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Summary:

Without exaggeration I will start this review with this: Life is one of the best stories I've ever read/watched. That's a big statement. Not only was it realistic and serious, it was heart-touching, and focuses on an issue that is already important in the US, but even more important in Japan where it was published.

The frightening thing about this manga is that it is not fantasy. In this story the enemy is not magical in nature and the challenge isn't to defeat some opponent in battle. The conflict Ayumu goes through are what many children unfortunately go through every day throughout the world, especially young ... girls.

The manga has some great and subtle social commentary on bullying, self-mutilation, suicide, the perception of child mental health, rape and sexual assault and what it truly means to be a friend. There is also some great commentary on the negative aspects of Japanese society.

This story, as corny as it sounds, made me go through a range of emotions, mostly anger, and the ending is beautifully done. I dare say if every young person were to read this manga, they may be more prepared to face the difficulties they face in their teenage years and understand that what it all comes down to is knowing when to ask for help. It would also be a great example to teachers, administrators, parents and society as a whole.

If you are wondering how I can talk so much praise about a comic, I invite you to pick up this book and go into it without expectations. Although it is a shojou, its story is something that can be related to by both sexes of all ages.


Story:

As said above, this story is amazing. It was human, and although it may some times feel exaggerated becuase of the inaction of the bystanders and adults involved, it is precisely that why the author wrote the story. The inaction of the issues that face young people today is precisely what this book is meant to bring to attention, and it does so very well. This story is frightening, sad, but also sweet and beautiful, especially the ending.

Art:

As a guy who's a sucker for the moe manga and ecchi, I am usually turned off by the girly art style of shoujos; yet although the art style is very similar to a lot of shoujo, the art in this story is beautiful. It is not so exaggerated and girlish that it becomes a bother. all the characters look well drawn and unique. The scenes where a character is crying or screaming or hurt, the author fills the entire page with ink with a plethora of lines that make you seee the emotion; you will see what I mean when you first encounter such a scene. It's great when an author uses art to express emotions that can't be easily felt through description in a book.

Character:

Also very well done. All the characters in this story are not only unique but important. The interaction between all teh characters in way you dont expect make it very enticing ot keep reading. And the characters you hate and want to find and beat to a pulp, even they come to grow on the reader because the author does not portray characters one-dimensionally. There is no "good guy" and "bad guy" in this manga. There's only characters who through one form or the other are victims of other people's, usually adult's mistreatment and disinterest. Even the antagonists who do the most horrible things to the main girl are soon shown to have a number of terrible problems of their own. The characters aren't there to fulfill a role and be ridiculed or glorified, they are there to represent real people who go through complex issues such as those in this manga.

Definitely try this one out, you will not regret it.

Put simply, the anime adaptation for Yukito Ayatsuji's thriller/horror novel "Another" is amazing. This is one anime which at least I could not "put down" and take a break from. I had to see every episode one after the other and find out what would happen next. That's how good it is. Even then it still had its flaws and is by no means perfect.

-----Story-----

This is the definite strongpoint of the series. Another delivered a top tier story which keeps you on edge the whole time you're watching it. The way the story is presented progressively, in chunks as teh main character himself learns of ... them makes the plot not only seem more personal, but adds to the mystery and suspense. Furthermore the author throws many red herrings and false hints at you to try and make you come to a wrong conclusion about the story.

Here's the premise: A boy named Kouchi moves to the town where his grandparents and aunt live, since his father is researching something in India. He spends his first month there in the hospital due to a condition, where he meets the mysterious and beautiful Misaki Mei. Once at school, he is well received, but everything begins to get weird when he asks the class who Misaki Mei is. - They all say she "doesn't exist", and the mere mention of her name brings fear to them. Mei herself warns Kouchi to stay away from her, lest bad things happen. I won't get much into it, as that's all part of the story, but basically there is a curse on the class which seems to be triggered by the number of students in the class. Shortly after all this, students in the class begin to die in freak accidents - Final destination style. One by one the students die and the remaining students begin to go insane in fear and paranoia. This fear against one another and the two students -Kouchi and Mei, whom began the catastrophe leads to a thriller that gives you the feeling of fearing for your life. Very effectively.

The ending will most likely surprise you, and some even say it has a number of plotholes. I thought it was very well done. Satisfying and freaky.

