Angel Beats! #01 — Hold Shift for Focus

April 2nd, 2010

 

What? Where? Huh? The hell is going on here?

Impressions:

Uhhhhhhhh…

Where to begin… where to begin…

Well, let’s start with a pat on my own back. I nailed it. The direction was… truly beyond this world. Mindblowing really. The show tried so hard to be serious, and then would shift gears and start dropping puns and overblown reactions more worthy of Dokuro, and then attempt to shift back into serious again like nothing had happened. The direction didn’t get much better from there. The lion’s share of this episode was spent on explaining every single goddamned thing. At least we got to look at some pretty scenery a few times, but after the twelth minute of just being flat up told "this is our scenario, we paid a lot for this writer, so here’s every single trivial detail that he wrote" my eyes were rolling back in my head. I don’t even want to talk about the concert scene at the end. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to juxtapose "Oh crap, super death angel!" against bad pop and cut between the two constantly for no reason? Why was the concert even there in the first place?

On to the good. It’s very very pretty. Really. It’s easily the best looking show I’ve seen for a long time. Of course, I’m not sure if they’ll be able to keep that up at all. Like I said, there was a LOT of exposition and shots of backgrounds this episode and we saw Tenshi stab Kyon Not-Kyon at least five or six times. Resorting to cheap tricks already is not a promising sign. PA Works has also finally sold their soul to the devil completely. A lot of people will be happy to see Haruhi and Kyon TOTALLY NOT Haruhi and Kyon back in action in another well animated and more actiony show.

I do think that if they settled the direction problems in the next few episodes, this could get a lot better. This show veers off into bizarre gag humor directions all the time though, and clearly has immense problems deciding what kind of show it even wants to be and has instead decided to eschew all hope of sense and throw a pop concert in for absolutely no reason. I may check out the next episode out of grim curiosity, and I will admit that I was laughing my ass off at the show by the end, but for the same reason that I eventually came to enjoy Princess Lover in its darkest days.

FYI, I’m off to the vet in a few minutes (dogs somehow managed to pick up a few ticks somewhere), so Devil King will have to wait for awhile.

Posted in Angel Beats! | 16 Comments »

16 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Anise Punter says:

    Somebody mention Dokuro-Chan 1? I’m there.

    This was confounding, to say the least.

  • GreyDuck says:

    Man, as soon as I saw the trailers I thought, “Oh, I see: They’re going DIRECTLY after the KyoAni fanboys.” You can go down a checklist, no kidding. Oy.

    Meh.

  • Xgen says:

    so no op yet? personally i think i will give this show a go, looks like it has the potential to be interesting

  • sage says:

    Oh Haruppe u so randum! X’D

  • Anonymous says:

    Looks like this is going to be my “I like this and I don’t know why” anime of the season.

  • Yue says:

    I laugh at why everyone has a lamplights reflecting directly over their heads.

    If those are supposedly halos then I call them “Halolz”. ^_^

  • FlameStrike says:

    Damn it looks like they might really be gunning for the kyoani fanboys. That being said, I’m totally going to watch this and enjoy it too.

  • The Phantom says:

    Awesome, great plot and actually likeable characters, I loved the plot: A bunch of kids fighting against god with guns. I am pretty sure this can become serious at any given time and that at least one of those students is going be erased. Awesome show following it from now on.

  • Lero says:

    Halulz?? Susumiya Haruhi no Angel Beats???

    I don’t where is this show going, but for sure is aiming to Kyoani’s fanboys.

  • Anon999 says:

    This is one of the new spring animes that I actually like. Sure, It may have a few elements of Haruhi, but it’s not all bad.

    The only problem i have with it, is the random humor. Do we really need comic relief in such a serious show?

    • Kaisos says:

      Other than the character designs, how is this anything like Haruhi?

    • Jinx says:

      “Do we really need comic relief in such a serious show?”

      Why yes. Yes we do. Even Ghost in the Shell have comic relief.

      Anyway, I’m going to have a flashback with how people are complaining that Sora no Woto is K-On. People will be people I guess… oh well. Your loss.

  • anon999 says:

    Because the main heroine has the same personality as Haruhi.

    • queenie says:

      Not really. Yuri is less Haruhi annoying (much as I love her) and uses her head when coming up with plans and such. Haruhi’s more of a spur of the moment type character. That and she is more willing to take a backseat role (from what I’ve seen) than make it all about her.

      Design wise = similar
      Personality wise = not so much

  • Fate says:

    Well, that was uh interesting I guess.

  • Sam says:

    I feel pretty baffled after watching it myself.