Beatless

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.

Back when I started the show as it aired on January 13 I liked Beatless. It had coloured me with joy and anticipation since it's first episode went so well. Compared to the other anime I started at the time, it felt like it could do a lot with it's premise. Tut Tut. It went out like a light for the whole first half and took a while to set itself on track, and unfortunately not the same track as I felt in episode 1, but hey, it had a direction, so that's already better than FranXX.

Having said that, Beatless is far from perfect, ... despite throwing around it's ideology that robots do not make mistakes (and proving that wrong afterwards) it felt unnatural to see such robots (or hiEs if you may). The plot just kept on throwing random stuff at my face, sometimes Lacia is an idol taken straight from Aikatsu (Aikatsu Robot? Well that's redundant) and sometimes she's a fashion idol that makes Arato’s heart throb, not mine. Needless to say, it was inconsistent. It's inconsistent plot was evidenced in the first 7 weeks of it's run- I mean, episodes (will explain later) as it tried this thing or that. It began very badly after it's first episode and couldn't keep up till around episode 8 or 9 where it decided on one direction and stuck to it. How well that went is for us to judge, and my score can tell that enough. It was horrible in its first half.

Aside from these inconsistencies we also had the shocking revelation that the voice acting for a few actors was bad. Namely Shiori and Kengo. They sounded very much fake, or robotic if you love puns as much as I do. Shiori sounded like she was making her debut and failed at it (I will be very surprised if I find out this actually was her debut). But out with that, a huge problem with the anime was it's convenience. Whenever a convenient problem came, Arato conveniently solved it and conveniently everything went according to plan. Not the best thing to do to be honest. Apart from that as mentioned these random irrelevant plot points just came along and made the show feel like a cluttered up mess (trying not to jab at FranXX a second time here). Many times I felt irritated by the show not trying to focus properly on whatever the heck it wanted to be doing but alas, rarely did the rabbit go down it's respectful hole.

Moving away from that we come to another massively irritating part of the anime, the villains. Or should I say whatever the heck they tried to be. Let's start with Ginga. Watarai Ginga had a lot of potential since he was the former partner of the creator of the Lacia-class hiEs and his backstory could have been done better, but unfortunately they screwed up what could have been a great backstory and instead, mowed him down in terms of development during the series. He felt plastic. Not unlike cliched shounen villains who have no purpose other than “to destroy”. It was pretty irritating to be able to predict when Ginga would come or what Ginga would do, and though that ultimately let him to his super-predictable defeat (in the most shounen way possible), that's not an excuse especially when that's who you painted as the real villain. But ok, you do you Beatless.

After that predictable defeat someone had to take his role of villain and they brought out the randomly created and introduced Erika Burrows, which I think is the most Nippon Western name I could come up with, but anyway, apart from showing how cryogenics can be successful (that's a debate for another day) she proved that Beatless could get a worse villain than Ginga. Her actions were unexplained, her motives were set aside (“I want something interesting”? Pls, you're rich, go get a PC and play games or something) and the way the show painted her personality was far from what I could call decent. I already complained about Ginga, so this can explain how bad she is. You might say she's not a villain, but if that's indeed true, then she has absolutely NO use in this show since she'd just become a nobody.

Methode was introduced as that proud hiE who can beat em up and has good taste in sunglasses (trust me, those sunglasses, I need them) but she was pretty much another cliched villain who didn't improve. Although she had the motives, the way she carried it out and her brief appearances altogether shunted the true potential of this Character as well, another character with wasted potential. Now we move from bad villains to bad characters overall, namely our idiot MC, Arato. Arato was your average cherry boy. Apart from predictably falling in love with a robot his actions were as he said it himself, idiotic and uncalculated. In episode 19, they revealed what was the point of this incalculable mess of a character but not in the way you'd hope to call decent yet again.

Then we move over to the other hiEs, Kouka was the one with a hard on Onee-san fetish but in all honesty I was rooting for her. She was literally the only character in the show I liked and as such I lost my mind completely in episode 16. If you like Kouka too, her actions in episode 16 will leave you in a fit of rage, since it was unexplained, random and rage inducing. Snowdrop was shown as that Loli robot (great diversity Diomedea) who eats other robots to gain power and can make humans lose their sanity (?) and do weird stuff which was noticed in the first episode just before Arato was rescued by Lacia. To date, I've yet to understand what she was doing and why but eh, let's move on, the last hiE to cover (Methode was covered above) is Saturnus, describing her will be a lot like Erika Burrows, in that it's a bit of a spoiler, although she has nothing to do in the plot I can freely tell you without spoilers that she has no use at all in the plot. Satisfying the maid fetish fans might have (yet again, great diversity Diomedea), all she did apart from that is go “yes” and “let's do this” and “alright”. Those were 80% of her lines for the whole show. Underused? You betcha.

