I just finished watching Angel Beats, all 13 episodes of it, and I have to say that it was QUITE good!
Now, the to summarize, the last few episodes were very good, but it could have done a lot better by being more consistent.
Angel Beats takes place in an 'afterlife world' where people that had troubled lives go to after they die. It's comprised of a perpetually running school that seems cut off from the rest of the world, and has a large student body made up of fictitious "NPC" students, with the main cast being the only real people around. The main cast, part of a group called the "Afterlife Warfront" fight an 'angel' that occasionally pesters the hell out of them. The cast, already being dead, can't die, but they've found that people that conform, fit in, and go to class like good students will disappear, and so they violently lash out at the Angel, being their only real enemy in this world, and thus stick out enough that they don't vanish. The 13 episode series catalogs their 'rebellion against God' and general adventures. As stated, the characters can't die, and whenever anyone is dealt ordinarily lethal injuries, they'll remain 'dead' offscreen for a short time, and then mysteriously get better somehow. This is how the world of Angel Beats works.
Allow me to elaborate on my main grievances with the show, the first episode is a surprisingly good hook, introducing the audience to an interesting, creative world right from the get go. You know, the type where you don't mind going "Hey, I want to learn more about this world.", but the austere beginning is suddenly broken by awkward, off-beat comedy. Then, once the comedy stops, the setting dives straight back into dead seriousness, and the vast majority of the first half of the series is dominated by this oscillating between the two feelings, and frankly it makes it a bit difficult to actually get into the show when it can't make up it's mind on what the hell it wants to be.
While alot of the 'comedy' just seems like it's filling up time, there are some genuinely funny moments. My favorite being the random rocket chairs that launched the main characters straight into the ceiling of a class room, and then did a slow-mo replay it, complete with hilarious slow-mo screams of agony. Also, TK is hilarious no matter what scene he's in, if only because while he DOES talk, nothing he says makes any fucking sense whatsoever, he just gibbers random English phrases in a broken Japanese accent.
However, I mark the comedy down for the show because there's obviously some VERY GOOD serious drama going on, and all the comedy bits just feel like it's crowding it out. Hell, practically NOTHING relevant happens during episode 4, it could have been excised completely without the show losing anything meaningful whatsoever. Starting at around episode 6 or 7 though, the comedy starts declining, and the show starts taking itself more seriously, more often. There's an awful lot of characterization, with quite a few of the main characters beguiling the audience with the stories of how bad their lives were while they were still alive, which were all very interesting. Hell, once the show started picking up, even the hyper-annoying twit of the cast became a great deal more human and sympathetic.
Besides the inconsistency, there's some other things wrong with the show. There's the fact that the characters just act like morons alot of the time, with NO explanation given for some of the things they do. For example, there's an uprising against the Afterlife Warfront by a rogue student, and everyone is getting mowed down. When asked why they don't fight back, the only reason given is that "They're using the NPC's as hostages! They know we won't shoot at them!", and I can't help but think WHY they won't shoot at the lifeless, insignificant automatons? I mean, even if they're being attacked, it's not like any of them are going to die, so why's it a big deal? In fact, why even fight any hostile agents if everyone is effectively immortal? You're only being temporarily, if painfully, inconvenienced for a short time.
Another thing I didn't like was that there were a lot of interesting characters in the show, but only a very small percentage of them actually got a backstory, with everyone else either being ultimately being completely insignificant in the end, or heinously unneeded comic relief.
There's also a bizarre paradox at the end of the show that I don't feel was properly addressed. I don't feel like spoiling it though, so go watch the damn show because it's still really good, even with all it's faults.
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Topic: I like anime, do you like anime? (Read 3146892 times)