About every two weeks, I have in-depth anime discussions over the phone with my best friend Sean. We first became friends through our obsessive passion for Dragon Ball Z; over the years, our anime preferences veered in different directions. While I lean towards the critically acclaimed classics and hidden gems, Sean sticks to extremely lengthy shonen series (and, I suspect, ecchi titles as well). While there are some things we agree on when it comes to anime, there are many things in which we don’t. In one of the few Sean statements that I support, he said one day that he usually doesn’t like current anime with amazing graphics, explaining titles like this are for a viewer “with the brain of a goldfish”. Sean also said that he doesn’t normally approve of the aforementioned anime category because their amazing animation is used to distract people from a multitude of jarring flaws.

When thinking of Sean’s statement, the first thing that comes to mind (for me) is Angel Beats. While I often hail certain anime as “underrated”, I make a point to avoid calling a title “overrated”. In a medium filled with holier-than-thou elitists, pathetic weaboos, “I-like-what-everyone-else-likes” bandwagoners, overzealous bloggers, and critics who despise anime altogether, it’s impossible for anything to be rated properly anymore (if it ever was). However, as your average anime fan, I say that Angel Beats is overrated. Scratch that; I say that Angel Beats is wildly overrated. Two OVAs (“Hell’s Kitchen” and “Stairway to Heaven”), one manga, one visual novel game, and a four-episode internet radio show are all byproducts of the beautifully-designed abomination known as Angel Beats (Even YouTube has jumped on this cash cow, charging people money to watch this garbage). What tempted me to check this out in the first place was its title (Thought it was about a hip-hop-oriented heaven) and its vaguely interesting premise: a young man wakes up in the afterlife, joining a randomly assembled group of teenagers to fight an evil entity named Angel and discover why they’re there in the first place. This synopsis sounds pretty good, right? This anime, however, is anything but.

How do you know when a series is going downhill? Most of the time, you can tell when a particularly painful joke/line is repeated to death, when a beloved character crucial to the plot is killed off, of when panty shots are bombarded at you in a desperate attempt to attract viewers. Sometimes, it’s only obvious near the end, when you can tell the most jarring of plot holes will never be resolved. With Angel Beats, however, I could tell from the first episode – no, the very first scene – that I was witnessing a natural disaster. A little after Otonashi, our protagonist, wakes up in the afterlife, one of the main characters (a girl named Yuri) gives him vague information of where he is and how he arrived there before she asks “I know this is sudden but could you join up with us?” The question comes across as an out-of-the-blue line designed to quickly shuffle the story along. In the first episode, the purpose of Yuri’s group (and the series in general) is presented (the purpose being to fight Angel) but the motive behind their purpose is never fully established (the closest conclusion I could piece together is that the characters blame God for what happened to them in a previous life and, since Angel is apparently the next-best-thing to “The Man Upstairs”, they attack Angel in an attempt to take down God). The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, like Angel Beats, is a school/slice-of-life series with drama and supernatural elements, and it’s obvious that Angel Beats seeks to aspire to Haruhi Suzumiya. The imitation can be seen in the baseball game and its importance to the plot during episode 4, which is stolen (or inspired, depending on your opinion of Angel Beats) from Haruhi Suzumiya. It can also be seen in the show’s three central characters; Angel is a more emotional version of Yuki Nagato while Yuri is a watered-down revision of Haruhi and Otonashi is the poor man’s Kyon, deprived of the sharp wit and consistent nonchalance that made Kyon an enjoyable character. What separates Angel Beats from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, however, is the show’s attempts to be light-hearted through practical pranks but unfortunately the pranks so dramatically over-the-top that realism is ruined and the innocent fun is sucked out of it. For example, in episode 1, Yuri’s gang exerts too much manpower and force into an extremely trivial act (stealing people’s lunch money) with the vague purpose of it somehow affecting Angel. If you’re staring at this review with a raised eyebrow, trust me; I’m just as confused as you are.

Besides Otonashi, Yuri, and Angel are an army of supporting characters, some who are a little more than vaguely interesting but none of them are really important in the grand scheme of things. Takayama is the token smart guy, an insufferable hacker/nerd with a catchphrase that he repeats to death (“Call me Christ”). Naoi is a green-haired hypnotist with a God complex and a borderline-homosexual obsession with Otonashi (In episode 12, he blurts out his feelings for our protagonist by screaming “I wanna be with you!”). Ooyama is a blank slate, an average student with no personality or distinct traits whatsoever. My least favorite character of the bunch has to be Yui, an annoying, hyperactive wannabe-singer with pink hair and a miniscule amount of depth. The only tolerable character is the blue-haired Hinata, who’s easily my favorite in the series, the second-in-command of Yuri’s gang who is also near-homosexually obsessed with Otonashi but is a thoroughly developed character overall. Excluding Hinata, the writing in Angel Beats doesn’t help out the characters too much (a disappointment for a people-driven title like this) the cast often speaking in vague terms and repeating lines. The acting in Angel Beats isn’t simply bad; it’s as if the voice actors are on a collective cruise control setting, not bothering to inject any real emotion or passion into the script. None of these actors, however, are more atrocious at their trade than Blake Shepard (the voice of Otonashi), whose lack of vigor in his role is beyond belief (There are only two scenes where Shepard shines as a somewhat legitimate actor: in episode 6, where Otonashi punches Naoi in the rain, and in episode 9, where he has a pivotal conversation with Angel at the hospital). In order to counteract Otonashi’s untalented voice actor, the show gives him a random, out-of-the-blue backstory that’s admittedly a bit touching but it’s a horribly rushed method to give a character depth. Besides the protagonist, Angel Beats also administers this treatment to several members of the supporting cast, proving that this show has no clue of how to fluidly develop a character.