Now since I've been spewing all the negatives, let's neutralise with something that is both positive and negative, the sound. First the good, the music was great, the synth tracks used made it only the second show to extensively use synth tracks for it's soundtrack and BGM this year and needless to say it was well done. The OP/EDs as well did not disappoint. Now here comes the bad. Too much focus was kept into the music to do great in the other places. Production and budgeting wasn't done well since it was all about making that soundtrack and licensing the music, sadly this killed off the budget to focus on the other parts and so ultimately led to the downfall of the anime. Speaking of production issues, THE DAMN RECAPS. We had around 4-5 recaps for this 24 episode show. Let that seep in. Should a show get this many? I say no. Why did this show have so many recaps? Budgeting? We'll perhaps never know, but point is, I don't want to have a recap episode thrown at my face after waiting for a week. It's frustrating. For those who are binge watching it as well, the episodes are part of the show so it gets really irritating to see the words “Recap Episode” show up in your news feed. It cuts off from the main action badly. Oh wait, that itself is a fault in the show.

It's transition from one scene to another is random and pretty much tiring to watch. I can't tell you how fed up I was of this. And let's not forget the fact that our Lacia-class hiEs were given absolutely NO SENSIBLE EXPLANATION. Apart from very minor dips into their backstories, the hiEs never had their purpose of creation explained apart from one line or the other, lines like “I'm created to help humanity move forward” isn't going to earn an excuse. You need proper explanation which sadly wasn't given. Now it's not all bad though. Apart from being my guilty pleasure of the year it did have good things in it. It's plot improved considerably in it's second half, which although wasn't obviously flawless, it was a nice improvement all the same, as a person who was pissed with the first half even the mediocre-decent bracket it was in felt good to me.

Another important thing is that despite it's recaps, Beatless wasn't a rushed show. I never felt that it was rushed most of the time and the pace was pretty good in itself since I could easily watch the show without getting too much information at once. Another important point is that Beatless tried to do something different with it's main heroine, Lacia. Since this showed it's true colours in the last quarter of the show I won't delve in so deeply but it tried to paint her character in it's complete opposite way she was presented to us ever since the show started had mixed results, surprising because I thought it would fall flat on its face. It was well done since it changed my whole opinion of the past episodes of the show and Lacia herself. Kind of like that FranXX episode 13 which made you go “oh so this is why all this happened”, only that, and please bear with me on this one, it was done much better than FranXX.

If you asked me to compare FranXX and Beatless’ first episodes, FranXX easily beat it but the answer is the complete opposite if you ask me their overall position. Yes. Beatless is better than FranXX. Despite it's crazed amount of stupidity, Beatless had a direction to follow. FranXX didn't. It took Beatless 7 episodes to find its purpose and the direction it should be following, FranXX on the other hand couldn't at all find what it wanted to do, it kept on changing every episode, therefore butchering it's consistency. If I talked to the Yasaal in January about this he'd have laughed me off the room because both shows certainly didn't show their true colours until later, FranXX with it's terrible attempts at relating to teenagers with a horrible consistency and Beatless’ lame cliches coupled with bad villains, constant recaps but a somewhat proper direction (?). They're close, but Beatless edges out FranXX. Why am I comparing the two? It's natural to compare two shows of a similar level.

What started out as a guilty pleasure quickly turned into a show that made me impressed how a lame show can at least attempt at standing up and manage to somewhat achieve that. An E for Effort? You bet, might even give it a D+ if you like, because even though it had a lot of issues, Beatless was in itself a guilty pleasure to watch. Oh, and to satisfy all the fetishes with the hiEs, a responsible older partner (Lacia), the wild girl (Kouka), the proud girl (Methode), the Maid (Saturnus) and the Loli (Snowdrop), Diomedea, you sure have satisfied the fetishes. At this rate I might have a fetish of watching bad shows for guilty pleasure if I don't stop, but to Diomedea’s credit, Good Taste lads. Now we wait for the next few months till those last 4 episodes come out. How unclimactic...

Story: 2.5
Animation: 5.5
Sound: 8 (Dat synth, dat expense on sound, dat BGM, dem OP/EDs)
Character: 1.5 (Solely because of Lacia last quarter and a few characters [Kouka] here and there is this not a zero)
Enjoyment: 4 (guilty pleasure and somewhat decent improvement in the second half compared to first)

Overall: 4.3

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.

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.

