Beck

Beck tells the story of a young high school student who picks up a guitar and begins a journey of growth, music, and friendship within a rock band.

While you don't see many serious depictions of rock bands in anime, the story and characters somehow don't really stand out. Koyuki, in particular is as bland as can be, but many of the other characters such as Ryusuke and Maho really don't have much to their personalities either. The story fits the characters and plods along in no real hurry to make a point. Many episodes felt like they ended simply because they were ... out of broadcast time.

The two most important elements of this show, though are the art and, of course, the music.

I have never seen as bipolar a series where animation is concerned than Beck. For the vast majority of each episode, the animation is very low quality. Characters have almost no features to them, backgrounds are uninspired and dead, and occasionally, you'll see atrocities like characters with webbed fingers (didn't bother to draw the lines in the hand). One the other hand, the producers of this show clearly threw all of their money into the animation of the musical scenes, which are incredible. Incredibly fine detail is used when showing the most technical elements of their musical performance. The way fingers move while picking a guitar is so convincing, you might believe that it was rotoscoped (I do not believe this is the case). The only problem, is that this pristine animation tends to last only a few seconds at best. A little more balance would have made the show much more tolerable to watch.

As you might expect, the real highlight of this show is the music, which really shines, though they repeat songs quite frequently, and their original productions are rather uninspired. The music is not the usual jPop fare, but a refreshing mix of punk rock and hip-hop. What is most intriguing is that the music actually improves over the course of the series. The last four episodes have a wide variety and display polished songs that have developed over the course of the series. Without a doubt this is the strongest point of the series

While the beginning of this show seems very promising, it ultimately fails to deliver anything above mediocrity. The generally poor animation combined with unengaging story and characters creates a series that is burdensome but punctuated with the occasional impressive music performance. Anyone would be no worse for watching this, but it is difficult to imagine that people other than ardent music fans would love this.

I was recommended this music-centric anime from a youtuber who just couldn't stop raving about it. I guess it just goes to show you that people can get very different levels of enjoyment out of the same anime.

I was not moved by Beck in the slightest. For me, the most memorable part of this anime is the opening song. The tune was hella catchy, for me at least, and was the most enjoyable part of the anime.

I did give this anime a fair shot and watched it to completion, but there was never any "hook" for me to grab onto throughout the ... series. The plot was uninspiring and at times, just unbelievable.

The artwork is average. The characters stoic. The music was bad other than the opening theme.

I did my best to like this anime, but in the end, was glad that it was finally over after watching the final episode.

Sorry for the other folks who enjoyed this anime, but I just never got into it at all.

Beck was an up-and-down rollercoaster for me. Some moments feel like a 9 out of 10 and some moments feel like a 5 out of 10.

The Good:
The premise is great.
The concept is awesome; especially if you love music.
The basis for most characters is decent.
There are great emotional moments.
It expresses social problems like bullying as well as social issues very well.

The Not So Good:
... The execution is not so great though.
The pacing is pretty bad.
The transitions are pretty weird, the way events jump from one thing to the other is poorly done and there are a lot of things in here that just don't need to be in the show. I had the same problem with the manga but it was more unbearable with the show.
This is one is more of a problem with the author than the show but my god, his female characters are so terribly written. They're either one-dimensional with no personality and sometimes they get flirty with other male characters in a very vague way, or they're straight-up unlikeable.
The romance was also done terribly. I didn't like it in the manga but I disliked it way more in the show.
Also, the dub is way better than the Japanese. It has a lot of broken English and it puts you off. Especially when they're having a very nice emotional moment and they use broken English. It takes you out of the flow of the show constantly.

This is an anime that has not aged very well. Some people love Beck. I do enjoy the manga a lot more. But for the anime, I think I'm right in the middle in terms of enjoyment.

Beck is a slice-of-life/romance/motivational show about everyday teenagers aiming to become *random shounen lead pops up* THE BEST MUSIC BAND IN THE WORLD! Now before I start I have to clarify how slice-of-life is for me the dullest genre imaginable. What saves face to it is when they try to mix it with something else besides that. Romance is the easy way most of them head for. We can’t have a series about everyday people who can’t have love problems, right? And since this is an anime, we just can’t have a show without an indecisive lead or the world will come to an end. ... Ok, we might as well throw in some youths who want to accomplish something great and awesome that will inspire the audience to cheer for them. All that sound just fine and we can have something good if all go well.