The “Beats” in Angel Beats has – I have come to realize – less to do with hip-hop (still a major disappointment) and more to do with an emphasis on music, easily the one highlight of the series. This emphasis can be seen in the episode titles, which are mostly named after songs (like “Favorite Flavor”, “Change the World”, and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’’). As for the soundtrack itself, it’s pretty decent but not particularly special; the fact that I consider Angel Beat’s good-but-not-great soundtrack the best thing about this series is pretty depressing. There’s a lot of hype around Angel Beat’s opening and, while I admit the visually appealing theme song grew on me, I wouldn’t call it one of the greatest. Among the many things I don’t like about this show is its lack of style, its unwillingness to use its amazing animation in creative ways. One of the few instances of animation creativity is in episode 10, where the characters are paper cutouts pasted on an artistically detailed sketch as Otonashi describes his plan. The other exhibit of creativity is in episode 3 (literally the only great episode in the series), where band leader Iwasawa transforms into a white silhouette with vivid colors exploding inside of here as she listens to the band Sad Machine. The aforementioned episode 3 contained subtlety, mystery, depth, motivation, and emotion, none of which can be used to describe Angel Beat’s plot.

One of the biggest rules for the characters in Angel Beat’s afterlife setting is not interact and/or follow the routines of NPCs (a term used for the show’s background characters), which includes attending classes and eating lunch with them. Over time, the show slowly but steadily forgets this instruction, allowing the characters to go to class several times (At one point, Yuri (the one who ordered this rule in the first place) talks with an NPC and even considers it a “friend”). This is one of many, many plot holes in this flawed failure, one of many instances where this supposedly great anime loses its consistency in the story. Not only are there plot holes in Angel Beats, the show also has moments aplenty that are intended to be funny or dramatic but are ruined once again due to the awkwardly stilted story. In episode 4, Hinata beating up Yui is deployed as an exhaustive “comedic” tool (A potentially great scene from Hinata is ruined near the end of the episode when the show switches up their running gag with Yui attacking Hinata. SO ORIGINAL!!). In episode 5, it’s an uninspiring running gag of a flying classroom seat that spoils the experience. Episode 8 is where Angel Beats attempts to be dramatic, where members of Yuri’s gang kill themselves to stop an onslaught of Angel doppelgangers; this scene doesn’t work because, after a while, screaming the names of dying characters becomes repetitive. It doesn’t work because the characters are already dead so the impact of their sacrifices is obsolete. For Angel Beats, it arrives at a new low in episode 12 (the second-to-last of the series), where random shadow monsters materialize literally out-of-the-blue and the climax of the episode makes this experience worse. A conversation between Yuri and the mastermind of the shadow monsters introduces the programmer of the afterlife with a backstory involving a lover, this programmer being the “God” whom the series revolves around. This conversation is the show’s umpteenth attempt at being deep and complex (for once, it kinda works); what pisses me off about this is that here the show finally has a potentially intriguing plot element and it never capitalizes on this (It’s barely even mentioned again). The philosophical conversation and how it’s handled would’ve been the nadir of Angel Beat’s tenure… if it weren’t for the finale.

“It’s, not, how you start; it’s how you finish,” – The Hours, “Ali in the Jungle”

During the beginning of episode 13, Otonashi informs Yuri that almost all of the supporting cast had disappeared form the afterlife, to which Yuri replies, “That’s good,” (After making her dramatic “This is my life” speech in episode 12 about how much she cares for her crew, Yuri’s reply comes across as yet another example of lazy, terrible, inconsistent writing). It gets worse; the characters who are left (Otonashi, Angel, Yuri, Hinata, and Naoi) create a makeshift graduation ceremony (After all, this is a school anime) and I have to endure listening to them sing a dull, uninspiring song TWICE. There has been a lot of controversy over Angel Beat’s ending and I have to say it’s easily THE lowlight in a series with an ample supply of them; the contrived, out-of-the-blue, overdramatic conclusion epitomizes what I’ve spent six paragraphs trying to tell you. Angel Beats is an anime that attempts to be so many things but fails over and over and over. It tries to be the next Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya yet to compare the two is laughable. It tries to be funny yet fails miserably. It tries to be dramatic but, to borrow a Hinata quote from episode 4, “you didn’t touch my heart”. It tries to be unique above all else. I’ll miss you, Angel Beats. I’ll never witness another anime like you, except every single day when I browse on Amazon.com and see all the other spectacularly subpar school series. While finishing up Angel Beats and struggling to comprehend what I was exposing myself to, I thought of Shiina, specifically her catchphrase. Long after the show and the characters ceased feigning concern for the supporting cast, I thought of one of its least important members, a quiet, long-haired adolescent girl with an affinity for knives and a bizarre obsession for kittens. “What was Shiina’s catchphrase?”, you might ask. “This is so stupid”, and that is Angel Beats in a nutshell.