(L+CR) Charlotte (New Aniplex x Key x P.A. Works Original Anime Project) [Anticipation]

[Akito Kinomoto]

To be honest the lack of character development for a lot of its cast is the only problem about Angel Beats! that registers with me. Whatever zigzags the story made didn't bother me since I felt from the outset that this was gonna be one of those shows that just didn't give a damn. And remember what finished airing the year before? Methinks that's a tough act to follow.

After Story > Refrain >= Kanon '06 > Angel Beats! = Clannad > Little Busters! > Air, imo.

AB!'s one of those things I go to for the story. The comedy. The antics. It'd go perfect with a game of one of these things is not like the other

Spoiler for Angel Beats!:

Though Yuri gets awfully friendly with Kanade really fast. Too bad she didn't live up to her name.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Akuma Kinomoto

To be honest the lack of character development for a lot of its cast is the only problem about Angel Beats! that registers with me. Whatever zigzags the story made didn't bother me since I felt from the outset that this was gonna be one of those shows that just didn't give a damn.

But Angel Beats! often does seem to take its story seriously. Not always, but often. So I'm not sure where you get the impression that Angel Beats! didn't care at all about its story?

Just because a story is told a bit sloppily at times doesn't mean that the writers of that story don't care about it.


Anyway, my own ranking of the Key anime is probably the same as your own, except I'd switch Little Busters! with Angel Beats!

[cyth]

Angel Beats is a story about the school being a healing place. I don't know why anyone can take it seriously.

I don't have high hopes for this one, mostly because I think Maeda has forsaken plot devices that made his Key works heartwarming successes.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I didn't need a lot of time spent on Otonashi to care about him, after all. One key episode was all I needed to care about Otonashi.

And you're assuming that no other character could get a similar key episode? Most people didn't care for Yui until her departure episode, for instance.

[Akito Kinomoto]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

But Angel Beats! often does seem to take its story seriously. Not always, but often. So I'm not sure where you get the impression that Angel Beats! didn't care at all about its story?

Just because a story is told a bit sloppily at times doesn't mean that the writers of that story don't care about it.

Because I don't recall any Key work throwing that much randomness between all of its emotional moments. AB! being a true fantasy setting (and not 'real locales' w/ magic on the side) also makes it a little easier to buy into what it did. Not saying they didn't care about the story, but rather a lot of it lives by rule of cool and the show has fun with itself. imo it's a different Beat compared to every other animated Key thing.

[Guardian Enzo]

I think Angel Beats was a disaster altogether, and it being twice as long would just have meant it was twice as horrible. But I don't see it as an issue of Maeda over indulging his tendencies as Maeda experimenting and failing spectacularly.

If there's a "classic" Maeda story, to me it's Clannad and After-story. It's Maeda without anyone really checking his excesses. There's genuine emotion but it's swamped in a sea of emotional manipulation and forced sentimentality.

[Frontier]

Well, I tend to really enjoy all Maeda/Key works so I'll probably enjoy this and just hope there's more romance in it than there was in Little Busters (which I also enjoyed) .

[dark998]

I wonder if Charlotte will surpass Angel Beats as best selling Key anime ever or the latter will retain the title. In any case both brands are pretty much "sisters" so it will be a healthy competition.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by Akuma Kinomoto

To be honest the lack of character development for a lot of its cast is the only problem about Angel Beats! that registers with me. Whatever zigzags the story made didn't bother me since I felt from the outset that this was gonna be one of those shows that just didn't give a damn. And remember what finished airing the year before? Methinks that's a tough act to follow.

After Story > Refrain >= Kanon '06 > Angel Beats! = Clannad > Little Busters! > Air, imo.

AB!'s one of those things I go to for the story. The comedy. The antics. It'd go perfect with a game of one of these things is not like the other

Spoiler for Angel Beats!:

Though Yuri gets awfully friendly with Kanade really fast. Too bad she didn't live up to her name.

Kinda funny, because I see it the other way around. Angel Beats has more swerves than a Vince Russo script and it seems to me the plot was pretty much completely arbitrary until the end until it goes typical key, and that's sorta whatever. Angel Beats' strength is in its cast variety, and because it's responsible for 75% of testosterone in PA Works' roster, that's sorta important!

