Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
ffrx4
I finally decided to watch this show, after years of seeing it get highly praised by the community, and i am pretty disappointed.
-Plot: Angel Beats is a show that in 13 episodes tried to do what not even a longer anime would be able to. Watching the series felt like getting bombarded with new plot points and plot twists almost every episode, just to then resolve them quickly and never talk about them again; this anime had so many chances of getting more interesting, but it seemed to just have an adversion against going deeper into world-building and actually explaining things that otherwise just make no sense.
-Characters: the characters were hit or miss, I don't think they were all unlikeable, but most of them just had absolutely no personality, including part of the main cast. The pro…
Read at the sourceguywholikesanime
Note: I ain't no english speaker
Welcome to MAL where a mediocre and predictable tear-jerking/slice of life/ comedy series is ranked 100 spots over NGE. The magical place where fanboys will defend their favorite crappy anime just so a bunch of pretentious teenagers that think that they are intellectual can complain about their shitty taste and make fun of them (oh wai--)
If after reading that paragraph you are not quite sure what is my opinion about Angel Beats! then let's get down to the proper review.
PRODUCTION VALUE
I cannot bash this anime on this particular aspect as it has top-notch animation combined with beautiful art. It was produced by P. A. Works, a studio with tons of money that prefers to invest it in these mediocre melodramatic stories instead of something good (although…
Read at the sourceChrissyKay
It seems to me that there are currently three major anime that are upheld by the vast majority of the anime community as "the shows that bring tears". I have heard all three of them described as life-changing masterpieces, stories that transcend genre and qualify as immaculate art. I am of course referring to Clannad & its Afterstory, Ano Hana or The Flower We Saw That Day, and... Angel Beats. While I have my gripes with the other two (Clannad's first season is mostly unnecessary and Ano Hana relies on characters showing emotion counting as invoking the emotion of the audience) I can accept and understand how these shows could have a profound impact on people as they earn their emotional moments by carefully developing their characters and setting up impacting scenes way in advance. Hell,…
Read at the sourceFear_the_Reefer
Yuzuru Otonashi has a problem. He’s just woken up on the ground outside of a strange school, to find out that his unconscious body has been guarded over by an even stranger girl wielding a gun that’s bigger than she is, and the only thing he remembers is his name. But before he can ask what the hell he drank last night, she explains that he’s dead. And she says this... while aiming her gun at another girl. She goes on to explain that this other girl, an apparent angel, is the mortal enemy of her and the group she leads... The Underworld Battlefront. Or the “Like Hell I’m Dead Battlefront,” depending on what version you’re watching.
Believing this story to be bat-shit crazy, and who could blame him, the boy shrugs off her story, and decides to approach the other girl, who echoes the first…
Read at the sourceDream95
Angel Beats!, an anime hailed by many to be one of the best, if not the best anime ever, but also an anime many think its bad and seriously overrated. So where does it stand? Well, it isn't downright terrible, but it's not the best anime there is either, no, it's not even close to it.
I think the main story is summarized pretty nicely on MAL so I won't go in much depth on that. The first few episodes were presented nicely, and definitely looked promising. It introduced you to the characters in the SSS and Tenshi, and for me, I think they did a good job on it, making you want to know the truth of the afterlife and how the characters ended up there. From there, however, it started to fall apart, bit by bit.
You see, when an anime is only going to be 13 episodes long, it can have the tenden…
Read at the sourceCovetCloud
This is my first review so I hope it helps!
If you haven't read the synopsis, Angel Beats (in a nutshell) takes place in a fictional world at a school where the protagonists are unable to advance to the afterlife/next life because of regret or lack of fulfillment in their previous life. There were lots of ups and downs to this series. I was really excited to start the series since it had been so heavily recommended to me by several friends, so I had high expectations prior to watching Angel Beats. Whether or not this affected my opinion is difficult to say, but I found myself disappointed and unmoved by the end of the series.
Before I break the series down into categories, I'll say what stands out in this anime. The visuals and audio are captivating. They really compliment the character…
Read at the sourceDrakensbergMist
Angel Beats! The anime that is praised by many and criticized by few. Sadly I was forced to go stand in the cold critic corner. In all honesty, I was excited to watch this anime after all the suggestions from people and raving reviews. The art looked amazing and I heard the music was incredible. What is a good anime in my book? An anime that effects my grades negatively, because just...one...more...episode! Angel Beats however never gripped me. It made me say: "Ok that's enough for today, I have a ton of homework anyway..." My experience can be best summed up in a quote from another review: "I badly wanted to love this anime, but just couldn't..."