… And guess what, they didn’t. It is a fine romcom of a show if this is all you ask for, which is at best a completely average anime for me. Teen flicks are not exactly the brightest or most well made shows you see. Reasons?

The production values are messy. There is a huge quality gap in several episodes and the result just makes you think they were running out of money half the time. It is also very confusing to see them looking cool in one scene and like stupid caricatures in another. Something which does not count as artistic choice but plain laziness. This is not the usual treatment we get from Studio Madhouse.

The songs are not as awesome as they are supposed to be. For a series about a band who claims to aim for the top and doing pretty well in terms of popularity as it goes on, the songs don’t exactly excuse it. They don’t sound as amazing as they are supposed to. In fact, most sound pretty average so you can only think they are popular only because people with no taste cheer for them.

Their English pronunciation plain sucks! They aim to be the best in America when they can’t even talk properly. Maho in particular is supposed to know it perfectly and she obviously can’t speak English. I know that the songs and the language are “supposed” to sound great and that the viewer is “supposed” to suspend his disbelief long enough to accept a series were the band is a lot better than it sounds. But come on, it’s not like we couldn’t get a far better soundtrack or proper English-speaking voice actors. This again feels lazy.

The romance part is completely useless. Seriously, it is there but it never seems to matter. EVER! This is the story of some teens who want to be the best in the world and not to score with some girl (who conveniently is in the same band). In fact, they can get all the romance they want from groupies as soon as they succeed. Instead of that we get this ridiculous romantic triangle of sorts which couldn’t be more juvenile than that.

The main lead is too indecisive. Seriously, Yukio is shown to be antisocial and reluctant most of the time and yet we are supposed to think he wants to show his worth and cheer for him as he struggles for acceptance. Sorry but I can’t suspend my disbelief that much. People who want to take over the world (at least the musical one) are supposed to be cocky sons of bitches and not these frail chicken.

The story is very simple and is even left incomplete. Well, there is no need to further analyze that; simple stories are easy to get over and incomplete ones are extremely annoying. Yes, you can still read the continuation in the manga but this is a review of the anime.

The anime is not very motivational. Seriously, it ain’t. If its goal is to make you cheer some simple guys who aim for the top, then the whole thing is done lazily. Just compare to the far greater response other music band anime had. Detroit Metal City, Suzumiya Haruhi, K-on, these tuned thousands to either start their own band or at least scream of joy every time they heard one of their songs. Beck didn’t have this effect because the songs weren’t that good and the protagonist was neither a death metal king of demons nor a cute loli. HE WAS A CHICKEN!

The anime is not realistic. In case you wonder “It’s anime, of course and it isn’t” I just have to mention this because most people I know who like it is exactly because they consider it realistic. The above anime I mentioned are to them too unreal but Beck is down to earth for having average everyday people. That is so sweet; too bad they are drawn lazily half the time, their songs are not that great, their English is terrible, the romance is out of place, the lead is a chicken, the story is incomplete, and I don’t dance like an idiot every time I hear them perform. And for Pete’s sake, WHAT DOES A MOTIVATIONAL SHOW HAVE TO DO WITH REALISM? They aim to take over the music world; does that sound like something everyday normal people would do? Normal people just want a job, money, sex, and/or lots of time wasted on their hobbies. Jeez, get your facts straight already…

VERDICT: MEEEEH. I have seen far better and I sure don’t feel like ruining my English in order to become famous.

And now for some excused scorings.
ART SECTION: 5/10
General Artwork 1/2 (seems good but it’s messy in too many places)
Character Figures 1/2 (generic)
Backgrounds 1/2 (basic)
Animation 1/2 (basic)
Visual Effects 1/2 (basic)

SOUND SECTION: 6/10
Voice Acting 2/3 (corny but fitting with the feeling of the series)
Music Themes 2/4 (average)
Sound Effects 2/3 (ok I guess)

STORY SECTION: 4/10
Premise 1/2 (typical)
Pacing 1/2 (slow)
Complexity 1/2 (not much)
Plausibility 1/2 (so-so)
Conclusion 0/2 (left incomplete)

CHARACTER SECTION: 6/10
Presence 1/2 (generic)
Personality 2/2 (rather cheesy but well founded)
Backdrop 1/2 (generic and simplistic but it’s there)
Development 1/2 (overblown but it’s there)
Catharsis 1/2 (overblown but it’s there)

VALUE SECTION: 6/10
Historical Value 2/3 (rather famous)
Rewatchability 1/3 (low because of too little plot)
Memorability 2/4 (kinda memorable for its presentation but that is all)

ENJOYMENT SECTION: 3/10
Dull and hardly motivational as it claims.

