Most of Kyoukai no Kanata is almost entirely, but not quite unlike the clip above. To be honest, I never did understood why they put so much effort in defeating a demon that’s pretty harmless unless you try and attack it but which would rather spent its time ogling idols if it gets the chance.
Anime
Angel Beats! rewatch 04 – Day Game
After episode three’s angst, episode four is welcome comedy relief. It’s also mixed up Angel Beats! established formula a lot, as for the first time we get a cold opening rather than the theme song, a flashback to an unknown character’s life, something that will become relevant later in the episode. This is followed by the audience for the new lead singer of Girl Dead Monster, the former lead singer Iwasawa of course having disappeared last time. That leads into a new version of the opening song, as performed by GiDeMo, with the new recruit, the band’s groupie Otonashi encountered last episode singing the lead part.
Unfortunately said groupie, Yui is a bit of an idiot and manages to strangle herself with her microphone cord at the end of her performance. Death metal indeed. A lively discussion about the merits of letting her be GiDeMo’s lead singer ensues, and what it would mean for the band’s skill at providing diversions. Which naturally leads into the unveiling of Yurippe’s latest plans, which are remarkably low key: the battlefront is to enter the baseball competition and win everything.
There’s a catch of course: any of the Battlefront’s teams that doesn’t win against the NPC teams will get “punishment worse than death”. Which leaves Otonashi in the lurch, as he teamed up with Hideki Hinata, who promised to get all the best members on the team, but instead had to make do with the Front’s collection of idiots, including Yui, who drives Hinata nuts and to frequent physical punishment for her obnoxious behaviour. And really, who hasn’t want to do something like this to a slightly too cutesy cat girl every now and then?
But of course things can’t quite stay this light hearted and in the actual baseball game it’s revealed it was Hinata who had the flashback, remembering how his failure to catch a ball during a final cost his school team the chance to compete in the nationals. If he and his team now win the game, does this means he’ll disappear? Not quite, as it turns out and this remains a humour episode, setting up plot developments but not resolving them, with some more of the Battlefront members getting a bit of screen time. Funny, but slightly out of place in a series with only thirteen episodes, though I appreciate that it isn’t all angst, all the time.
Angel Beats! rewatch 03 – My Song
At first it looks like this episode will continue where the last had left off, with the Afterlife Battlefront planning another operation in their war against Tenshi. Yurippe plans to break into Tenshi’s domain to crack the computer system she uses and gather information on the enemy. There’s one problem however, as the Battlefront had tried once before to break into her domain and failed, mainly because, as Yurippe describes it, “we’re all idiots”.
Hence the recruitment of genius glasses wearing hacker Takeyama, “call me Christ”, to function as the brains of the operation, something resident idiot Noda immediately wants to test by challenging him to a duel. To everybody’s surprise, Takeyama defeats him easily — by reciting pi, quickly showing that Yurippe’s faith in him to lead this operation isn’t misguided. As with the first episode’s operation, the Battlefront’s band, Girl Dead monster, will provide a diversion luring Tenshi away, this time giving an official if unsanctioned concert. To lure the NPCs to the concert, GirlDeMo’s greatest fan girl plasters posters all over the gymnasium, but which are later removed by Tenshi. When several students object to this, she gives us a first insight into her personality, as she complains to herself that “now she’s the bad guy”.
It’s an important bit of foreshadowing, but the focus this episode is firmly on Iwasawa, the lead singer and guitarist of Girl Dead Monster. She’s the first person we see when the episode opens, demoing her latest song, a ballad, to the Battlefront, a song that will come back in the climax. Like Yurippe did last time, she tells the story of her life to Otonashi, of how she grew up in a dysfunctional family, how listening to and making music saved her, of how she died of brain damage sustained when she was hit by a beer bottle thrown by her father, how she was frustrated in not being able to sing a song that would reach others.
But now, in the most emotional scene in the series so far, she does manage. When the school security interrupts the Girl Dead Monster concert, their leader threatens to destroy the old guitar that had saved her back when she was alive, that she used to busk with, she erupts, takes it away from him and launches into “My Song”, the ballad from the first scene. Pouring her heart and soul into it, she comes to peace with her past life and vanishes. It’s a brilliant, emotional scene, and another example of how well the music is handled in this series.
