STORY:
The concept of Charlotte is interesting, to say the least, and unique in terms of presentation. Many high-schoolers in Japan have been getting various superpowers, but the interesting thing is that the show portrays what the teenagers would do in real life. Take our protagonist, for example. Le - Sorry, wrong anime - Yuu has the power to take over the bodies of other people. Does he use it to fight evil or anything? No, he simply benefits from it by cheating in tests or trying to get a new girlfriend. He is then forced to join the student council of another school which tries to protect all such superpower-wielders from 'evil scientists'. This is just the first episode, though. The whole thing becomes a train-wreck here onwards.
The main problem of the anime is the pacing. For the first 6/7 episodes, the pacing of the show dreadfully slow, with a mixture of fillers and forced tearjerkers trying to keep the viewer hooked to it. And when all this is over, we only have about 5/6 episodes left for the main chunk of the real story. From here on, the show becomes extremely rushed. And the plot at the end is good enough for a standalone 13 episode anime, but Maeda, for some reason, crams it into 2 episodes. Laughable, really.
Charlotte's story had THE potential, I'll give you that. But the dismal pacing and the generic story-writing, at times, make it a not-so-good-after-all type of experience.
ART:
The artwork of Charlotte is undoubtedly its main highlight. Almost all the scenes are rendered pitch-perfectly. The animation is consistently fantastic, but isn't that pretty much the norm when it comes Key and P.A? The opening sequence is one of the best I've seen in recent times; not because of the song but how well the whole sequence is shot. The sequence was mesmerizing and only a handful few of other openings can claim to be just as good.
There are, of course, a few instances when there are some technical mistakes, but that is mainly due to poor production and below-standard story-boarding.
SOUND:
Charlotte's soundtrack is mediocre at best. The openings and endings were forgettable in my opinion and the background music was consistently a hit-or-miss.
The voice-actors, however, deserve a lot of credit for their performances. Although some of the lines are terrible, the vocal execution of the dialogues made the situations a bit more tolerable. Special shoutouts to Kouki Uchiyama and Ayane Sakura for their great performances with Yuu and Tomori respectively.
CHARACTER:
To tell you the truth, I was expecting much better in this category when it came to a work of Jun Maeda. The character development of Charlotte is simply horrendous. Take Takajou, for example - For the first two episodes, he's a key member of the student council, accompanying the main characters in their visits and plays a pretty decent role, almost like a protagonist. For the next handful of episodes, he's demoted purely to a comical role, appearing only to be ridiculed and relieve any heavy/tense atmosphere. But that's not it. He doesn't even appear anymore, albeit his cameo at the absolute end of the last episode. And this is treated like something normal in the show. Like, what the hell, Maeda? WHAT.THE.HELL?
Le - Sorry, again - Yuu's transformation is also a big thing. He starts off being a very I-don't-give-a-damn-about-you type of a guy who only thinks about himself ad his sister (to an extent), but tat the end becomes your generic, selfless, all-caring protagonist and I have to say, I really disliked this transformation of his. At one point of time, he's your average, caring protagonist. The next moment, he suddenly becomes angry and starts losing control over himself. Yet, there's no indication throughout the whole anime that he suffers from any form of mental instability. Maybe that's just me, but whatever.
The character designs are pretty good, but what good are characters without any proper depth in their personalities?
ENJOYMENT:
I didn't hate Charlotte. In fact, I DID go through the whole show without dropping it at any point. But I won't say that I exactly enjoyed it so much. Nor was it a dreadful waste of time. Average is how I'd put it in one word.
OVERALL:
I had very, very high hopes for Charlotte. I was expecting it to be another Jun Maeda classic, if not a masterpiece. In the end, however, the only things that prevent the show from becoming a train-wreck are the excellent voice-acting and the marvelous animation and artwork. When it comes to recommendations, I wouldn't be recommending this to many.
SCORES IN BRIEF:
Story - 4/10
Art- 9/10
Sound - 6/10
Character - 4/10
Enjoyment - 6/10
OVERALL - 6/10
