When I heard of this anime, I read up about its storyline and was intrigued. At first glance, it resembled Gintama in the sense that it consisted of humans and aliens living together however, in this circumstance the humans don’t know that they are sharing the Earth with countless aliens.
“In the present day, hundreds of extraterrestrial species walk the Earth. Some are pacifistic, others violent. Some are here for research purposes, others are career criminals. However, humans don't know they are here.” – MAL
The quote is literally the introduction in each episode and is a constant reminder of the situation occurring in the anime.
So basically, the storyline revolves around an alien often called “Prince Baka” and follows his ‘adventures’. The plot in a way is also similar to Gintama as there is no fixed story. In total, there are about 5 or 6 mini arcs, some consist of 1 episode and others consist of up to 3. I guess you could say that this kept my attention to the anime as it wasn’t being dragged on like the mainstream anime we watch e.g. Naruto, Bleach etc.
There is a general pattern you will notice in the anime and that is the arcs consisting of a serious plot which unfolds to be something quite hilarious.
Prince Baka, is a character of royalty but doesn’t want responsibility. He is a character who is constantly toying with people to entertain himself and will often come up with the most random ideas and solutions to problems. However, he is not stupid unlike his name suggests, he is quite the opposite as he is generally the person to find the solutions for every problem that occurs.
In a sense, Prince Baka, probably wouldn’t be considered a protagonist but an anti-protagonist similar to that of Light (Death Note) as he is the main character but acting as a villain. In Level E, this is not very explicit and the character doesn’t go to extremes, his actions are more like pranks which will entertain you throughout.
Because of the various arcs, there are also a multiple of characters available. Some arcs re-use characters from previous arcs and this reminded me of Higurashi no Koro ni.
The bodyguards of the prince are probably in almost all the arcs and there are 3 different characters all with completely different personalities. There is Kraft who, if he could, would probably kill the prince and he is probably toyed around with the most. Then there’s Sade who tends to diagnose the main problem in each arc (if he’s in the arc) and is obsessed with bugs and insects. Finally, the third bodyguard is Colin who seems to be the one who is easily fooled and believes things as he sees it.
The list of other characters consisting of aliens and humans will take forever to explain but there are a bunch of them and each one of them is used to progress the narrative. Probably the most noticeable human characters are Tsutsui, Miho and the five elementary school kids.
The aliens are shown disguised as humans. To me, this representation suggested that some people are different to each of us and may seem “alien” to us. Whether, I may be indulging in the representation a bit too much is a different story but it seemed to me that the aliens represent humans in different ways.
What can I say about the soundtrack?
There were a few slow piano pieces which are pretty melodic and tend to come at serious moments in the anime or when a problem is found in the arcs. The opening of the anime didn’t really get to me so much but I found the ending to be a bit more suited to my taste in music. In terms of language, the aliens and humans communicate in Japanese and this is the same for aliens who can not speak the human language so the audience can understand but an echo has been added or the voice is slightly auto-tuned to differentiate between them.
There were a bunch of intertextual references I found in a few episodes. Firstly we have the parody of Power Rangers which is then blended with a parody of Dragon Quest which mimic the whole RPG genre of gaming. In the same arc, we have the skyboard as an attainable item which is a spoof of Eureka Seven and during an explanation, a Weedle (Pokemon reference) was used to graphically explain the problem.
I don’t know a lot about art but the art displayed in the anime was constant and never compromised. The art was standard and wasn’t placed too dark like Death Note or on the other hand to childish like that of Pokemon or Digimon. The tones and shadows used very moderate and there was no exaggerated parts.
It was a really fun anime to watch and the mix of apparent humour and serious humour really expressed itself in this anime. I am glad that the anime is only 13 episodes because it’s a nice anime to watch which doesn’t drag on to have a million arcs, making the anime easy to follow.
To those interested in this anime, I think you will enjoy this if you have seen stuff like Gintama. However, don’t take my word for it because the humour may seem a bit more serious in Level E.
Enjoy!
