Story: The Premise And The Positive.
Charlotte started promising with how the story was presented. The concept of the story is kind of like from Marvel comics where superheroes need to hold responsible of their powers but with a little twist, our main cast are on a mission to convince other teenagers with powers to never use them until they reach adulthood where their powers will just vanish. Why are they doing that? Well just like any other story with super powers, there are scientists who will do inhuman experiments on you when they find out you're a freak.
While the premise is kind of typical from a westerner's point of view, it still manage to be different as their powers has some kind of limit. Like the main protagonist, Yuu has the power of taking over other people's body but it will only take affect in 5 seconds. With the limitations, the characters are doing what they can to use their powers cleverly and with the help of one another they always manage to accomplish their goal.
Everything is relaxed and episodic in the first half of the series. Each episode was about searching for teenagers with powers and convince them to not use their power again through either blackmail or beating them to their own game (like a baseball player with powers, the main cast will compete with him with a game of baseball). Surprisingly, they are always successful. I kind of question of how they convince these people will even work if it happens in real life. But hey this is anime we are talking here. Still, seeing the group collaborate using their powers without exaggerated violence, and replacing it with a funny event is kind of amusing.
Story: The Negative.
Charlotte went downhill in the second half of its 13 episodes. But first, I'm going to talk about what is the issue with the first half. I have mentioned the first half was episodic and yeah it was entertaining but then I began to question where all of this is getting into. And it started to feel like the value of the show is getting less interesting with overuse gags and similar outcomes of what they are doing. But then finally something big and serious happened around episode 5 or 6 and my interest rise up again, but after that......
the pacing got rushed like Usain Bolt running for his life.
When things have gotten serious is where everything has gotten worse. The turn of events was all so sudden, resolving main issues turned out to be as easy as solving kindergarten math, and the drama felt empty like your wallet. The story is not built for 13 episodes, but far more so the pacing could have done right. Jun Maeda made it anyway and the director improvise and messed things up, instead of making Charlotte great, they made the show look pretentious.
I'm not going to mention names but Charlotte turned into romance in the second half. Anyone doesn't mind romance, if done right, but not here. Yeah the cast spend much time with each other in the first half but there was no indication or hint a romantic development is happening. In short, the romance is vague and felt unnecessary. Then again, it was because the pacing was rushed.
Lastly, Charlotte turned out to be a MC centric show, opposite of what was happening with a collaborative group effort in the first half of the series. Yuu had a big revelation with his power and did everything himself. Why even bother making characters around him then? To be his determination to accomplish his goal? Yeah and One Piece is successful because Luffy doesn't rely on his crew.....
Ok enough about that, I'm getting tired of discussing how bad the direction went in the second half of the series. I'm now going to discuss the other, slightly positive elements Charlotte can offer you.
Characters: The Positive.
The characters in this anime is fun and eccentric. The cast seems to be normal looking but each of them have their quirks when a gag happens. Not the most memorable bunch but still likable and can hold the viewers attention with their hyperbolic interactions. The cast did earn my affection a little, seeing how they work together and bonded with all those happy moments in the first half of the season.
Characters: The Negative.
Only the main characters receive a little character development. The supporting cast are one dimensional and only a handful was given a backstory.
Overall Production:
P.A Works did a great job portraying the visuals and animating the whole series with full effort. The visual looks crisp, bright, and colorful and it's a feast watching it in HD. Not as good looking as Nagi no Asakura, but it's close. Also, the music is download worthy except for those Engrish songs, well our opinion varies in that category.
What I dislike about the Overall Production? Again what they did with the pacing, and the fact that they decided 13 episodes was enough to cover all this. So much potential got wasted because they ran out of episodes to work on. Which sucks.
Conclusion:
Charlotte was ambitious and had potential, but ruined by their own implemented limitations. It has drama, but not worth being depress or produce a tear in your eye. Though I give credit to P.A Works that they did a fantastic job with the visuals. Finally, I see this as Jun Maeda's most disappointing project in his portfolio, as great as he is, he should just stick with writing Visual Novels.