First off the music is 10/10 any ways lets get down to the rest.
Beatless pretty much stands as an example saying redjuice can mess things up sadly since I was expecting something along guilty crown however thats not entirely what killed this show since the story does sound very promising but ill go ahead and blame this on the director. Take Mizushima Seiji out of this equation I don’t think you have a peg to hang your hat on, to be honest there were more cringe-worthy moments in the premiere than I can shake a stick at, and not all that much to make ... one believe there’s something worth wading through them to get to. Beatless does have a very nice look to it, but its eerie resemblance to Guilty Crown is certainly unnerving, given what a debacle that show turned out to be. There’s the nut of an interesting premise here, as played out as the exploration of A.I. having souls is. However there’s a lot of formula and really offensive anime cliche, including one of the most unspeakably awful sister characters I’ve ever seen and honestly Ive seen alot. Yuko may be a deal-breaker, that’s how bad she is but the other problem is that the two leads, Arato and Lacia, could not possibly be more of a trope than they are. Doormat schoolboys and Rei Ayanami clones again, seriously? If I’m going to put up with the really annoying otaku nonsense then this show should have been much better and right now I don’t see anything in Beatless with the potential to do it. I've sat quietly for every episode and the latest two recaps were possibly some of the worst possible thing you could throw in a short series.

Story:
Who wrote this shit. Honestly, there are places where our as-expected beta-kun MC steps it up, but other than that - the imouto is the most obnoxious thing in the show. AND the ending is an imouto montage? The premise of the world is interesting enough, it explores like chobits the relationship a robot and human can have - sure, fine, that's fun and all. Lucia best girl bait - fine. But damn is the plot an incoherent mess where the character's motives are simply NOT EXPLAINED. And let's not mention ep 6 RECAP - EPISODE 6.

Art:
Redjuice - yeah I'm a redjuice fan boy, bought ... RedBox, BEATLESS when it first came out, been following since Supercell feat. Miku days.

Sound:
OP - Garnidelia
ED - ClariS
AND YET THE STORY STILL MANAGES TO DISAPPOINT - I wished it would be a Guilty Crown first half+, but no.

Characters:
MC - as expected
Waifu - I'm sorry Touyama Nao you had to sit through this writing.
Imouto - please just stop
MC Friends - not enough development to understand their motives

Enjoyment:
Yeah... No... no more imouto

Overall:
Trainwreck, maybe it'll get better ...

Anyone said Darling in the Franxx, some Tokyo Ghoul season 2, some Boku Hero 3, or some Tada-kun,... but with me Beatless is the best!! With OP1 sung by Garnidelia, most dancing inspiration band, OP2 sung by TrySail, cutest singer of Jpop, ED1 sung by ClariS, my best Jpop couple singer and ED2 sung by Tokyo Performance Band, feel like under an area live, only the appearance of these four performs has made me confirm myself this is the best anime of two season XD
Despite the fact that a lot problems while airing this anime, delay,... bad reviews,... I will still marked this as ... my best anime ever due to the OST

For many years people have thought and dreamt about the future of technology especially when it came to A.I. and robot, and what such things could possibly lead to. It is a topic that has been talked about in almost every medium from live action movies such as “Ex Machina” and “Her”, written stories such as “Dream of Electric Sheep” and “Have No Mouth but Must Scream”, video games like “Neir” and “Detroit”, and even other anime such as “Ghost in The Shell” and “time of eve”. This is by no means a comparison of other works, but rather that the topic has been ... expounded upon multiple times and multiple directions. Now enter this anime that is about finding essence within the material especially the sentient kind, and whether something like that can have a “heart” without having a heart and thus is beatless.

Beatless is set in some sort of future where A.I. and robots have advanced a long way with A.I.s, known as HIE, being a predominant part of society not only as private servants, but also being a part of the workforce as vendors, officers, and even idols. Of course with stories like this there is bound to be some conflict between the humans and the machines mostly with humans seeing them as nothing but tools that need no sympathy. However this is not true to our main protagonist because of kind personality is willing to help HIE’s despite the fact that they are machines. It’s a bit latter that through happenstance that he is saved from an attack by Lacia an HIE who becomes the heroine of the story. Lacia however is a special type of HIe who along with four other have escaped from a facility and are around and about the world. Arato is thus forced into a contract with Lacia in order to save his life and now both their lives are intertwined with one another.

While a decent start, the majority of the story just comes off as uneventful. There are of course components at play during the course of the story such as the introduction of the other advance HIE”s, other side characters, and other factions coming into play, but none of them really have that much weight to the story. They more so pass along the show with a bunch of screen time, but no depth that makes them engaging. What seems as important parts of the story are shafted in by long boring dialogue by uninteresting characters, and then shafted out. There are plot twist and character heel turns that are meant to come off as surprising but no matter how it tries to present it through its visuals and audio, it’s how the narrative unfolded that gives it the lack of gravitas. There’s also conflict that is sprung about in the show, but it’s more for the sake of adding a false sense of drama and tension to the show so that it can be entertaining since it wasn’t able to do that with its story and characters.