STORY: 2/10
I obsessively try to spot the cracks and flaws in a plot, but I overlook a lot of flaws in the beginning of an anime to give it a…
Read at the sourcenevrendingshonen
OVERALL (4) I really don't understand how this show is so highly rated. This is absolutely no the show for you if you enjoy story, good characterization, comprehensible motivations, or a coherent setting. Other than the admittedly stunning visuals, the show has very little to offer compared to other media that are far superior in almost every other aspect. To nutshell: amazing animation that guilds an empty shell of a series with so little substance it may as well be filler from start to finish. Actually I take that back, filler from start to finish would actually be more entertaining.
STORY AND ENJOYMENT (2) I bundle since I am watching this to have a story played out for me by a set of good characters. This is where I derive my enjoyment. But, the show so heavily under-emphasizes everyt…
Read at the sourcewumbmasta
Angel Beats Review:
Potential. That is exactly what this show was full of. Admittedly Angel Beats was indeed a good show that I really enjoyed watching. However, the show fell short of what I believe it could have achieved in a 24 episode season.
Story 6/10:
My God the story. THE reason why this show had sooo much potential. Angel Beats is about a student named Yuzuru Otonashi who finds himself with amnesia and in some sort of purgatory in shape of a high school campus. After meeting "Angel," Otonashi is convinced into joining SSS, where he and other students in purgatory fight off "Angel" to prevent obliteration. Let me tell that to you again, kids in purgatory are fighting off an angel to prevent themselves from moving on. If you aren't intrigued by that I am shocked. To top that off,…
Read at the sourcexbobx
"-You must be an idiot! You should try dying once!
by the way, that's a cliché joke in this world where no one can die. So, was it funny?"
I'm at a loss for words...
What could I say? I keep getting surprised with Key's scriptwriters. Who's already familiar with their works, probably heard the name Jun Maeda before. He's the original creator of Angel Beats. You may not like him, but Maeda's (and his coworkers at Key) manner of creating and conducing a story, be it a light-hearted comedy or a melodramatic romance, is definately worthy of praise. Just look around, Clannad, Air, Kanon and recently Little Busters! are all well-known series.
When you see the description and the pictures for this anime, you actually think there's nothing of "special" with it. Guns, girls, music, baseball, god,…
Read at the sourceToucanbird
All right, I need to come clean and say, this is probably one of the hardest reviews for me to write. Probably because it might seem like my scores don't justify what I'm actually saying.
First of all, Angel Beats might be my favorite anime of all-time. Is it the best anime I've ever seen? From a storytelling point of view, probably not. I won't lie and admit it has its flaws. However, there is just something about this anime I found extremely enjoyable. So much so where I go back and say, "flaws? What flaws?"
I guess I should just start with the story. Otonashi wakes up and finds himself on a school ground that he isn't familiar with next to a girl holding a sniper rifle. She informs him that he is dead and that they are fighting against Angel, a girl that also attends this school with…
Read at the sourceStunfisk
I will say this first; Angel Beats! is my favourite anime series. While a lot of people don't share my sentiment, and say that Angel Beats! is nothing special, I disagree.
Angel Beats! takes place in a kind of afterlife similar to purgatory. In it, young adults find themselves at a mysterious colossal boarding school that runs like most other schools...with one exception; Yuri and the Afterlife battlefront.
The members of the Afterlife battlefront fight the unfairness of life and also their idealogy of god. Otonashi is the protagonist, after he wakes in the new world with little to no memories about his past life. This may seem cliche, well, because it somewhat is but this works well as a plot device as his motives change because of his memories being slowly regained.
After a long brea…
Read at the sourcedjwhack03
Angel Beats has convinced me that Jun Maeda doesn’t know how to write an original story. His previous hits Air, Kanon, and Clannad have been about a bunch of mentally and/or physically broken high school girls who all fall in love with a guy whose only significant character trait is that he exists, and along the way one of these girls will die of a mysterious illness. For Angel Beats, Maeda twists his tried and true formula by having all the characters dead to begin with, and stuck in some sort of high school purgatory, where a group of high school students shoot a little girl in the kneecaps for no good reason.
As mentioned earlier, Maeda’s stories are very formulaic. First, he establishes a cast of one dimensional, but likeable characters, and a zero dimensional main character who is de…
Read at the sourceArchaeon
Sometimes anime studios manage to confuse me, not because of anything they do, but because of what they don't do.
Take Angel Beats as an example.
