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I' ll try to keep the spoiler at minimum in this review but I cannot make a proper review without revealing some details so be warned.
First, a word to the man behind this anime...
Why Maeda? You said you learned from the Angel Beats semi-fail and you won’t make the same mistakes again! Yet, not only you made the same mistakes all over again but this time it’s even worse, this anime is such a mess that it will be hard to find some good points to talk about.

So let’s procced:

Story: 5/10 – When I first read the plot synopsis for this one I thought ... it was kind of mehh but then again I said...people with superpowers...ok, not my cup of tea but this has big potential for deep characterization of each character, it will be interesting to see how their powers affects them on physical and psychological level, to see if the power will corrupt them or not, to see how responsable they are with their powers, on what purpose they will use it and all that stuff that can create good character development and maybe a good drama. This is what I expected. What I’ve got it was an entire other business.
I find myself forced to say the same things I said on AB! review (a sign that Maeda screw up again). He tried again to tackle a cross-genre story and failed without a doubt. The story is a complete mess and all over the place from the start to the end, with a clear lack of direction. Two full seasons worth of content (you can see clearly that ep. 11 and 13 could have been expanded easily to an entire season) is compressed in a half season format which resulted in a rushed storytelling filled with plot holes, alot of unanswered questions and almost no character development. The first 6 episodes are filled with random or side-stories which are meant to give us some background on characters, making us empathize with them and prepare us for the drama that kicks in later but unfortunately it adds so little to the story that it make it seems like Maeda didn’t care about Chekhov's Gun principle at all. Although the drama kicks in after episode 6 and things get on a very serious note, not matter how you look at it, it dosen’t blend well with the action/fantasy element of this anime and all comes out very flat. On a side note, what’s with all the gore and violence present in Key’s latest two productions ? It’s so diferent from all their works until and not in a good way.
If you are still looking for that lost magic that Key’s anime used to have you’ll find a tiny fragment in episode 12. I’m refering to Misa/ Yusa scenes. This is the goldfish JM had in his hands and let it slip through his fingers. If only Misa would have been the main heroine and this whole story would had been about her, her sister and her „moving on” instead. It would have been exactly in Key’s area of expertise, good drama with a tiny bit of supernatural elements.

Characters: 5/10 - The first episode gave me the impression that finally we’re gonna have strong male character lead in the person of Otosaka Yuu and we’ll get to see how the power will corrupt him and if he manage to reedem himself in the end.. Unfortunately, starting with the end of the first episode, all hope was gone as he, gradually, by each episode, becomes the cliché MC, we all are used to see. In episode 13 we see a failed attempt to that deep characterization I was talking about previously but by then it’s kind of useless. As for Nao Tomori, she has quite an unique personality, which we rarely get to see in a Key anime. The problem is her character is so little explored and so little fleshed out, making it hard to empathize with her to the fact that in some episodes she could’ve been literally replaced with a punching bag without us noticing the difference.
The others characters are so undimensional that’s now even worth talking about them. Don’t even get me started about the annoying imouto. In essence , poor character development.

Art & Animation: 8.5/10 - Except from some animation inconsistencies between episodes, PA Works did a solid job on this one and maybe this is the strongest point of this anime.
On the other note, I know that this it’s not really studio’s fault but it’s a fact that Key’s anime lost some of their magic since the departure from Kyoto Animation so now I’m sure that the art style PA Works use, don’t work that well with Key’s anime.

Audio: 8/10 - Decent sound work but nothing that stands out much. The Bravely You OP theme is yet again singed by Lia and it fits the overall theme but it’s not on even close to the same level as My Soul, Your Beats from Angel Beats or the epic Toki Wo Kizamu Uta from Clannad AS. The ED theme - Yake Ochinai Tsubasa singed by Aoi Tada, it’s a beautiful song but easy forgettable. As for the voices, I liked Ayane Sakura as Nao voice and Maaya Uchida does a pretty good job being voice for both Misa and Yusa. Almost forgot, Insert song from ep 13 - Kimi no Moji singed by Anri Kumaki it’s worth mentioning.

Enjoyment: 5/10 - Not really enjoyed watching this. It was kind of sad watching Maeda failing again, especially after he promised to correct the mistakes he made with Angel Beats! and he kinda promised to gives us an anime more focused around it’s characters. If you are a Key fan you’ll probably watch this anyway so it’s useless to warn you, but if you are new to Key’s productions please go watch some of the older works first or if you really want to appreciate more the older ones and have the time, watch this first!

Overall: 6.5/10
In my opinion, Charlotte leaves the impression of an anime that suffers from an identity crisis. It doesn’ know what it wants to be and because of that it goes nowhere. I think Maeda should’ve stick to what he does best – 80% drama, 20% supernatural and let the action/fantasy genre for people who know what they are doing. He tried and kinda fail with Angel Beats! and he totally failed with this one. I’m disappointed but don’t get me wrong, I’ll gladly wait for his next title. I know he can do better!

So...School Rumble...I don't even know where to begin with this one...

First let me say I will review this anime as a whole not only the second season and it might contain some minor spoilers!

I will start with the conclusion for those of you who doesn't want to read the whole review. So here it goes:

Overall/Conclusion - 7.8/10

Have you ever watched one of those spanish/latin soap operas or telenovelas where the characters never really manages to convey their feelings and say what they mean, especially regarding love, resulting in an never ending circle of misunderstandings and drama ? The difference is, in ... School Rumble, instead of drama you've got comedy.
Don't get me wrong, it's a fun series to watch from the beginning to the end and the comedy mixed with excentric characters are, probably, the key elements that will get you hooked on this series. However, if you are person like me and if you are more in the series with good story progression and characters development maybe you'll be a bit disappointed or frustrated. Still that's not a reason not to watch School Rumble, especially when you are in a mood from something relaxing and mellow.

