To be blunt, the story of Charlotte is messy and stupid. For the first half of the show, the show is just another slice of life nonsense. To make myself clear, I have nothing against slice of life shows, but this one completely devoid of any charm or wit. None of the humor is particularly funny, since most of it comprised of overused gags and slapstick. Nothing occurs plot wise since all the characters do is dicking around playing baseball, go camping, and help other superpower teens. And you know what? If that was all the show was, I would just discarded as another forgettable rom com and would even bother to write this review. But atlas, Charlotte takes a sudden tone shift and becomes almost an entirely different show. Without spoiling much, the writer tries to make the series far more dramatic and serious. But since there was almost zero effort put in to make the viewers care about the characters or story, everything comes off more comically stupid rather that emotionally touching. The thing becomes unfocused mess with one of the most erratic and inconsistent tone I have seen. It alternates between comedy, moe, sad, intense, and boring at a whim as if this was written by Hideo Kojima. And it doesn’t help that the show rushes so much plot at end it becomes ridiculous. Then the show end on a grand whimper, resolving everything with plot conveniences and deus ex machinas,
As for the characters, they are flat and shallow as you can get. There are far too many characters for a twelve episode series, and it doesn’t help that the show does very little to make the viewer care for the characters. Instead of trying to flesh the existing characters so the viewer can get to care about them, the show just waste its time on comedy and constantly introducing new characters. Honestly, I can only remember the characters for whatever superpower they have instead of any characteristics or traits. The only character I remember was Yuu because he is just basically a copy of lelouch vi britannia.
Even the animation and soundtrack fail to stick out from the norm. While PA works shows generally look polished and crisp, but this is one looks mediocre at best. The character designs are bland and the only thing about the animation that does stick out were the detailed backgrounds. And even those were wasted on a dull and uninteresting setting.
Charlotte is a show that tried to be everything. It tried to be a comedy, it tried to be a thriller, it tried to be a tear jerk, and tried to be sci fi. Yet it doesn't focus on any of those aspects and fail to accomplish anything. Charlotte fails to be funny, it fails to have memorable or relatable characters, it fails to have an interesting or coherent world, and it fails make any sense whatsoever. It felt if Jun Maeda wanted to jam a dozen concept in the show instead of being focusing on anything. Half of the show was is the character dicking around, and when the show decided to get an actual plot, the show was almost over. In the end, this show broken beyond repair and should be avoided at all cost.
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