VERDICT: 5/10

You open up the door with your negative aura
You say future's murky indeed...
I'm sick of hearing your gripeeeeeeee

Beck- The incomplete show

Beck, at the time I started watching this series I was craving for a music related show. I came across Beck, a rock infused anime. When I first heard about it, I was eager to get started, especially with the rave reviews it got on MAL. The aftermath was..... well, I won't say I was satisfied nor extremely let down. The first half of the show was hell, absolutely trash, everything was off. Character-wise, story-wise, voice acting, and absurd actions the character was doing. Straight ... off the bat from the first episode, I can already tell this was a under-budgeted anime. The art.... is bad, I was stunned to find out that it was by Madhouse, I really expected more from them, especially with shows like FLCL that came out earlier than this. However this is somewhat wrong statement as FLCL run time was way shorter and place quality over quantity. But this is to say I was expecting decent art but was left with utter trash instead. Lastly, one more thing I want to point out before I go into the scores is that the pacing so painfully slow and off. Like majority when I was watching I felt the run time was purposefully dragged and it is so obvious, scenes are extra long, awkward silence, pointless plots, etc. However, I must say the next half of the show did somewhat redeemed itself.

-SCORES-

Character- 7/10: Out of all the characters, I would say that I liked them more than average of them, some being my absolute favorite, one being SAKU. Damn Saku was such a breath of fresh air, from the first scene he showed up he was such a great and strong character. Another being Saito-san, at first glance I was like ' WTF is this character and why is he so badly written'. Eventually after watching long enough Saito-san is such a awesome and funny character, he's strange alright but I feel he is something that attracts me to the show. Honestly there is not too much about the characters, I just wished some of them are more interesting, the only thing that is making them bad is the writing, but that can't be helped in this section

Art- 4/10: Just bad, characters are off, makes me uncomfortable, especially the eyelashes on Yukio. The bad ground art is bland, tons of scenes reused. This just goes to show how under produced the anime is which disappoints me greatly. At times when the scene is trying to be a romantic scene with a bit of off screen nudity, I don't know what am I suppose to feel when seeing how bad the character are design are. I can definitely see the use of rotoscope animation in the playing of the guitar and so on, some scenes work some doesn't. After watching the show, you should get what I mean

Writing- 6/10: Not much to say as to it's kinda bland. One thing that annoys me the most is that the show thinks that the watcher (such as myself) is with the writers. Like many times the show gives us a head but no tail and a tail but no head to a plot. There are many scenes where it just 'happens' and we are expected to get what the writers intends are. Also there those 'just nice' moments where this character meet this character at the right/ worst time which puts me off. Some of the joke gets me while others don't, I say it's a very 'everywhere' kind of writing where at times the writing works and those that don't. I am glad that the ending wasn't all perfect but what was Rysuusuke trying to do at the end? The show didn't really present that well.

Sound-8/10: Now this is where I praise the show for, its taste in music. The show does presents us with nice songs and awesome alternate rock groves. However, I just wished they got a better english voice actor for Yukio, like when I first heard him I was absolutely in shock by how bad it was. After a while though I got numb to this and accepted it. Hearing it's name and what it was about I had the impression the music was going to be similar to Beck Hansen's music from the title. There are some but overall it's a different thing. I just wished that they actually tried more J-rock or something local to Japan cause I do like J-rock. Lastly, they seriously milked Brainstorm too much, it's nice for the first few listens but repeatedly it ain't working.

Overall, I just have to say this show presents a lot of extremes, many pretty good things and terrible bad things, both of which sort of even each other out. I just really wished the pacing was much faster and there was no issue in production behind the show, cause the result is this and it is a shame. I really wished this was made well but I guess it is what it is. I don't agree with other reviewers giving it a 9 or a 8 but I must say I have a soft spot for this show. Probably due to the long run time and the development through Yukio's life.

Decent to strong 5 on this one.

Well... Welcome to: Shinji gets a band anime.


And just as sorta in Evangelion, when all it comes to "-Shinji just RIDE the fucking Robot!" here all comes to "-Yukio just RIDE The fucking Maho!" thing over and over and all over again...