Speaking of characters, they are as paperthin and uninteresting as they come. Arato the main protagonist is the typical nice guy protagonist of the story who is strung about the plot through other characters. It wouldn’t be a bad thing if it weren’t for the fact that not much comes from his character than his affection for lacia. There are moments when it seems like his character will grow, but it’s just him continuing being a reactive character than a proactive one. Lacia, well there’s not a lot to say other than she cares about Arato. There’s more than it seems about her, but like i said the way it folds out has little weight to the story and just comes off a uneventful. There’s also Arato’s sister who is just there, and who serves no purpose to the story other than taking up a lot of the screen time. Every Other character and antagonists are also just as one-dimensional and boring as them and just play through the motions of the story, well except maybe one. Kouka is probably the best thing about this show not because of her complexity but rather her personality and the way she’s presented that gives the show a sort of cheesy vibe to it even if it’s short lived because it would better to be cheesy than boring.

Visually the show is baseline mediocrity and some decisions of the show do more harm than good to the show. When it comes to shows like this that there needs to be some way for the viewer to tell the difference between the humans and machines. It could be argued that they look to human to tell the difference, but it has been explicitly told that people can easily spot the difference and shown that people can easily tell and discriminate against them. There seemed to have been a moment that could have given the studio the benefit of the doubt if they used the cliche colorful eye and hair color to differentiate between humans and HIE since viewers have been used to almost everyone having colorful hair so only giving the HIE eccentric characteristic would have been a cheeky way to differentiate them. However that's quickly cast aside with the princess character having eccentric features and HIE having normal features, so there’s no real way to tell. The most they give to telling the difference is close up of lacia eyes and its visible circuitry and kouka with visible body lines. Everything else is just average with the background, animation, and character designs with only as much effort to at least be appealing to someone.

The audio for the show is good for the most part, i guess. The voice acting as a decent as it comes from most anime. Good performances from many of them but not much really stands out, the same for the sound effects. The soundtrack for the show is pretty good and has some variety to it. It doesn’t really elevate much for the scenes or characters (except kouka of course), and are just nice to listen to by themselves.

The production of the show seems to have been an utter mess because during the airing of the show there were about a handful of intermission/recap episodes. not sure how these merit into the quality of the show, but i think they are still worth talking about. There’s honestly no reason that a show should have so many recaps. It’s not like the show was that complex, maybe forgettable, but not complex and if it were their intentions than it comes off as patronizing. Maybe the other episodes weren’t finished and they used them to give them a chance to finish but then it just seems like terrible mismanagement and a lazy way to have something to at least show the audience. Or maybe it’s because they wanted that sweet 24 ep run time even though they had no content to make more. Nonetheless whether this did or didn’t affect the quality of the show it doesn’t change the fact of how bad the actual show is. However for me it does since the show just ends abruptly with the probable announcement of a sequel even though they could have used those 4 recap episodes to at least finish something.

Beatless is just a lightly bad show, not excruciating bad, but boring bad due to how uneventful it all pans out to be. It has a running thematic via a concept known as analog hack of how people give essence to a material but it quickly turns from being insightful to a means for a plot device, and not only that but much of the characters feel like plot devices as well. It’s a show that chose the worst types of tropes and archetypes to work with, and just stagnates on them with no hopes in development. With an ending that really leads to nowhere as it promises to deliver in a later installment although what has been already shown doesn’t bode well for it. There could have been good ideas in this show but it’s bogged down in almost every possible way to serve to some group of low common denominator and by horrendous management.

You ever scroll down your anime list and your eyes catch on to a show that you remember watching but don't remember the story off? Beatless is that kind of show for me.

Boy meets girl story with some action thrown in to spice things up and get the story moving, problem is the story is... dull and boring. I even somehow got this show mixed up in my head with guilty crown once because of how much this show does not stand out for me. What makes a show good is when they can create moments where viewers can feel at awe ... or amazed, moments where the audience gets drawn in and for even a second forget their soundings and get drowned by the art, sound, and characters in front of them.
Beatless, does not do these kinds of things for me personally.

Story - 4/10
Art - 5/10 Mediocre. Visually appealing, animation wise there are no real problems, nothing awful, yet nothing that really stood out.
Sound - 5/10 Same thing with art, nothing crazy going on her.
Character - 3/10 They are outright boring and dull. The side characters did not stand out at all. A story's bad guys are just as important as the hero's yet Beatless fails at creating mindful bad guys that stand out, they just fade away after their arc is over.
Enjoyment and Overall - 4/10 I stuck around till the end, and even afterwards wanted more because of how unsatisfied I was. When I spend time on something I expect to be given something in return. For a anime with such visual pleasing characters and art, they fail to deliver on a exciting story.

