Back to djwhack03's Profile djwhack03's Profile

Angel Beats has convinced me that Jun Maeda doesn’t know how to write an original story. His previous hits Air, Kanon, and Clannad have been about a bunch of mentally and/or physically broken high school girls who all fall in love with a guy whose only significant character trait is that he exists, and along the way one of these girls will die of a mysterious illness. For Angel Beats, Maeda twists his tried and true formula by having all the characters dead to begin with, and stuck in some sort of high school purgatory, where a group of high school students shoot a little ... girl in the kneecaps for no good reason.

As mentioned earlier, Maeda’s stories are very formulaic. First, he establishes a cast of one dimensional, but likeable characters, and a zero dimensional main character who is designed to be a self insert for the viewer. He then lulls the viewers into a false sense of security with a couple of comedic episodes before dropping a tragedy bomb. In time the main character recovers from the tragedy and an asspull miracle occurs, to ensure a happy ending and negating any kind of character development. Angel Beats follows this same formula to an extent, however due to last minute budget cuts; this had to be crammed into 13 episodes making the production feel rushed and uneven.

A lot of fans will defend the show by saying that it would have been more coherent had it been given 26 episodes. I don’t buy this. Maeda had a lot of options. He could have told half the story and left it open to a probable second season. He could have cut some of the characters or spend less time recycling the same gags (suicide rushes, rocket chairs, etc.) to make more room for character growth. It’s possible to tell a great story in 13 episodes or less. Haibane Renmei told a similar purgatory story in 13 episodes, and the world was much deeper, and the characters more sympathetic. Baccano had a huge cast, yet all the characters got their time to shine, without taking away from the story.

In addition, there is never a really good explanation for why they’re fighting Tenshi. They make her out to be evil incarnate at first, but quickly find out that she’s actually a normal girl. Yet rather than do their research, Yuri somehow convinced everyone to build an underground factory, stockpile weapons, and hold rock concerts just to fuck with everyone’s dinner time. If you stop to think about it, the war on Tenshi was nothing more than pointless bickering started by a petulant bitch. Using the budget cuts to defend the trainwreck of a story is like when high school student complain that they would have done better on a test had they gotten more time. Sometimes, you just have to admit that you didn’t know what you were doing.

While the music for the show was decent, part of me felt it was a ploy to milk more money out of the show. Some of the early episodes focused on a band called Girls Dead Monster who played music as some sort of distraction. However, because they weren’t central to the plot, and because singles were being released so frequently while the show was airing, it all felt like a cheap cash-in to ride the wave of success of K-ON.

So if I hated the story so much, why did I stick with it? Simply, it’s because I’m a big fan of the director, Seiji Kishi. He previously did Seto no Hanayome and Tentai Senshi Sunred, which are two of my favorite comedy series. I could see that a lot of effort went into the animation. The lighting and movement was dynamic and smooth. The backgrounds were nicely detailed and had a pleasing color palette. Unfortunately, none of this could save the production from its terrible story. Part of me feels the director was overcompensating for the terrible story by blinding the audience with pretty pictures. This seems to have worked on a large portion of the fanbase since a lot of reviews I have read comment on how pretty it is while glossing over the failure of the story.

After watching Angel Beats and seeing the audience reaction to it online, I feel like it’s done its job of manipulating its audience with false emotions. It’s a formula that has worked for previous Key works, and their sales of figures and dakimakura prove it. Fans of the show that actually finished this review rather than marking it “unhelpful” and moving on, watch the show again. Is it actually unique, or is it the same trite, repetitive crap that’s been plaguing the anime industry for years? Does the story make sense, or is it full of more holes than a cheese grater? But most importantly, is it actually good or are you still lying to yourself?

If I could summarize this series in one word, it would be: inconsistent. The bright style, hectic OP, and bizarre premise make this seem like this will be an absurd comedy. Ok, there is a lot of that there, I won't deny it. However, there are certain episodes, especially the ones that delve into the characters' pasts that are downright depressing. The switch is rather jarring at times, especially when they do it multiple times in a single episode.

Also, the series tends to take itself too seriously at times. It's as if half the staff thought they were still in serious mode, when everyone else ... had already moved onto a comedy scene. Take this one episode for example (I don't remember the number, but it shouldn't really matter). It starts with the family on vacation, on a tropical island, and one of the children gets kidnapped by albino monkeys with jetpacks. Ok, silly. Next we meet the midget professor who created the monkeys. Still silly. Finally, he goes into a sob story about how he wants to play god. In another context, one could take this seriously and sympathize with him. However, I couldn't get past the fact that there were albino monkeys with jetpacks.

So should you watch this series. Sure, give at least the first episode a shot. If you don't like what you see, don't expect it to get much better. On the flip side, if you like it, you should enjoy the rest of it. This series is consistent almost to the point of it being a flaw. Yuko Goto shows up later as a sweets loving butterfly girl for fans of her out there. But there are better shows with her out there. I personally don't know if I like it or not. It's fun enough to motivate me to watch another episode, but not enough to care about what is going on. So all of its high and low points average it out to a mediocre 5 across the board. Sound gets a bump up for a cute OP and the interesting idea of having different EDs sung by the different characters.