Poll: Beatless Episode 14 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - May 4, 2018	68 replies	by DolFunDolphinVT »» Aug 30, 2024 1:46 AM