Since I started working at the Smithsonian this semester, I haven't had much free time, but I've still been able to watch 10 episodes of a 13 episode anime, buy a ps3 and a few games for it, and get a girlfriend. As such my blogging has been nil. Now, I awake from my X amount of weeks slumber to talk about this anime.
Angel Beats! is an anime that reminds me a lot of the Robin Williams movie What Dreams May Come. It takes place in a realm made after a stereotypical anime high school, a sort of limbo for spirits of children who can't move on. It fills itself with stereotypes, unexplained halberds, and a surprisingly deep amount of character revelations.
Each person there has a regret, something they weren't able, didn't, or refused to do in life. The main character, Otonashi, awakes in this world without his memories, but next to a girl with purple hair, later introduced as Yuri or Yurippe, in a school uniform and Haruhi Suzumiya-esque headband looking down the barrel of a sniper rifle. It was at this point I realized I probably wouldn't like this anime. In fact, the only thing that kept me going through this stereotypical, unexplained, gorrammit-there's-another high school anime was the animation and the inclusion of one of my favorite devices; naming the enemy an angel. The perversion of the traditional is one of the most interesting starting points for anything in my opinion. After our amnesiac hero tells the purple haired assassin not to shoot at a cute little girl, she tells him two important things; first that she is an angel and his enemy, and second that she won't die anyway because no one dies in this world. Of course the first thing he does is test this by asking the cute girl in the sniper scope.
He wakes up later, having learned his lesson, surrounded by almost every single stereotype you could think of in a high school right down to the guy who randomly speaks english and does headspins(I'm convinced that the announcer from DDR voices this guy). Notably missing are egotistic glasses geek and frustratingly hyperactive kawaii girl. Also a halberd. Their goal in pseudo-life is to not disappear, which occurs when you go to school normally and act like a normal student. As such, elaborate pranks are planned with military-style briefings complete with beret. These are normally hidden from the nameless, faceless student body (called NPCs, literally stated as non-player characters. I lol'd) under the cover of ROCK MUSIC CONCERTS -____-. Can you get any more "please love my series!"? On the other hand, as far as japanese music goes, it ranks pretty high on my list.
Their first caper leaves you to wonder where they get the guns, ammo, and halberd that are so eagerly poured at the Angel to very little effect. The second episode tells you how and you feel dirty about it. "We have a secret underground factory where we build them." Its called Guild by the way. It is behind a very elaborate method of traps that are mostly pretty cool callbacks to previous ones like a trash compactor, but sometimes as lame as a fake puppy floating downstream. On the way to their facility, one hero after another is picked off until only Yuri and Otonashi remain. It is now that Otonashi begins his role in the series, that of the confidant. Yuri explains she died during a robbery where she was forced to watch each of her family members killed to motivate her into finding the house's valuables. Good old fashioned trauma to drive a character, make them question God, and,in this case, want to fight back against said deity. Once there, they are confronted by Angel, Yuri gets into a knife fight with her, and in an effort to kill her(until next week), they are forced to evacuate and self-destruct Guild. Although, its no big deal we'll just use the old Guild instead. Happy ending in a lame way, but at least they had to blow up the new one right?
The third episode brings home the manner of tragic lives and deaths of those in what I will call the "hero group", but a little to blandly. The vocalist and front-woman, Iwasawa, for the band that distracts the greater population "Girls Dead Monster" or "GirlDeMo" for short. Not sure why they abbreviate it like that. Anyway, she never had a chance to play music in her life, so when she alone sang a song she wrote, she found a state of bliss and went poof. Yep, being happy enough will make you disappear in this world(even after next week). The real shining point of this episode is Angel. So far she had been very quiet, but this time she says something interesting when the student body refuses her attempt to shut down the guerilla rock concert, "...as if I'm a bad guy". Not even in the same old way that all villains do, but one that implies actual, self-questioning confusion. The other question addressed is where Angel's powers come from. Enter egotistic glasses geek, who happens to be a hacker. He, Yuri, and a few others use what will be Iwasawa's last concert to infiltrate Angel's sleeping quarters and hack her computer, finding out that she seems to create her own abilities.