I largely agree with your Key ranking (Though AB is at the bottom with Air, now if you want Maeda excess, that's that!) , though I do not think Clannad and Clannad AS should be regarded as separate entities, likewise with Little Busters and Refrain. If we do that I think Refrain is better than After Story, but Clannad as a whole I like more because Tomoyo is in it. xD

However, there is no way the first halves of either can be fairly compared to the standalone anime series because they don't have a climax and aren't complete stories so of course they won't have the same effect. And likewise Refrain is the last third of the anime series there, so that's kind of a problem too. Clannad in particular because they had to pretty much neuter the biggest impacts of its individual routes (and it wastes tons of time-- while Little Busters could be said to do the same, at least it's plot critical for it to do as such), while say Kanon gets to mindlessly smash all its storylines together whether it makes sense or not, but it manged to throw all its burst damage out.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by GDB

And you're assuming that no other character could get a similar key episode?

I don't see why such an assumption has any less basis than the opposite assumption - That the supporting cast would have definitely been better if Maeda merely had more time to work with.

It's conceivable that Maeda viewed much of the AB! cast as just gimmicky joke characters, as many of them did in fact tend to be utilized that way. Maeda's decision to focus on a core group of characters may well have more to do with his own character preferences than anything else.

Originally Posted by Akuma Kinomoto

Because I don't recall any Key work throwing that much randomness between all of its emotional moments.

Key works in general are loaded with comedic randomness between all of its emotional moments. And I know plenty of serious shows with fantasy settings.

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

I think Angel Beats was a disaster altogether, and it being twice as long would just have meant it was twice as horrible.

My view is that Angel Beats! had its strong points and its weak points and both had little-to-nothing to do with time constraints (I honestly was fine with much of the cast being gimmicky joke characters). Doubling the length would likely just double the good and double the bad.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Utsuro no Hako

So what's PAW's involvement in this if it's an Aniplex show? You usually don't see a company get such prominent credit if they're doing inbetweens or backgrounds.

Aniplex isn't a studio. It's a production and funding company. The studio working on this is PAW.

[ukulelembo]

Complete interview from the magazine:

[Akito Kinomoto]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Key works in general are loaded with comedic randomness between all of its emotional moments. And I know plenty of serious shows with fantasy settings.

Bad violin playing, starfish armies, prankster sisters, getting into fights with a sports team in a dorm, big dango families, telling a story about elves, and many I probably can't think of contribute to their characters (not really what I'd call random). Rocket chairs, fortress traps, factories made of dirt, random ninjas, and mutilating someone with a halberd don't really do anything for its cast (but this seems pretty out there). The fantasy thing allowed AB! to do whatever with its humor. Some things did contribute to its cast, such as Tenshi penetrating Otonashi in the first episode or Yui botching a German suplex, still most of the humor in that show wasn't down to Earth, which is also part of why AB! doesn't really make for good, direct comparison to the other Key works. Well maybe the humor could've been more meaningful, but I always got the sense the show just wanted to let loose.

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

However, there is no way the first halves of either can be fairly compared to the standalone anime series because they don't have a climax and aren't complete stories so of course they won't have the same effect. And likewise Refrain is the last third of the anime series there, so that's kind of a problem too. Clannad in particular because they had to pretty much neuter the biggest impacts of its individual routes (and it wastes tons of time-- while Little Busters could be said to do the same, at least it's plot critical for it to do as such), while say Kanon gets to mindlessly smash all its storylines together whether it makes sense or not, but it manged to throw all its burst damage out.

Well if you had to take the series as more than the sum of its parts,

Clannad >= Little Busters! > Kanon '06 > Angel Beats! > Air

I've only watched Air once, it's probably more coherent than AB!, but it's also the only Key work to legitimately bore me most of the time. Okay at least it has the best ending along with LB! but Key doesn't offer much competition tho. And I put LB! a bit below Clannad 'cause I don't recall the former setting up themes within themes the way Clannad did. Like in After Story you can see every theme from the first season start to come together that makes the thing cohesive. LB!'s set-up kind of amounted to

Spoiler for Little Busters! Refrain:

actually, this is all part of Kyousuke's magic hax and a lot of these things didn't really happen.

