02.06
About as a vibrant as a set of used markers.
We of the Animation Revelation are a rare breed, as in we utterly despise any show adapted from the visual novels of a studio by the simple name of Key. Sure, they have pretty good animation and some decent, if diabetes-inducing, music, but we can’t just comprehend the cries of “BEST ANIME EVA!” when seeing reviews or discussions about Kanon, Air, or Clannad. While others may see them as emotionally rich shows that portray relationships in such vibrant ways, we view them as melodramatic monstrosities that have the depth of a Nicholas Sparks novel or a season of Degrassi. So when I found out that they put out a show that was about something other than relationships, I figured there might be something interesting to it. And dear god was I wrong.
For the layout, a kid named Otonashi wakes up to find himself in the middle of a high school. And soon after that, he gets stabbed by an albino girl with Protoss abilities. But the morning after, he wakes up yet again to realize that his wounds have disappeared. With no idea who he is or how he came to be here, a group of students known as the SSS Battlefront take him in and explain that he is in a purgatory of sorts. Nobody knows the details, or what is bringing them to this place, but all they know is that they must go on a campaign against God to find out. And through there, they must take down the being simply known as Angel.
Where shows like Baccano! end up being the well-grilled steak of anime, or how most shonen fulfill the role of fast food hamburgers, Angel Beats! is week-old slurry dumped all over a fungus-laden trough. There’s nothing that can grab the average viewer, with the only demographic that could possibly enjoy this being the moe fans who have been devouring Key’s work for years. What serves as a somewhat interesting premise ends up being wasted due to pandering and random drifts to tedious slice-of-life antics. Even with only having a baker’s dozen of episodes, the series can’t even keep a plot lasting for a third of that length. And once it leaves its first cycle, it proves to be impossible for it to climb back up and create a coherent story.
The greatest flaw in this show—and really, all of the shows adapted from Key games—is that the characters have nothing to define them other than their single quirk and/or tragedy. To note, there’s the ambiguously gay character who suffered from steroid abuse! Here’s the bitchy team leader that has dead brothers and sisters hanging on her mind! Here’s the guitar girl who inexplicably got a stroke because of a cranial injury from her parents! How about the other ambiguously gay kid that had to live up to the standards of his dead brother? Aren’t these interesting character descriptions to you?! But really, that is literally the amount of depth any of these characters, and that’s if their lucky. Most of the cast literally only provide one single character trait and nothing else, like the girl who thinks she’s a ninja, the guy with the axe, the tall guy, yet another ambiguously gay kid, that guy with the glasses, the kid who wants everyone to call him Christ, the guy who randomly spouts out out-of-context English phrases, and the pink-haired girl whose presence will make you want to claw at the screen. That is literally all there is to these characters. Maybe the cast would have more depth if there was more than a meager 13 episodes, but it’s more likely that there would just be more characters with even more dark, troubled, and quite stupid pasts.
And just to show exactly how stupid these pasts are, let’s look at the tragedy of one of these characters. Our example here, Yuri, who you’ll know as the girl who looks like Haruhi, lived life with upper class parents and three loving younger siblings. But one day, when her parents went out, thugs randomly broke in and tried to take whatever they could. But despite being at least semi-wealthy, the family’s place had nothing. So the burglars force Yuri to find any valuables for them, and if they don’t, they will execute her siblings one by one every 10 minutes. No matter where she went or what she scoured, there was nothing she could find to appease the thieves. Fortunately for her, the cops came in. But unfortunately, they came in at 30 minutes. And with that, Yuri suddenly decides that it’s God’s fault for this and spends the rest of her time on the show fixating on this event.
On the surface, the above might come off as heartbreaking or extremely depressing. But when looking further, fridge logic reveals itself and a tragic story ends up coming off as poorly maneuvered storytelling. From how the cops came at the most completely ironic time, to how the burglars just happen to be sociopaths, this past is calculated to create the most negative impact on the subject with the least effort used in providing layers to the matter in hand. In short, this is a grand example of laying it on thick.
The writer, Jun Maeda, seems to be under the idea that tragedy automatically creates a character, but it doesn’t. All it does is give them a vague backstory and something to angst about. A character needs to have an array of events, both good and bad, to define them. The development of a protagonist requires natural growth, not sudden fury to make it happen. And the same goes for quirks. Making a character randomly dance and act like an inverted minstrel turns them into a caricature than an actual part of the story. And that’s what a good 80% of the cast is: nothing but caricatures. The core cast could be completely limited to just Otonashi, Angel, at least any one of the SSS Battlefront to provide some mentoring for Otonashi, and the story would remain mostly unchanged.
And to further this problem is that Otonashi is the blandest of the roster. Sure, he ends up getting the most history out, with dead sister and all, but none of that adds up to depth. You remember that part of The Phantom Menace Video Review, where Mr. Plinkett asked a bunch of people how they would describe the personality of random Star Wars characters? I tried doing that with Otonashi, and the closest I could think of was that he was somewhat selfless, if misguided. But really, how many main characters don’t fit those two adjectives?
Also, the show often forgets its own premise. Very few of the characters actually seem nonplussed about the fact that they’re dead, with the façade only being cast aside once a character has to spout out their tragic backstory of the day. Whatever mission for the crew ends up dovetailing into something about baseball, or fishing, or singing, or cheating tests, or some other task that’s ends up being utterly trite, especially given how the SSS is shown multiple times to have enough arms to take over several third-world countries.
As for the music, which seems to be the main draw of the show given how shoehorned the band is, it’s… passable. There’s really nothing wrong with any of the songs. It’s just that the show is so hellbent on interspersing into the main plot. Never mind how those in purgatory probably aren’t in the right mental state to play J-pop music, yet alone acquire instruments to do so. It gets to the point where the series could be an entire episode or two shorter if they just cut out all of the band scenes.
In other words, fuck this show and all of its ilk. If you want a series about misguided teenagers trying to make their mark, go watch Misfits, Inbetweeners, Press Gang, or hell, even any of that CW shit. This is a prime example of how not to do what boils down to a teen drama, but unfortunately, most of the audience will ignore the plot holes in favor of how “catchy” the songs or how “deep” the characters are.
Rating: 2/10
Originally posted on Tuesday, December 21, 2010.