Angel Beats!

After my friends and I got out of our Full Metal Alchemist and Fruits Basket obsessions, we needed a new anime show to watch. So while I was on Netflix searching the anime section, I came across a show called Angel Beats!. I turned it on, thinking it looked okay, and was immediately sucked in. The story had lovable characters and a good storyline and it was perfect. After watching the first three episodes, I noticed that there was only 13 episodes in the entire series! I thought, 'This sure isn't long enough to finish this story!' But continued to watch anyway. And after the 9th episode, the story almost completely changed and I was left confused. They got it back together in time for the final episode, but I still think that the story ended too quickly. It was a perfect ending though, if you're willing to stick through the entire episode. And don't forget your tissue box, it'll come in handy through the whole series! And I'm normally really tough and don't cry easy, but there were tears rushing down my face the entire last episode, especially the final sequence before the credits. I still think that I could have lasted longer, like Full Metal Alchemist or had a fuller and more clear storyline like Fruits Basket, but it was good in its own way.

I honestly like this show to the core, but I just don't like how many flaws there are. Honestly the show's plot is very creative and interesting, it's just there's so many things that I question. Such as...

1. When the show continues you realize the SSS and Angel have simply been miscommunicating for who knows how many years. 2. So.. no one has thought about just imprisoning their enemy in like a jail cell or something? Instead of killing them over and over again which has been proved ineffective? Could apply to both the SSS and Angel. 3. I really think this show would have gone better if we knew the other character's histories.

This is just my thoughts, this show is still good, just some tweeks would have helped.

I don't want to see a "SPOILERS BELOW" tag here so I'll just keep things from a general review.

The series hits all the beats it needs to make you love characters, to enjoy the ride they go through and to root for things. Its heart wrenching in places and it doesn't pull any punches.

And does all this while pretending to be a shounen battle military anime.

Amazing show and one of my favourites of the early 10's

"Angel Beats" was at best an average show. The show had potential to be really great, but was severely flawed in character development.

The supporting cast was far too large and had too much presence throughout the series. This left little room for developing the three main characters (Yuzuru Otonashi, Yuri Nakamura, and Kanade Tachibana), and led to the inevitable let down at the end of the series where we see the emotional climax. It was difficult to feel emotional at this part because the series did a poor job making the viewer develop an emotional connection to the characters. With more time spent developing the main characters, this could have been much, much better.

For my concluding point, the main problem was that the series tried to accomplish too much in a short amount of time, and this caused each arc to feel very mediocre. Perhaps if the series was longer it wouldn't seem so rushed, but a good 13 episode series is absolutely doable. Take "Anohana" for example. There were two main characters (Jintan and Menma), and a small supporting cast, which left plenty of room for strong character development and made the ending so much better.

Overall a decent series. 6/10, would recommend.

This anime will really make a boy cry. (Which even I did) Only on the ending part. The series is a complete player of the viewer's emotions, will make him smile, laugh, feel the tension, and cry. I wonder if there are any other Anime series with a similar genre as this. This anime proved to me that an Anime series is better than a live-action show, in terms of making the viewer feel the events in the show.

Maybe because I've expected them to be only in a state of comatose made me disappointed. But Otonashi's reason for existence in the Afterlife which was revealed in the last episode suggests my assumption is impossible.

Also, it would be better if the creators would be creating a new season, so as not to waste a nicely-themed anime like this... Thus the 9/10. Good job, anyway!