And this is all 'bout boys, just an screwed romantic tension based anime which is music themed backgrounded.

I dont believe it has even been delivered well in this respect, this love tention is always sustained with lack of dialogue and interaction, and thus overall it feels as a non-connected escenes one after another, sometimes rushed furiously, sometimes feels as characters that have ... nothing to do.



And well, if are not so convinced and you already saw this and, amazingly, if you think about it, this part is so well handed as the part which suggest that a preposterous sore loser can master music, composition, vocals, and guitar, in two years, not gonna happend. Anything else?

The art is fine shit but the animation suffers a serious unsteadiness, crumpling over the end as the rest of the show.





I do believe it had a strong start and... all went to shit at some point.

Lacking in writing and delivery, but, considering all that is out there nowadays, i do believe overall it performs average.

If you liked i strongly recommend you Deardrops visual novel, same shit, better in every respect.

This is the biggest mixed bag of a show I have seen in a while, the English dub is just awful, the main character spends the whole show being a weak piece of shit who get brow beat into doing practically everything he does in the show until the last few episodes when his character flips for no apparent reason and the animation is lazy at best and infuriating at worst. However, the songs are all pretty good, some of the supporting cast are so cool I found myself wishing I was watching a show centered around one of them instead of what this actually ... is and most of the character designs are pretty good. I have a hard time giving it a score that goes either way and I probably wouldn't recommend this to anyone especially when I've seen a few other things about a band's journey that do the concept way better, but I mean, if you were already interested in this for some reason and the points against this show I have didn't put you off then go ahead I guess.

Mongolian Chop Squad (otherwise known as BECK is a 2004 music anime about coming of age as well as... no, it's just a coming of age story

Well let's see if it works or doesn't

Koyuki (Yukio Tanaka) is an average run of the mill teenage boy who has no dreams or aspirations and doesn't know what to do with his life that is until a childhood friend reinserts herself into his life and asks him to hang out with her. Because of this, he runs into a dog (Beck) and his owner Ryusuke who slowly brings him into a life of music by giving him one ... of his old guitars which from then on consumes Koyuki's life.

From here Koyuki meets Maho who Koyuki learns is a great singer whom she later learns that Koyuki is really good himself and the series largely revolves around these three characters and Koyuki struggling to develop a relationship and play in a band.

My initial thoughts about the animation quality and style weren't great but around the midway point I either got used to it or it got better, even towards the last few episodes it really picked up and felt like a really fun show but keep this in mind for later.

The sound design in this anime isn't as great as what I've seen from more recent music anime but almost like the performances the show is trying to display everything feels raw and has a lot of passion behind it, the people behind this seemed like they really wanted to make it.

Finally, I want to touch on the pacing, it's slow and there's no reason for me to not be blunt about that, but it picks up a little around the 1 4th episode almost as if it got a breath of fresh air and finally the last 4 episodes are definitely the highlight of this series, I should also mention that character dialogue can be stilted and uninteresting.

Despite all this underneath it all I feel like BECK is a passion project based on something that has a quality to it that no other anime I've watched has quite captured, it's not for everyone but if you can enjoy slower anime particularly something like Cowboy Bebop then I recommend BECK, it's a shameless dive into music culture and really flirts and respects all walks of music and life.

Imma give BECK a 6/10, you should get around to watching it if you have a slow week or two.

ok so here’s the deal: it’s starts of as a great show. But it gets boring and repetitive so quickly. I cringe at the English mixed with Japanese it just annoys me… the animation is bad and half way thru the show just gets boring😭 but I might pick it up again because the show started off sooooo well ! Furthermore the swimming teacher was very creepy. Typical shounen anime I guess but it gave me the ick quite a few times… I didn’t hate it at the start but as I said the further I got the worse the show became

What is this anime?
Boy sings good. Joins band. Learns guitar along the way. Not the stereotypical "hey lets make a song"... "yay! we made a song"... "wow we are famous"... " yay friendship!" Delves into relationships and struggles of bandmates with a little romance in there.

Did I enjoy it?
The series seemed to have flown by now that I've finished it. But the story somehow felt slow and dragged on as I was watching (I even dropped it for a while). Despite that, it was an enjoyable story; especially if you have a love for music. I watched the dub of this series (before I would ... compare them to the subs and see which is better) and its a love/hate relationship. The MC's voice is annoying... until he sings... then he's actually pretty good and it fits the series well. Not one that I would rewatch but still deserves a respectable score.