Art/Animation - 7.5/10

Although it's nothing you would expect from a recent anime, the art is not bad at all. I like the characters design and I think it fitted well with their personalities. Also I was impressed with the level of animation used is some of the scenes that required more action, although some of them were useless and not needed for this genre. This really shows the animation had more potential but also the fact that the animation buget was poorly used on scenes that don't really matter. Also, they could've work more on backgrounds and characters details but it dosen't really matter anyway, since you'll be more frustrated with other things than art in the end, trust me.


Sound - 9.5/10

I think the sound is the best part of School Rumble . The sound is in perfect tune with atmosphere and tone of the series and as a whole it adds great value to this anime. But...man...the most memorable songs are the opening and ending themes from the first season. The feel-good theme of this two songs perfectly complements the first season. and even if you don't like the show I think it will make you wanting to watch the next episodes just to listen to this songs again and, eventually you will find yourself humming along in no time. Although, at first I didn't like the opening theme from the second season, after listening to it a few times, I found Sentimental Generation to be as catchy as Scramble from the first season. I can't say the same thing about the first ending theme for the second season and I'm glad they've replaced it later with Futari Wa Wasurechau which perfectly fits the whole second season ending. As for voice actors, besides Lala, which is way overexagerated character overall, all the voice actors were really good and matched the personality of each character. Special mentions goes to Noto Mamiko and Koshimizu Ami for the voices of Yakumo and Tenma - I loved them both.

Characters - 7/10

Here comes the area where I talk about the first problem of the series. There are alot of main and supporting characters in this series and the problem is how they are handled. To be more specific, many of the supporting characters are randomly brought up in the spotlight with some random stories at the expense of the main characters which are sent into oblivion, at times, for 2-3 episodes. This happens mostly on the second season but the first one is no exception. In this way, really few of the main characters get some sort of development or progression and it's disappointing beacuse I wanted to see more of Akira, Eri and Yakumo instead of some random story with some random support character or even worse a filler.

Story - 6/10 SOME MINORS SPOILERS HERE! Skip if it bothers you!

Unfortunately,this is the weakest part of series and the second problem.
There aren't so many good things to say here due to the fact that is no real progression or development on the story. I mean the producers really loved to troll us from the beginning through the end, at least regarding the story. When you think something important may happen that will make the story progress, think twice because your are wrong. If something happens, it happens in such a way that the relations between characters are not affected at all in the next episode. In the beginning it's funny but after a while and through the end this never ending circle gets very frustrating. What more can I say...I think Scramble opening theme describes the best the whole story concept behind this series so...Guruguru mawaru guruguru mawaru!!

Enjoyment - 8/10

If you love the anime in the comedy genre you'll have a blast watching this one but if you also love any type of development in anime and you want any type of closure maybe you will be a bit frustrated as I've been.

Although I watched alot of animes until now I decided to write my first review for Angel Beats! because I've seen alot of split reviews/opinions regarding this anime which actually dosen't fall in none of those good/bad extremes.
That being said I will try to keep my review objective, concise and as much as possible spoiler free.

Ok, let's begin:

Story: 7/10 Why? Beacuse actually it's a mess overall. The creators never had a clear vision on this one. They tried to tackle multiple genres like action, fantasy, comedy and drama in such a short runtime and failed on most of them. I think alot of screen time ... is wasted on this so called war between SSS and Tenshi/Kanade, time which would had been better spend on chararacters backgrounds and flashbacks.
I think the story would had been better overall, if they focused more on the afterlife subject, to be more specific, on how everyone got there, what keeps them there and why they can't move on. Essentially, character development, a word I'll keep repeating in this review.

Art: 9/10 I can't really complain in this section. Beautiful art, visuals, characters designs and a color palette that's nicely used to set the mood for this purgatory-type world (which is actually a high-school, you guessed). The animation is solid and consistent through the show but I have a minor complaint about some sloppy mouth animations in a few scenes.

Sound: 9/10 Beautiful OP/ED songs that fits nicely with the anime theme. BGMs are not that outstanding but they do the job they're meant to do which is to set the scene mood. I also loved the last song played by Iwasawa (If you haven't watched the series, you will know which one I'm talking about when you get there).

Characters: 6/10 Big problems here. Too many characters, too short of a series. The only result you will get is poorly developed characters. From the whole bunch of characters Angel Beats has, only three of them get near-good character development. I'm talking about Otonashi, Yuri and Yui and sadly the last one is not even a main character. Any others characters feel almost flat with little to no character development at all. They are given some different personalities and skills but it's useless without some background stories on who they were and how they got there. Even Kanade who is a main character and one of the most important in the series feels like she's only there for the ride. We don't really find out her story until the last episode of the series (actually just a fragment of it) by the time it's too late. Her character as a whole and her relation with Otonashi desperately needed more screen time, especially to add more depth to the final episode.

Enjoyment: 7/10 Not bad pe se. It kept me entrained, interested and curious. It didn't feel like a waste of time and some episodes that focused on character development and background story were really good. I'd hoped for a more developed love story, so I was rather disappointed in that area.

Overall: 8/10
Overall, it'a an enjoyable anime that shines in art/sound departament but lacks some key elements in the story and characters departament.
Finally conclusion:
I think Angel Beats tried to pull a Clannad AS move on us, which, maybe had a chance to succed with proper character development and a 24 episodes season. It's a shame it didn't.
Thanks for reading!