This anime for those who need to know let me say this honestly after watching it about 11 out of 24 episodes since the other two is just the intermission series like recap series. Due to that my judgment may change in time.

This anime best point is logic and facts of how the future will be so if you think it's boring then it may be the same kinda boring while listening to the teacher but please care to focus on them cause their way of talk is in the top 10% of smart anime type.
I'm not even lying this kinda logic hit on the ... top 10%. Also, their way of talk can some point reach to university lv so you may end up being like "WTF is going on?"

To be honest I love this show due to that. Also, the MC is base on a real average human so if you think that guy is dumb? Look at yourself and think what will you do in his shoe...
I bet it will end up like him with the best outcome... It will be even dumber if the MC is a normal human then go like "Oh I grant a power of the overlord!!! HAAAAAAAA!!!"
Like wow... That's dumb for an average human in the Sci-Fi world with no fantasy in it...
Remember read the tags closely...
There's no fantasy in the tags so don't expect that too much. If you watch this? Watch it for logic.

Everything all base on "logic"

It seems many people just misunderstand it and watch it for action...
What I said is about how this anime will be.
Like no plot armor or OP mc. Only with the Sci-Fi in a scientific way. Like AI may surpass human and how the AI will react while using the cloud database. Like how the internet is to search for the best result. Their way of talk is just expending it to the university lv. I think you may not understand the meaning of what I'm trying to say.

I just love how this anime using only pure logic. I won't try to say more than this cause it will be spoilers.
In this anime it made you question a lot of things like scientist do with how they explain about AI or technology.

I will say that the story is amazing done 9/10. The art style just goes so well with the story but not good enough cause the action doesn't seem like to be at it's best for the story yet so I will give it 8/10. For the sound? It kinda like a normal but the OP is so good so when I math that it will be 7/10. As for the character will be kinda normal and interesting at the same time so it will be just 7/10 stand for just good. As for my enjoyment? I will say I really enjoy it so much. I just love to question everything so this is the kinda anime I love so 9/10.

When I math all the score the overlay will be 8/10 but like I say my judgment may change if they either mess up or make it better cause this is right now at the middle of the series so things may get interesting...

[Spoiler Warning]

Let me just keep this short and sweet:

The MC's stupidity, shallowness, short-sightedness, failure to understand the ramifications of what his actions are causing, coupled with his wimpy sounding voice actor (VA): Pisses. Me. Off.

You might ask why am I sticking through this ordeal. Reason is simple: The books ended when the MC said to Lacia that he will not join her after learning she evolved to super-intelligent AI status. I'm simply curious on how the ending would turn out to be.

The execution was a pile of hot mess as well. The cinematography, the art of the anime, the sound effects all felt cheap, generic, ... and overused.

But it all boils down to this primary reason on why I'm rating this show a shiny score of "1": This pushover of a MC with his lack of critical thinking skills who enjoys being led around the nose by a pair of android tits, hands down the most pathetic anime MC I've ever witnessed. The studio also couldn't had done a better job of finding the most pathetic sounding VA to couple with this fool.

Concept art was by Redjuice, which was awesome. Main reason why I checked this show out in the first place.

In short:
There are elements of genius in this anime, but it isn't well executed for most people's expectations of anime. It's worth watching and especially so for individuals that like to think about our future as a society and the problems we are going to face.

More:
You watch this anime for it's ideas mostly, anything else surrounding those ideas isn't so good.

The anime is about the dilemma we face concerning our future with robots and AI, it uses unique ideas since most anime like this have one super AI trying to take over, where this one lets AI battle themselves and it makes for a more ... interesting story-backbone overall.

You'll definitely get triggered and ask yourself why they didn't just kill that person, and according to some abilities of the characters this whole story could've ended much sooner.. but i guess we can't have the perfect anime and we can only hope the creators can learn from their mistakes.

The concept of "analog hacking" is an interesting one, i wouldn't really have thought of something like this and would rather have envisioned a physical AI takeover like in most anime, it's thought provoking and i think they designed this anime to share their view, which is why they are adding three recap episodes.

This anime takes itself seriously, "Memeframe" was chosen because there is another definition for the word "meme" that fits the company name more than perfectly.

meme
noun
1.
an element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means.
2.
an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users, often with slight variations.

This anime is so average.