Any fan of certain Key visual novels (or their KyoAni adaptations), will undoubtedly be familiar with the work of Maeda Jun, whose inimitable style, approach, and methodology to storytelling is clearly on display in Angel Beats, and on the surface this may actually seem like a good thing. Given the whole concept of a high school purgatory one would think there was enormous scope for the tale, and in some aspects the story is delivered very well. The only problem is that as a viewer, I'm kind of getting bored of watching the same thing over and over again.
Here's what I mean. Angel Beats takes the idea of purgatory (to those of you who don't kn…
Read at the sourceArchon_Wing
Short Review: It needed 26 episodes.
Long Review: Angel Beats is a pretty interesting work. The writer, Jun Maeda, is responsible for a number of emotional masterpieces such as Air, Kanon, and Clannad. Maeda's ability to invoke emotion in his audience is definitely outstanding and thus I had great anticipation for the series.
Angel Beats! is a treat to the eyes and ears. P.A. works did an amazing job with the visuals. The opening animation is a pleasure to watch and the backgrounds can easily rival Kyoto Animation's which is no small feat. The music is also very memorable, and usually appropriate to the situation. Besides the opening "My Soul Your Beats" and "Brave Song", there's also a bunch of songs sung by the show's band Girls' Dead Monster. Some people have noted the songs by GDM sou…
Read at the sourceDetective
Angel Beats! is absolutely glorious and perfect. It made me laugh, and cry, and I just loved all the drama and the story is not as paper-thin as one would believe. I thought all the characters were awesome, especially TK xD. The ending made me cry it was so good. In summary, Angel Beats! is amazing and is really emotional and if you haven't seen Angel Beats! go watch it!
Haha just kidding. Angel Beats! isn't actually all that special, and I'm writing this review to just try and send out a message to those of you who have not watched Angel Beats! yet. No I'm not trolling, I really hated Angel Beats! and the reason I stuck with it to the end is so I could tell other anime watchers to stay the hell away from it. Note: I don't give a shit about the 'moewave.' I like all genres and types of an…
Read at the sourceShibuyaRiver
Angel Beats is yet again another cross media collaboration between Key animation studios, and visual novel writer Jun Maeda. Together have worked on such projects like Air, Kanon, Clannad, and now Angel Beats.
The plot centers around Otonashi, a young man who wakes up in the middle of a school yard, with no recollection on how he got there or any memories of his past. He is then confronted by a girl holding a rather large gun, her name is Yuri, the leader of a organization called the SSS, a group devoted to fighting god and his angels. Confused by her offer, Otonashi declines and decides to confront this 'angel', seeing how she appears to be a lonesome little girl. Unfortunately for Otonashi, this helpless little girl somehow manifests blades from her arms and stabs him. After waking up,…
Read at the sourcetazillo
Firstly, I've heard that Angel Beats is best enjoyed by exploring its other media types as well (short stories, manga). However, I have neither the time nor urge to do so, and therefore this review is based solely on the anime series. Created by the same people who made Clannad and Kanon, many had high hopes for AB and I myself predicted that it would be nothing short of excellent. To be honest though, it did not entirely meet my expectations.
The first episode starts off strongly by introducing many ideas regarding the story, although a lot of things are left unexplained. However, as the series progresses details are gradually revealed bit by bit. The setting of AB is a school that's part of the afterlife, and it's this mystery and intrigue which makes this anime quite appealing in the e…
Read at the sourcecoldcoal
I have to admit that I first started watching Angel Beats because of two main reasons: the pretty visuals, and the presence of guitars. But once I began watching the show in earnest, I found a lot more here than I expected. Angel Beats is a show that keeps me guessing, and consistently tugs at strings I didn't know existed until they were pulled.
Basically, Angel Beats is about an afterlife in which a group of dead students refuse to 'move on' to the next life, because they have some sort of peace to make with the world and themselves. There's a unique mix of common school life against the supernatural. It's a setting that I found to be original enough; I also expected it to be a simple tear-jerker, but that isn't the case.
Angel Beats has a duality about it. One part of it is comedy -…
Read at the sourceSa_De_Me_Ta
Angel Beats is a marvel, no, a monument of modern Japanese animation. It is a series that has no reason to exist other than to market off of otaku and has no merit to it at all. I guess you could say that this is the spiritual successor to Code Geass, except at least that shallow marketing machine of a series had a little substance to it.
The series is about Walking Cliche Male Protagonist, Haruhi with a Gun, and her sidekick Nagato with her Hair Grown Out. The names are long, but you'll remember them. Follow them on a pseudo-deep story about rebelling against the Gods of Television and becoming the most popular thing on TV while exerting the least effort. A quest which they are failing at so far, as Senko no Night Raid has been beating them in the ratings. To be fair though, that show ha…
Read at the source