I've heard a lot about Angel Beats! over the years, with many people recommending it and talking about how depressing the ending is especially. I finally got around to it and I felt it was a bit of a waste of time. The characters aren't super well developed (with only 13 episodes the creators really didn't give themselves enough time to fully develop everyone), the story is overall pretty weak, and the concepts aren't explained well.
Angel Beats! is definitely a character driven series, but I didn't feel like the characters were even that great to begin with. Some of the characters were actually pretty annoying, which I understand that's just something that comes to be expected with anime, but I found characters like Yui to be much better/more likable/more realistic than others like Naoi. Yui was defined by a certain trait, which was her energy. Naoi was so bent on the fact that he was god to the point where it didn't even make sense why. It was made clear that he'd abandoned that idea, and although it was funny the first time, it got annoying real quick and made him feel a lot less real that he could have been. Maybe it's just because I prefer the character type that Yui is, but nevertheless hearing Naoi throwing around the 'I am god' line in the last episode really made it difficult to care about him. Some relationships (specifically all the romantic ones) felt extremely forced, and all happened near the end. They felt rushed, when two characters might be hating each other and constantly fighting one moment, the next they fall in love out of absolutely nowhere. It just didn't make sense to me how it suddenly just appeared. I was happy that they didn't give into the anime cliché of every character spilling out their life story in the first few episodes for no apparent reason, which added to the character development more than it did take away. The characters didn't all feel the same in that they're all just a bunch of kids who can't control their emotions. Plus it gets awfully tedious to have to listen to a new life story every twenty-five or so minutes, especially if your only just introduced to these characters.
With a story as unique as this one, it would be kind of hard to get it right, but that doesn't excuse the fact that it wasn't well done. The creators took a risk and it didn't work out. The coolness of the idea gives it some extra points in my book, but it wasn't carried out well. It definitely could have been better if the creators had worked a bit harder.
A few of the key concepts I felt like could have been better explained, like the difference between obliteration and disappearing, and how to achieve both of these. Generally I understood it, but it still wasn't explained as well as it could have been.
Overall Angel Beats! is only worth checking out if your very interested. If not, there's really nothing to see here. The characters aren't as fully-explored as they could have been, the story could have been done better, and the concepts could have used some more clear explanations, so overall the show was just lacking. I did quite like the ending though, it seemed a bit sad at first (more just made one character out to be a bit of a huge jerk), but in the very last scene after the credits rolled there were a few more things explained to me and the series wrapped up really nicely. If you loved it, great, and if you didn't, that's cool too. I wouldn't recommend it, but if you really want to watch it, then go for it.
Angel Beats! is definitely a character driven series, but I didn't feel like the characters were even that great to begin with. Some of the characters were actually pretty annoying, which I understand that's just something that comes to be expected with anime, but I found characters like Yui to be much better/more likable/more realistic than others like Naoi. Yui was defined by a certain trait, which was her energy. Naoi was so bent on the fact that he was god to the point where it didn't even make sense why. It was made clear that he'd abandoned that idea, and although it was funny the first time, it got annoying real quick and made him feel a lot less real that he could have been. Maybe it's just because I prefer the character type that Yui is, but nevertheless hearing Naoi throwing around the 'I am god' line in the last episode really made it difficult to care about him. Some relationships (specifically all the romantic ones) felt extremely forced, and all happened near the end. They felt rushed, when two characters might be hating each other and constantly fighting one moment, the next they fall in love out of absolutely nowhere. It just didn't make sense to me how it suddenly just appeared. I was happy that they didn't give into the anime cliché of every character spilling out their life story in the first few episodes for no apparent reason, which added to the character development more than it did take away. The characters didn't all feel the same in that they're all just a bunch of kids who can't control their emotions. Plus it gets awfully tedious to have to listen to a new life story every twenty-five or so minutes, especially if your only just introduced to these characters.
With a story as unique as this one, it would be kind of hard to get it right, but that doesn't excuse the fact that it wasn't well done. The creators took a risk and it didn't work out. The coolness of the idea gives it some extra points in my book, but it wasn't carried out well. It definitely could have been better if the creators had worked a bit harder.
A few of the key concepts I felt like could have been better explained, like the difference between obliteration and disappearing, and how to achieve both of these. Generally I understood it, but it still wasn't explained as well as it could have been.
Overall Angel Beats! is only worth checking out if your very interested. If not, there's really nothing to see here. The characters aren't as fully-explored as they could have been, the story could have been done better, and the concepts could have used some more clear explanations, so overall the show was just lacking. I did quite like the ending though, it seemed a bit sad at first (more just made one character out to be a bit of a huge jerk), but in the very last scene after the credits rolled there were a few more things explained to me and the series wrapped up really nicely. If you loved it, great, and if you didn't, that's cool too. I wouldn't recommend it, but if you really want to watch it, then go for it.