<SHORT REVIEW>
Pros:
1. Upbeat OP song by Garnidelia and great Ed theme from ClariS
2. The Sci-fi aspect of this series is very interesting
3. Soundtracks suit the anime very well and are also very unique

Cons:
1. Character designs are awfully boring. I mean just compare it to the novel, the anime stinks.
... 2. Generic characters with little to no backstories. Why?
3. No main plot after 8 episodes, srsly?
4. Nothing captivating happened for 8 episodes. Each issue is solved with plot convenience.

<LONG REVIEW>
This anime is so average. I first started watching this with the mindset of it being close to Plastic Memories or Guilty Crown, but ohhhhh am I mistaken to a whole new level. This anime is so boring. Each episode I keep on hoping that a plot twist that I don't see coming will occur but no, every episode is plain and pointless.There's even a freakin' catwalk episode for no reason at all. I know if this is a Slice of Life anime then I won't care, but it isn't. It's a story focused anime. So, if its story didn't attract me, the heck should I even care.

The characters are the other worse part of the show. Each character is painfully generic. You can sum up their characteristic in only one word because that's how just much we learnt about them in the span of 8 episodes. No character development. No character drama. They are just there because the story needs them. Don't even get me started with their designs, so bad. I mean just compare it to the novel, the anime is just trash. I can already hear the disappointments from fellow Redjuice fans. Also, I don't usually complain about this but the characters also sound boring, it's like the VA's didn't even care at all. Well I can relate to them, who TF will even care voicing for an anime butchered like this? It won't even sell anyway.

The art is another downfall for this anime. Very bad. I can accept the background art, but it only stopped at that point. It didn't made me go full awe, it's just average. The animation, especially the battle animation, if not with the help of the music, will be pretty freakin' boring. It seems like novices animated them.

Now going to the good part of the series. The music. No complaints at all. Definitely no. It's just that good. I like every soundtrack I listened in the anime, well maybe because other than that there's absolutely nothing to care about. The dub-step music is good. Every piece of music fits the series well. Highly suggest you to at least listen to it. The OP and ED theme sang by professional artists are both very good, but both the OP and ED sequence are just average. Guess this is the part they waste their money on...I am crying for the wasted potential of the series.

Another good point of this series is it's world building. It's interesting and unique. Too bad the creators decided not to give a damn shit in building up the world. Sad case man. I like the Sci-fi aspect of the show and I really really hope they can dive deeper into that.

Well, in conclusion, I freakin' hate this anime, but I'll see it till the end just for the Pros I said just now, but I won't put too much hope into it.

Thanks for reading.

Ultimately, after binge watching this, I have no idea why this show is rated as low as it is. The best way I can describe this show is it's an Anime* Bladerunner that's more optimistic(?) about the future. (Anime* because it has a lot of common tropes that could be tiresome, but I didn't mind.)

If you can get over any of the minor complaints about the visuals or some of characters being annoying, this series is Packed with theories and philosophy. It juggles around complex ideas well, especially the concepts of hypocrisy that society is creating for itself. ... If you love asking the question: what makes a human truly human? or the Turning Test, this is a must see.

My biggest complaint is that they seem to have a few scenes out of order, probably in order to create further mystery/suspense (which normally is handled well, but noticeable in a few instances). Or worse, when they blindside the audience by throwing in a major character interaction without any warning & expecting the viewer to just get it (the first seconds of Episode 3...). But once I could wrap my head around the scene after having to rematch it, it made sense, but it felt like I missed an entire episode.

Same goes for the beginning of episode 10. It feels more like a an abridged joke:
Lacia: Oh crap! Someone else has an identical serial number to me!
Arato: Uhh, that's bad?
L: That's bad.
A: We should do something then!
L: I agree! Here's the pla-
A: No time to explain, LETS GO!
L: RIGHT!
*cue 60's Batman theme song*

In short, if something wasn't explained the first time you hear about it in the show, it will be explained late. (Except for "Diet" I think....) Annoying, but I personally got over it using humor.

Also, as other's have mentioned, the recap episodes are annoying, Especially since episode 11 has some content not in the other episodes. I really hope the reason behind making, (and spending money on,) those recap episodes wasn't an attempt to try and hammer out the deeper ideas in case you missed something previously. Because in that regard, they don't do their job as you miss a lot of the nuance of the show. Alternatively, if these episodes were just to meet a quota, then I would be disappointed that they didn't flesh out more details over more episodes as this show really has a lot to say.

To end my ranting, it can be a lot to take in as there's a lot of dialogue, which I could see being a problem for some people who want more action. Stick with it and I assure you that you won't be disappointed with its depth of ideas, and yes, there plenty of fighting too.

