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Angel Beats! Enjeru Bītsu! (エンジェルビーツ) |
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Maokun's Review What is it? Angel Beats! is a series about redemption, finding meaning and moving on. As detailed in the synopsis above, the setting is an enclosed high school that constitutes an afterlife of sorts for those whose lives were cut tragically short before they could become adults and left life with strong regrets and unfinished business. From being unable to forgive oneself for failing to catch a ball in a decisive game, to being paralyzed from the waist down -unable to live a normal teen life, to having been incapable of saving one's younger siblings from murderous maniacs, all the kids that arrive here are full of pain, frustration or self-loathing and are offered the chance to live a normal, happy (if bland) school life until the moment they reach contentment, self-forgiveness and peace. Unfortunately, the rules, mechanics and internal organization of the place are not clearly presented and there are those that will not swallow such a preposterous premise whole, creating conflict between those that mistrust the system and those that would protect it. A very limited creative power available to everyone allows each side to deploy heavy weaponry, and so, the afterlife school yard becomes a battlefield. Amidst this conflict, a new student arrives. He's one of the rare cases that cannot remember their lives or the way they died. Amnesia is a common (and often cheaply used) trope, but in his case it works fantastically as we're witness not to his character growth, but his re-growth: Devoid of memories, his personality is apathetic and mistrustful at the beginning, but he soon grows into an extremely caring individual which, as we later learn, mirrors his character growth while he was alive. Once he takes the spotlight, the series reaches its emotional heights as he starts helping other members of the cast to face their regrets, achieve their unfulfilled dreams and move on, while inadvertently affecting the system in ways the initial guerrilla tactics never could which leads into a new, more terrible conflict. What should I expect? To cry like a baby in the emotional scenes. These kids had hard lives and see them facing their pain and reaching catharsis should pluck the heartstrings of but the most cynical individuals. What should I NOT expect? A satisfactory ending. The one issue with the series is the amount of episodes. With such a huge cast it was impossible to give each character the emotional and heartfelt happy ending than a handful of them got in only 12 episodes. In fact, many of them had rushed endings and others only were just briefly mentioned off-screen, which seemed badly rushed and unfair to those characters and tainted the good taste the series had slowly build up. The ending itself was not bad in my opinion, but the rushing up and lack of closure do the series a big disservice. Anything I should be wary about? There are several depictions of grisly deaths and a few cases of disturbing cruelty. Since people in this place are already dead, they can die and then "respawn" as if nothing, and die they do in several creative ways to almost a comedic extreme. Additionally, the cryptic nature of this afterlife makes some of the characters theorize about the nature and existence of "God" and some have quite blasphemous ideas. However, it's very clear that the characters are speaking in ignorance and blind resentment and their ideas are never corroborated or supported by the story. Something worth of singular note? Angel Beats! has great production values for a TV series, has great music and is very easy on the eyes. SCORING (The score above represents my subjective liking of the series, I'll attempt to be more objective in this section) Base score: 7.5/10.0 Add 0.5 if: -You appreciate good production values. Angel Beats! doesn't disappoint. -You liked The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Angel Beats! is a clear post-Haruhi anime and it learned some good tricks from it. -You like "moe" character design. Add 1.0 if: -You like stories that make you reflect on your life and challenge you to do better. Subtract 1.0 if: -If you dislike "moe" character design. -You condemn the use of firearms and/or guerrilla tactics Subtract 2.0 if: -Graphical depictions of death distress you. -You cannot forgive an unsatisfactory ending. Subtract 4.0 if: -You are bothered by characters in your fiction expressing negative sentiments against the concept of "God" |
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| Added: May, 2012 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