...I think.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by Akuma Kinomoto

Bad violin playing, starfish armies, prankster sisters, getting into fights with a sports team in a dorm, big dango families, telling a story about elves, and many I probably can't think of contribute to their characters (not really what I'd call random). Rocket chairs, fortress traps, factories made of dirt, random ninjas, and mutilating someone with a halberd don't really do anything for its cast (but this seems pretty out there). The fantasy thing allowed AB! to do whatever with its humor. Some things did contribute to its cast, such as Tenshi penetrating Otonashi in the first episode or Yui botching a German suplex, still most of the humor in that show wasn't down to Earth, which is also part of why AB! doesn't really make for good, direct comparison to the other Key works. Well maybe the humor could've been more meaningful, but I always got the sense the show just wanted to let loose.

But that's pretty much why I don't care for Angel Beats that much. If you're going to have annoying stuff, then make it count for something.

However, the rocket chairs are funny. I'm sure they would have been great use in Hana Saku Iroha or Shirobako. Sup Tarou.

Well if you had to take the series as more than the sum of its parts,

Clannad >= Little Busters! > Kanon '06 > Angel Beats! > Air

I've only watched Air once, it's probably more coherent than AB!, but it's also the only Key work to legitimately bore me most of the time. Okay at least it has the best ending along with LB! but Key doesn't offer much competition tho. And I put LB! a bit below Clannad 'cause I don't recall the former setting up themes within themes the way Clannad did. Like in After Story you can see every theme from the first season start to come together that makes the thing cohesive. LB!'s set-up kind of amounted to

Spoiler for Little Busters! Refrain:

actually, this is all part of Kyousuke's magic hax and a lot of these things didn't really happen.

...I think.

Air anime is not that good because it's a direct adaptation and thus has no cohesion whatsoever because there was literally no thought in a proper structure; it does not help that the poor folks had relatively crude character designs as they only had Key's crappy looking character designs to work with; in fact Toei didn't try at all to be faithful in the AIR movie, which was probably for the better considering the job they did in Kanon 2002. Making Key designs look decent is a very hard process and it seemed to have taken some of the best around to make it work.

so that seems to be an anime issue rather than a Key issue, though certainly it didn't help either. =p If you compare progression, Kanon made a half assed attempt to make one unified story, and Clannad made a real attempt at the expense of some of its routes. Little Busters just had the advantage of being more suited to being an anime.

[Haak]

For the record, this is the reason why people think Angel Beats would've been better with two cours. I think the interview definitely gives the impression (albeit translated by Sankaku Complex) that the story needed more episodes to cover the whole thing and that's actually why they expanded it into a multimedia franchise by printing a "prequel" light novel before the anime. I agree with the assessment that Angel Beats' biggest problem was its lack of time and I think it showed in the anime what with how rushed the plot points were. I think it also shows in the Angel Beats manga which is in stark contrast to the anime: it has none of the time constraints that the anime did, and not coincidentally has none of pacing issues and nonsensical plot developments that the anime had.

Personally, I think Angel Beats needed three cours to be perfect. XP

[Archon_Wing]

Well a lot of it definitely is chalked up to inexperience with anime time constraints, however I certainly feel the storytelling was fundamentally flawed. I don't say it was without value, but if the anime has the same kind of atmosphere and emphasis, then I just don't dig it. Every Key animu I've seen could have used its time a bit better. Maybe, just maybe Little Busters could have been 4 cours or somethig.

It depends. I think True Tears could have been better as 26 episodes. And Hana Saku Iroha better as 13. But they didn't, so we have 2 great anime that often degenerated into clusterfucks at times. And Another should have just been a movie /runs away

And again, I like every show that is mentioned, but I think a true masterwork has it sights from the first moment and not just straddle you with promises of "I can do better, I can do better". I've heard that too much. I really hate to say this, but so can everyone else.

[Pocari_Sweat]

Glad AB was only 1 cour tbh. 2 cours would have just meant it would have been twice as bad. Then again, that's the case with all Key based animes with the exception of After Story for me.

And no True Tears being 13 episodes was fine. Was the perfect length.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by cyth

Angel Beats is a story about the school being a healing place. I don't know why anyone can take it seriously.

I don't know why you are unable to take it seriously....what's the problem with a school as a healing place?

[Haak]

^ I think that was meant as a joke.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Oh...My bad then, well there's plenty of criticism against AB so I couldn't see that at first glance