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Ok so I am gonna start my Charlotte review, but where to start? Oh I know, lets start with using a generalization of the series and we'll go from there.

Charlotte was a series about people possessing powers and through those powers they interacted with the world and people around them to accomplish a goal. For Yuu early on, that goal was to cheat and shape the world around him to his desires. That of course we saw fell flat on his face when Nao and the student council at the Xavier Institu-, I mean at some random school where people with abilities were safe from ... the mean and evil scientists... By the way, contradiction! Will discuss it later on. Blah blah blah you get the point thats the intro to the story and for the most part, it accomplished what it wanted to do with introducing the characters of the story. Little did the story know that it was gonna take such a wild and absurd twist that Kishimoto would bow his head to.

One of the things that I shook my head at is the identity crisis that Charlotte had in the beginning. Ah I see its a slice of life... Wait a second! You're a drama!... No wait, slice of life... Drama again? Come on, identify what you want to do most and build a secondary genre around it. Don't keep flipping the primary.

I keep hearing this word called pacing and good together when people talk about Charlotte. Really? Its anything but good pacing. One moment the story is going in a certain direction, and the next it either stalls in place or decides to go backwards. It was all over the freaking place. We had episode 1 and 2 there to establish the story and its characters, who then go about and move the story so freaking slow, we had scenes of them eating lunch at a cafeteria, Aya spazzing out with her desu bullcrap, or them helping some random character who barely has a name and is never seen again by the end of the episode. So from episode 3 to 7, not much in the way of story progession happens until the faceless bully who causes Ayu to flip out and bring the building down around her kills herself. The biggest fault this series has is creating characters and simply discarding them when they are no longer useful. I remember when Jun Maeda would create characters, and put them in a story and they had constand relevance and grew, and the things they did which caused them to grow also influenced the story... But no he would rather create faceless characters with little to no backstory, shallow if you ask me.

Definition of FILLER
: one that fills: as
a : a substance added to a product (as to increase bulk, weight, viscosity, opacity, or strength)
c : a piece used to cover or fill in a space between two parts of a structure
e : material used to fill extra space in a column or page of a newspaper or magazine or to increase the size of a work (as a book)

In case people want to deny filler that was in Charlotte, I brought the definition with me. The best one that fits Charlotte is definition C. The structure it refers to is all the events that happened with the student council helping these faceless characters who happened to have powers and the resolution of said characters. After those events transpire, we never see them again, we never see those characters come back to help Yuu, they just vanish. Those characters never caused the story to move forward, they were just there to push the series to the next episode. Same with those 5 minute cafeteria scenes with Takajou using his power to run into walls to get a damn lunch, or Ayu spazzing out to the tune of too much moe and ending her sentences with Desu.

The biggest complaint I have to make involves Ayu dying and the way it influenced the characters. Like damn that was some good stuff. I enjoyed seeing Yuu go into denial and rage, not accepting the fact that Ayu died. What comes from it is one of the best and biggest character developments of the series. Yuu with Nao's and Sara's help, he is finally able to move on and find reason in living again. One of the best moments aside from that is watching as Sara saves Nao's older brother with the power of her voice, and eases him from his suffering and restored a sense of normalcy he once had. Such a tender moment, one that caused me to shed a tear... But the moment he accepts it all and find himself to be content... Lets take it to another paragraph.

Lack of proper buildup and pure execution is what Charlotte is good at. One great example is Shunsuke coming from outta left field saying "I am your brother". Well where the freaking shit did you come from? "Oh BTW I can time leap". To which Yuu responds without a second thought and contradicts his earlier character development, acceptance of Ayu's death, and the reason he moved on... Fuck it, lets just throw that all out the window. I wanna be selfish and shallow and bring my sister back. I won't think about the consequences of my actions of which will affect everyone around me. Which by the way this show does time travel very sloppily, and absolutely no depth to it. So after realizing that he has this power that has really no downside to it (The only downside if you can call it one is that if you have a fragile mind, it can consume you. Of which we see Yuu has anything but a strong mind) So he plunders his brother from 5 minutes plot convenient brothers convenient time travel power and conveniently goes to the past to conveniently take his sisters power to conveniently never die from stress when that faceless bully with a box cutter approaches her. So um, regarding box cutter girl... The event still happens regardless of whether or not Ayu has the power. So why didn't it? Oh I see, half assed time travel so shallow we can throw events that should of happened out the window and pretend it never happened. News flash, even without the power Ayu would of been approached by her and would of been cut up with a possibility of getting her throat cut and dying anyways. But that doesn't happen at all, its not even touched on. Instead we get an event that happens thats not time travel exclusive. Rather its an event that felt like it should of taken place pre time jump. Regardless of him jumping, it felt like it should of happened. Also Jun Maeda pretty much said, "Since Ayu doesn't die, we have to kill another character in a cop out way." Sorry Kumagami, your number has been called. Also regarding time travel, I like how it doesn't even go into parallel worlds and the multiverse, merely brushing off that the fact that the world Yuu jumped from still exists and when he left it and went to the past, everyone forgot that Yuu existed and continue on with their lives, and without Yuu, that world is now doomed because the event that happens later on thats not time travel exclusive, the one where Nao and Kumagami gets captured happens, Yuu is not there to save them. For your information, I'm talking about them getting tortured.