The fourth episode begins before the opening credits, and those credits are used for this frustratingly hyperactive, kawaii girl's audition to replace Iwasawa as the lead singer for GirlDeMo. I like this use of things that are "Out of Character" knowledge to fulfill something "In Character" and save episode time. However, from this point, the episode becomes lackluster. The plot involves a school baseball tournament, which for no real reason, the Hero Group needs to win. When the lame reasons are explained via briefing screen and beret, the grudgingly accepted pink-haired Yui asks all sorts of questions that can be legitimate, but are more often befitting of such overused hair color. She is completely and pointedly ignored. As the episode progresses however, Yui becomes helpful and thinks of things and does things outside of her apparent concept of "pink-haired adorable girl." The episode comes crashing back to lame at the ending, where Otonashi's best friend, Hinata, is about to reach his dream and disappear, but is completely blindsided and is prevented from it by Yui. Lame way to get a good result.
The fifth is a sort of mid-point climax; the end of a chapter if you will. The plan is to get Angel to fail her tests and remove her from her position as Student Council President by creating a distraction while "Christ" swaps her answer key with one that were completely wrong. A good display of characters trying to cheat a system they have become accustomed to. Unfortunately, a new challenger emerges, but it was as if he were always there. No one is surprised to see him, his reveal is actually pretty bland. On the plus side, Yuri is shown to be more focused on her objectives than her comrades' safety; showing a lack of caring due to cheating the system. Flaws are good. For the first time, Angel is spoken to - of course by our protagonist Otonashi - and is given a name, Kanade. It brings up questions like, is she human, what happens to her now that she lost her role, and what now? None of these are really answered, but the episode does well in presenting them in a way that makes the viewer think about them and want to know, rather than just throwing the questions to the audience and hoping they stick.
Episodes six through eight pass without much of importance, though Otonashi has his first glimpse at his memories, the new villain is resolved in a decent albeit repetitive way, and we all get to laugh at Otonashi's emo hair.
Episode nine picks up where five left off in terms of quality. Angel is bedridden, Otonashi is there because he is the only one that cares, and he falls asleep. This triggers an episode-long flashback to his death days. After a train crash, Otonashi is trapped in an underground tunnel, devoid of cell phone service and takes charge of a group of survivors from the crash, tending to their wounds, keeping their morale up, and all around being a leader. It is revealed that he had a bedridden sister who was perpetually waiting on a miscellaneous organ to be donated, that he saw no reason for himself living, and that he eventually dreamed of becoming a doctor. The episode became truly great when he spends the last moments of his life making himself an organ donor, and the realization of his death by his comerades-in-tunnel as moments after he does this, the rescue team breaks through the rubble only to find him and one other man that made it out of the train dead. He is then awakened by Kanade and realizes that he is content and happy, but still in the limbo. Otonashi then hatches a plan with Kanade to have each member of the Hero Group to reach their moments of bliss, supposedly in the same way he did, though it is not explicitly stated.
The last episode I have watched left me with a strangely heavy heart. This episode is devoted to connecting with Yui and giving her nirvana. Through a series of seemingly random tasks, Yui is shown to be a girl who was paralyzed early in life by a car, only able to admire other people's talents on TV. Near the end of the episode, her last wish is shown to be marriage, which Otonashi stumbles and stammers at, but Hinata calls out that he will. His words are all in the present and future tense, and the entire conversation of, "but I'm paralyzed" "I don't care I'll tend to you" made me question whether or not the disappearance from this world will be awakening from a coma, instead of reincarnation. A potential ending that I would enjoy. One type of ending that I hate is one that puts a nail in the coffin, ends the series, and gives no room for anything to continue. This normally happens when a character is forced to sacrifice himself at the end after everyone he knew has been killed. It has a sense of futility rather than achievement. Eitehr way, the episode ends with a montage of scenes from a life that could have been/will be between Yui and Hinata. The last image is that of Yui's discarded baseball bat and helmet, and Otonashi asks Hinata "Are you OK with That?" showing a potential flaw of Otonashi's, the inability to let go of something you care about. Hinata only responds with "Of course" and says that he will stay to the end of whatever is happening. Otonashi's hesitancy to let things go is something that will resonate with anyone because the most basic thought process is that if something is good, cling to it; don't let it escape.
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