*Might Contain Spoiler*

well this story is something different, sci-fi with romance but in this way never thought this is even possible for human to love android, well of-course its possible if a human can understand a human than what the problem with a android.
i don't know how many people watched this anime and how many of them able to understand it, well its same goes for me, i just like to clear it, i also didn't understood this anime completely but whatever i understood, its my view.

(to use "machine" word, in my view it like im disrespecting the android in this anime and using ... the "he" and "she" instead of "It")

the story was little complicated and was hard to understand until you focus well i think not the story but explanation in anime, well i tried my hard to understand this one bcz this story really took my attention, a romance story between a android Lacia and a human Arato who are trying to change future where human and android (AI) can coexists. And in the last 4 episode in Beatless Final Stage the truth was revealed that it was the predicted future by the Higgins (S-AI), he was trying to save himself from his destruction in future and released the 5 AIs in order to change a future.
well sometime in anime i was lost but i still able to grasp the story :p
well i don't know this kind of future or this kind of world is possible or not but i think its possible to find the happiness in all this things.
and that's what was going on here Arato fall in love with Lacia even if she is android and he supported her. and Lacia the 40th S-AI tried her best to predict the future and others moves in order to make the ideal future they were thinking in order to coexist with humans. and as they move forward things got worse sometime but she still helped Arato, bcz it was the trust they had for each other that helped them to move forward.

in my view i think this anime is good example for humans to coexist with non-human beings if possible.

Story :
well basically i explained everything up there so not much left here to write but still like to point somethings well i said above that story was kind of hard to understand so it might be possible that many people have dropped this anime and the the many who completed it, they might will understand the story :D that what it actually trying to say :D and for that
9/10

Art :
not much to say in this part but they really did some work in art the OP songs scenes are really good and the art in anime is really good, animations were amazing. and not forget to mention the characters all were so good.
10/10

Sounds :
Sound were good, then the background sounds in anime and i also like the background sound of Snowdrop. And as for OP and ED , both OP songs are really good, i liked both OP songs than the ED songs.
10/10

Character :
There are so many characters in this anime but some of them left heavy impression on anime and one of them is Kouka i like this character but it doesnt mean that Lacia is left behind bcz Lacia is damm amazing she is be able to do so many things just by predicting what will happen next, dammm that's the S-AI for sure.
10/10

Enjoyment :
well as for enjoyment, what i enjoyed the most was both OP than, as for anime yes no doubt it was really good but some time i was feeling pissed bcz of his friend Kaidai Ryou who was interfering without knowing properly whats happening and why Lacia was doing those things.
by putting this aside i enjoyed rest of the anime.
9/10

Overall :
as for overall nothing much left to write but they could have made anime in a way in which it could be more understandable easily.
9/10

(i hope i didn't hurt anyone's feeling or their own view on this anime, as i told above this my view for anime i liked this anime mostly bcz of the Last some episodes of this anime.)

Effects of synthesizing human intelligence due to expressing amount of emotions may considered to be just a petty schmuck cardboard detail. Let alone it brings no utterly sense of redeeming plot that tells within poor cringe setting apart it's memoir caricature.

Pretty sure, you won't expect anything usual besides it's turmoil humor other than the premises, Besides every visuals where too shiny more than came from a cheap third-rate crap. Along the details, Stories we're out linear on set of timing, characters we're too one dimensional with also had a self inserted whiny BETA c*ck, who regains her former fapping doll as his personal guest. ... Referring to viewers who's state on early depression, that depicts your inner epitome of life looking how bad it is. Nothing's casually way more worthless than an edgy satirical degenerate that transcends into a detestable c*nt.

There is NO well written gaps as on crossing a boundary between sub interior to deepen as well it keeps a shallow truth that lies on behalf mindsets. A balance we're indeed forced by contradicting uncountable amount of plotholes and fed up horrible pacing that intends to be left through it's current aspects of the whole show.

Oh look? a Former REDJUICE design coming from it's new ver. or indeed the new Guilty Crown mixed up with a lot of overly innuendo on Clockwork Planet. Which is an absolute trainwreck. Feel free to judge this simulator vile concepts cause it's beyond nauseating which includes in the trash.