The other thing that made me laugh is they gave the guy who is the most unstable of the series the task with saving the world? Oh man, thats rich. You know what else is rich? The lack of development with the so called love Yuu had for Nao. Its just hey I suddenly love you and I have no idea why. Must be that plot convenience at work. The ending to Charlotte was a most Charlotte way it could of ended. Its no that it was bad, it actually ended in a way that made sense. It ended in a very Charlotte way.

I do have to say though that they made a big mistake when they added the time travel power and his older brother. It took all the character development, mind you like I said before, it took the scene, the episode that had the most character development of the series, and the character that had a profound impact on Yuu, and made it nonexistent. It took a character that progressed the story really well, and made her a faceless one appearance jane. Never saw her again. How did you like taking the series one step back instead of forward Jun Maeda?

The introduction of Sara to Charlotte had a really big impact on multiple characters. She accomplished so much and it was the best "arc" of Charlotte I loved watching her work her magic through her songs and wisdom. Then it happened, she was gone in the blink of an eye... And it was gone. What the blueberry fuck? Why the shit would you think that was a good idea? You really fucked up Jun Maeda. Hire a real writer next time. You are great at creating concepts, but you clearly forgot how to turn that concept into a story.

Oh I almost forgot. Remember those scientists who were supposedly trying to kidnap them to experiment on them? Turns out all along they were nice guys who wanted to help them... What a freaking contradiction. What a freaking joke.

To this I say, Charlotte, you trainwreck of a series you. You deserve the 5/10.

*THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS*

I honestly have no idea what this manga is getting such high reviews, its abysmal. I honestly thought he couldn't do much worse than Suzuka. Well, I was completely wrong.

Fuuka, down to its core, is a music tragedy that tried so hard to be different but failed so hard. In the end, it became nothing to a cookie cutout of all the other musical tragedies out there and for that, is nothing but boring and stale and lacks anything that would make it continue to be worth reading.

The whole manga feels rushed and it never ever feels like its well paced. ... All the events happen so fast that you are left wondering about the in between. This manga lacks buildup and only has execution. The only reason I read Fuuka is I enjoyed the character named Fuuka and she made the manga interesting to read. On top of being the character that moved the story progression the most, you can really see it after she is killed in a copout way.

Fuuka is kiilled by a truck while stopping at a crosswalk and picking up a keychain. There are a lot of huge flaws in this. The crosswalk was green and somehow she was like the only person crossing it in a huge Japanese city in the middle of the day? I don't buy that. Also when they were crossing the street, traffic was stopped, as in the truck wasn't even moving, and when the crosswalk light turned red, somehow the truck was moving at 30 mph? You can't tell me that the trucker didn't see her and try to stop. You can't tell me that the trucker as soon as the light turns green decides to step on the gas seeing someone still in the crosswalk. He killed the only reason I read Fuuka and killed the one person who made the story interesting.

Seo Kouji clearly has lost his touch when he resorts to huge amounts of drama to get anything done. Not to mention the rushed narrative and the lack of buildup and backstory for his characters, or doing things in a meaningful way that would not make certain events shake your head. This is my last manga I will ever read from Seo Kouji as he is now a washed up writer. Save your time and go read Beck or Nana.

For the big picture, I enjoyed Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete, yet when it came to the ending, it left me incredibly frustrated. It was nothing but an advertisement of the source material and the ending for the anime did not complete the route it decided to go down, which is the True End, and instead, decides to hang to leave people wondering to explore the source material. Only problem with that is, overseas audiences have no access to the source material. The whole advertisement for source material concept is flawed for overseas audiences considering we have no access to the source material, therefore leaving the ... story for us incomplete for a long time. Now to the anime review:

For an anime about parallel timelines, it setup the narrative really well and leaves details we don't understand in the beginning thats dismissed as something else becomes tomorrows understanding. It paced itself really well and left each episode interesting and excited to watch the next one. Though it loses its pacing due to original content the anime added that tried to feel like the VN, but failed to entice me into believe it was a storyline from the VN considering at how poorly executed it was. The animation was pretty subpar and it was apparent that quality checks weren't done. The ending to the anime left me raging at the fact that for 15 minutes, nothing was accompished whatsoever, and when it came down to the last couple of minutes when he realizes the truth, the anime ends right before the True End route completes, leaving the story unfinished. If it had a 13th episode, I could see that it would wrap the route up, but since its 12, not so much. As much as I hated the ending and the whole anime advertise to the source material crap, I did enjoy the series as a whole, thus the 7/10. Do I recommend it? Yes and No.