The anime seems to follow the source material closely, and the manga seems to provide even more insight and flesh to the story. I'd recommend reading those after finishing the anime for even more enjoyment.

-----Art-----

The character designs for the anime were done by Noizi Ito, famed artist who also did the designs for Haruhi Suzumiya novels, among others. I thought the characters were well drawn, unique, and had a sense of individuality to them. There were only one or two generic-looking characters, such as Izumi, with the generic tsundere class rep look and attitude. The backgrounds and settings were dark and at times upsetting. For example, the dolls in Mei’s home provide a very old-school horror feel, and places such as the hospital and woods resort also have a sense of dread and neglect to them, like the indoors of a resident evil game.

-----Sound-----

I admit I don’t pay much attention to the OP and ED of an anime, and sometimes not to the soundtrack either, so I will not comment on it. I will say the voices of the characters was what you’d expect from any other show, nothing special, but they did do a good job with making the characters sound desperate and psychotic at times, you can hear the fear in the voices of the characters clearly.

-----Character-----

One of the things I enjoyed about Another was the depth of not only the story but the characters, many shows we see airing nowadays have an abundance of shallow characters meant to appeal to the audience or two loosely hold the story up where it needs support, but have no sort of development or story themselves. Obviously not every student in the class was fleshed out, because they are minor characters, as for the main characters each one received a good deal of backstory, and an explanation on why they pertain to the main plot. Mei and Izumi get the most of this treatment, but even relatives of Kouchi such as his mother and her friends are an important part of the story. Overall great characters and development.

-----Enjoyment-----

Another was absolutely fun to watch. It was interesting, chilling, different, and even provides us with a little extra in the sweetness of Kouchi’s and Mei’s relationship. It was very well fleshed out and although some may disagree with the ending, it would be unfair for anyone to say it did not have an ingenious premise to it.

Definitely give this one a go.

Before I begin this review I'd like to clarify one point: Angel Beats! had a lot of potential. In fact, it had enough potential to have an overall score of 10 rather than 6. The problem lies in what the show failed to do instead of what it did do. I enjoyed watching this show so much that during first 10 episodes or so, I marathoned it without rest. So why then is the score for this show so low? The answer lies in a series of weaknesses that lowered the quality of what could have a been an otherwise great anime.


-----Story-----


The story is the ... main reason Angel Beats! suffered the way it did. The concept was very interesting: a purgatory of children (in their teens) composed of a boarding school with the purpose of allowing the children to mature and come to terms with their death before moving on (to what is unknown to these children, and the viewer as well, so I will not say what it is they move on to). The world consists of "real" children who died and arrived there, and of "NPCs" presumably created by God to keep them company and make purgatory seem realistic. It also houses a strange girl known only as Tenshi (Angel), who serves as a sort of policing entity to keep the children in line and make sure they do not break the rules.

The children form a rebellious group whose mission is to combat this angel and prevent themselves from moving on, as they are understandably afraid of the unknown. Enter main character; a boy who recently has died and appeared in purgatory himself. He must learn about the new world and befriend the other children in the group.

And that is pretty much the main story. Short, right? So what occupies 13 episodes if the premise of this show is so simple? That would be the stories of the individual characters the creators considered important. Seeing as this is a shonen by KEY, this of course means the cute girls. There are plenty of cute girls, and the focus is on around four of them if I recall correctly, including the mysterious Tenshi.

A couple episodes serve to tell the story of the girl in purgatory, how the main character interacts with them, and in what way he helps her to move on. In simple terms, Angel Beats! suffers in story because it doesn't concentrate on one storyline with an introduction, conflict, resolution and climax,it focuses on mini-stories about certain characters and how they died and how they come to move on.

The stories of the girls are both cute and saddening. KEY certainly knows how to pull at a person's (especially a male's) heartstrings, and that's okay. Unfortunately this is not a visual novel but an anime, and separated stories do not work in an anime very well.

I was very interested to know about the past of these characters, and of the relationship between the main character and the admittedly charming Tenshi. If only a believable, strong, and unique ending were made, the series could have saved itself. Unfortunately it was the ending that killed the anime. It was, simply, unrealistic, littered by plot-holes, a simple Deux ex-machina, and unsatisfying. Without detailing anything and therefore spoiling anything, the ending of this show was its downfall. When the first thing I say after finishing a series is "Are you f*cking serious?", you can be sure the ending ruins the show. Finally, if it wasn't for budget deficits and the small 13 episode limit this show places on it's story, maybe a better resolution could have been fleshed out.