This review includes the final stage of this series. First of all i'm reluctant to watch this Anime due to its low scores and some bad reviews however because i'm a fan of AI/Machine i still give it a shot because of its synopsis.
Story: The story was all about artificial intelligent, which is great since we all know that the world is moving towards the directions of AI/Machine Learning/Cloud Computing and etc. Now for the story. The story was really unique in my own opinion; while this might not be the first anime to cover about AI, it's the only Anime i personally see ... which was able to tell its purpose to its viewers, of how corrupt humans can be in order to gained power in society. The Anime was also able to sent its message that sooner or later manual labor will cease to exist as machines are now capable of doing the same work as humans and to be more precise machines can finish all its task with given time as long as there's power running on it, not to mention its accuracy at its job. its also raises my awareness to question myself what makes humans differs from machines who doesn't have soul and heart? story is 10/10 for me.
Art: Nothing to say here Lacia is beautiful <3 i totally get why she become so popular in the society. 10/10
Sound: The sound were fantastic...nope its actually amazing. the lyrics of the song were really for this anime specially the opening 2 (truth) where one lyrics is "Humans are just a visible shape". 10/10
Enjoyment: As a person interested in AI/Machine learning i can pretty say that i enjoy this a lot, to the point i feel not contented of how short the episodes this Anime had.
Overall: Beatless was my cup of tea. so nothing to say here anymore 10/10

This is a small review, to make you understand (more or less) if you should watch this particular anime. Rest assured, I will keep out as much stuff from the story as possible, so that I don't ruin the experience. So, let's begin.

I personally would recommend this anime to people who want a story with a small amount of everything - drama, comedy, action, sci-fi, romance and bunch of other things too. It's well evened out and you can feel that there is a lot of time and effort put into this, but there is a problem, that I was having while watching this and ... that is stretching the story too much, so if you want to watch this, note that it's not as emotionally and action packed as some anime. But just because the story stretched out, doesn't mean that it is a bad one, quite frankly I liked the characters a lot and just overall how the was story made. As for the characters, they were very well designed, representing different values and opinions on the world. But their personality wasn't the only thing was good about it, their appearance and tools (you might get the joke if you've watched it) that they use are thought through, as for each of them has a purpose. Though the characters are definitely not perfect, since some of them have flaws in the personality and mindset, making some scenes hard to watch since you know logically no one would do or be not able to understand something. What I'm trying to say is them being stupid beyond the amount of what they should be. Also, I would've liked a bit more romance from the MC and his companion, that would've made it a bit better and more alive. Otherwise don't have any problem, the artstyle in this one was great didn't lack anything to my eye.

So overall with some of the mistakes and flaws I would rate it 8.5/10, since it is a really good story, but I cannot dismiss some of the things in there hence final rating.
It has a really interesting plot and I guess the idea is to question ourselves what is to be human and if we should be scared of the AI (Artificial Inteligence) evolving to a point where it can decide by itself what is good and what is wrong. I personally think that just like we most likely were created and are a type of bioengineered tool, it wouldn't necessarily be much of a difference from them, just our body, but not our mind. But everyone has their own opinions so I digress.

Anyway, I hope this gave you some understanding of the story and I hope you like it!

Beatless tries to do a lot of different things and fails on most of them.

THE GOOD:

Art style is pretty, Lacia the robot heroine is cute and has an interesting multi-layered personality (not 'just a tsundere' or 'just a kuudere' or 'just a genki type' girl). Yuka, MC's sister is fun too and brings some laughs.

THE BAD:

Most of everything else. The anime is basically a story about "can robots love?" "Can AI be considered 'real' ?" "Can robots have souls?". However it also tries to veer into political commentary, this meanwhile trying to make us like the main characters and while all this is happening developing ... a romantic relationship between the MC and a robot girl that gets thrown on his lap.

I think there have been multiple media pieces about the theme of "can robots love? Is it true love or just a program?" before. There are definitely many different anime shows about this theme as well, check Chobits for example.

My point is this series tries to do too much and doesn't manage to really land anything it tries as a result. I think this series was originally a light novel that is being adapted into anime form. As a result the anime is a rushed mess to display the characters and convince people to buy the books to see the better story.

In short there is a lot to dislike and not enough to keep me hooked. Also disappointed they're already giving us a recap episode after merely 5 (five!) episodes. This hints at production issues.

The plot is also all over the place. It's not hard to understand, it's inconsistent with horrible pacing, and it really shows after the first 3 episodes.

THE CONCLUSION - TL DR:

There is better stuff out there about the same themes Beatless tries to explore, key word being try. But if you're really starved for some new show Beatless probably is interesting on it's own to hold your attention, just don't go in expecting much. What is good and works won't be done enough to warrant a recommendation, and what doesn't work will undoubtedly stand out by the end of your viewing experience.

Very underrated anime, the concept behind it is very overlooked by many and the story is actually quite emotional and tear jerking in my opinion. I highly disagree with the low rating this anime overall has. The story is really unique in its own way and doesnt really feel like it is comparable to something other i have seen. The art style is really well done and gives a certain dystopian/realistic feeling to it together with emptiness and also a really interresting emotion that folds with the way the story goes. I think again this anime is wrongly hated and looked down on because of ... some expectations some viewers may have had.