Angel Beats!

"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.

Angel Beats is my favorite anime of all time. It has everything that makes a great story. I'd definitely recommend watching a subtitled version as opposed to the dubbed version, as the dub has all sorts of mistakes and the voices do get on your nerves.

Otonashi Yuzuru wakes up in the afterlife with no recollection of how he died. He can barely remember his own name. He meets Nakamura Yuri, the leader of the Afterlife Battlefront, a group of young people in the afterlife who are rebelling against God for giving them cruelly unfair lives. Their main target is "Angel," a girl who they believe is, as the name suggests, an angel created by God to watch over and enforce the rules of the afterlife (which takes the form of a huge boarding school). Abiding by the rules results in disappearing, supposedly due to being erased by Angel and/or God. Otonashi joins the Battlefront, and so the story begins.

Several flashbacks are placed throughout the series to give some of the characters' backstories. Each flashback is very emotional, very real, and, most importantly, human. You can relate to each character incredibly well, because they are presented as human beings, and this sucks you completely into the story.

The musical performances by the fictional band in the anime, Girls Dead Monster, are really exceptional. The animation is spot-on (they even go so far as to match the actual chords that are being played) and the songs are very catchy, even if you don't speak Japanese. They provide a very nice soundtrack to some scenes.

My only problem with this series is that it should've been twice as long. It was originally intended to be 26 episodes, but for some reason was cut down to only 13. They could have done so much more with another 13 episodes. However, the episodes that were made are still more than enough.

Angel Beats makes us ask ourselves, "What do you want to do with your life?" Everyone wants to die without any regrets. Angel Beats explores this theme with a story that is hilarious, emotional, action-packed, tearjerking, human, and, ultimately, beautiful. I've watched it several times, and it never gets old, because the themes are timeless and universal. I highly recommend this anime to anyone.

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

Everything starts looking like a joke, it gets molded with each episode, some tears, but the depth doesn't end, the characters are developed, their stories are shown and we are more passionate.

It is worth watching, talk about reparation and freedom, the weight of our choices and the real interpretation of that.

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!