-----Art-----

The art for Angel Beats can be summarized in one word: Beautiful. The visuals of this show are absolutely beautiful, and it leaves nothing to be desired. The textures, lighting, effects, everything is gorgeous. The people very well drawn, and the girls stunningly pretty. I have watched few shows with art as good as Angel Beats'. It definitely brings its score up. It was fun to look at the whole time. The art is also drawn in a way that makes the whole story seem surreal, as if in a dream. Which adds to the theme of being inn purgatory, in a world not exactly real. Whenever you see Tenshi standing under the moonlight you get a feeling of mystery that I am surprised could be conveyed using only visuals.

The girls were very beautiful, as expected of KEY and of a shonen in general. Yui, Yuki, and Tenshi all are drawn so as to make you look at them, but this is standard in a show created for teenage males. It doesn't take away from the story; the characters are cute/moe, but not so that they become "moeblobs" or come to look the same. Each character has their own unique look which reflects their personality. Take one look at Tenshi's hair and eyes and you will see what I mean.

-----Sound-----

I do not pay much attention to music in anime, including the OPs and EDs, so I will not comment on that. I will comment on the great job the English voice actors did with this series. As dubbing frequently results in forced voices and bad acting, I was afraid Angel Beats! would lack in this department, but it did not. The voices of the characters sounded natural, and native to their roles. they actually sounded like teenagers, they spoke in manners which we would hear U.S. teenagers speak. Each character had an unique voice, and all were crisp and natural. Not disappointed at all.

-----Character-----

All I will say about character is certain characters are important and the rest are not. The characters chosen to have their stories told and the characters related ot their story, along with Tenshi and the MC are the important ones. The rest are disposable. At 13 episodes there wasn't too much fleshing out that could be done anyway.

-----Enjoyment-----

Angel beats was enjoyable. It was not great, or amazing, nor was it terrible or crappy. It was what it was. Good enough to watch on a weekend or waiting at the doctor's office. Not something I'd spend my money on owning, and the story wasn't good enough to get me ot buy any merchandise either. It's good enough to get a 6 is all.


I'd say watch it if it interest you, and you can be the judge yourself. It's not something ot avoid, that's for sure.

When I first watched Evangelion in my middle school days, I was as any other person who watched the series. I liked it, yet I thought there were things that could have been done better. I came to be attached to the characters, although I found them annoying in some ways. Evangelion is not a perfect story. Yet it was an amazing story, and more than all else, it was different. I am a complete sucker for moe animes, to a certain extent, but I cannot stomach what Evangelion has become: Nothing more than fanservice for people who like to do very little thinking and ... a lot of staring. I thought the first two movies in Rebuild were OK. They were another story altogether, and maybe this time they'd improve the show. Shinji definitely saw improvement in 2.0 when he became much more "masculine" than before. I was completely saddened by how Asuka and Rei were no longer Asuka and Rei, they were nothing more than the generic moeblobs who develop a rivalry over the one male and proceed to argue for him. I can't say i didn't enjoy seeing Asuka in the new suit in 2.0, although it had NO PLACE IN THE STORY.

Even with all this, I could take Rebuild. Yet when I watched 3.0, I came to the realization Anno has ruined his own masterpiece the way one ruins a good drawing by overworking it and trying to perfect it. Either that or he has fallen trap to the recent trend of animes consisting of nothing more than generic "cute" females and lots of shooting and explosions. There are so many plotholes in this movie, it is obvious Deux ex Machina was implemented many times throughout the production. The sudden "fact" that LCL retards aging so they could move forward years in the story yet keep the voluptuous 14 year old bodies the girls possess is an obvious excuse to rake in the fanboys.

Everything that originally made the characters unique from other characters in other shows was taken away in Rebuild. Shinji's perseverance regardless of the problems he faced, Asuka's progressive downfall into despair while remaining a lovable character, Rei's robot-like personality and rebellion when it came down to the end, all gone to make space for the shallow beauties and guns.

In summary, if you want to retain whatever amount of enjoyment you got out of the original Evangelion, and you DON'T want to watch yet ANOTHER archetypal movie, don't bother with Rebuild anymore.