It had been established in the first episode that you’d only vanish if you went along with the flow and engaged in school; this is the first indication that this isn’t quite the entire truth, that there’s more going on. Judging by Iwasawa’s and Yurippe’s backstories, the people in the Afterlife Battlefront have reasons to be angry at God, which is the real reason for why they fight. But now Iwasawa at least has found her peace, while the research the Battlefront uncovered shows that the truth behind Tenshi isn’t quite what it first looked like either. With this episode, Angel Beats! kicks things up a notch.
Angel Beats! rewatch 02 – Guild
The second episode in the series; there may be some spoilers. After the first episode introduced the setting and main characters, the second is a bit of a breather. Our protagonist, Otonashi, is still pretty much a spectator this episode, willing to follow Yurippe and her Afterlife Battlefront (SSS) in their combat against Tenshi but with his heart not quite in it. Whereas the previous episode had exposition, this one has action. The Battlefront needs to replenish their ammunition and guns and to do so they have to go underground, to the Guild headquarters where their weapons are made. There’s only one problem.
The anti-Tenshi traps protecting the long way down to the Guild headquarters are still active. Because as it turned out, Tenshi herself is also on her way down. Now the battlefront has no choice but to go on and hope to make it before she catches up, while trying not to die on their own traps. This is mainly an excuse for a bit of slapstick and comedy, as well as giving the chance to develop the various SSS members a bit further through the medium of dying stupidly. After all, death isn’t permanent in this world; just painful.
To no-one’s surprise, it’s Otonashi and Yurippe who survive, which gives Otonashi the opportunity to ask Yuri about why she founded the battlefront, why she’s fighting god. As her answer she gives her backstory, of how one day robbers came to her house and killed her two younger sisters and brother while forcing her to search for valuables her parents had supposedly hidden. It’s that memory, that unfairness that motivates her, which explains why she can go toe to toe with Tenshi, take her on in hand combat in a way nobody else can.
The problem I had with this though is that it’s so over the top it becomes less tragic than ridiculous. It’s too much like a superhero’s origin, too melodramatic. To be honest, the whole episode, while entertaining and moving the plot forward, feels awkward compared to what comes before and after it. Episode three especially will be gut wrenching, knowing what’s coming, while this feels like a filler episode for a longer series — it would’ve made more sense had Angel Beats! been a 26 episode series rather than a 13 episode one. Nevertheless we got some more character development for Otonashi and Yurippe, got a good sense of how dangerous and unstoppable Tenshi is and got some insight in the other Battlefront members. On the whole then this is not a bad episode, just the series having not quite found its feet yet.
Angel Beats! rewatch 01 – Departure
I first binge watched Angel Beats! on holiday in the South of France a few years when it was far too hot for my body type to actually do anything, sitting outside on the veranda of our holiday house late at night while the rest of the family was fast asleep. My expectations were low at the time, but it turned out to be one of the most compelling and emotional series I’d ever watched. One of those series that stay with you for a long time, which is why I wanted to rewatch it now and look more closely at why it mattered so much, what it got right.
A strong first episode is of course essential to any new series, especially when it’s an original series with no existing body of work in other media to fall back on. Angel Beats starts with the Amber gambit: the protagonist wakes up in a strange world with no recollection how he got there or even who he is. He finds himself in the stands of the athletic fields of what seems to be a high school, facing a girl holding a sniper rifle aiming at something below. That’s Yuri “Yurippe” Nakamura who informs him that a) he’s dead b) he’s in limbo and c) he’s recruited in the fight against god and d) if he doesn’t join he’ll disappear from the world. She also explains that the girl she’s aiming at is Tenshi (angel) their direct opponent, at which point our hero decides to talk to her instead.
Tenshi introduces herself as not an angel, but the student council president, he questions her about the world he is in, she replies that yes, he is dead and should accept the world as he finds it, and then he makes the mistake of shouting at her to prove it. Which she does. By driving a knife through his heart. Waking up the next morning in the school’s infirmary he finds his blood soaked shirt and finally accepts this is real. After this the still nameless protagonist is introduced to the rest of the SSS, the resistance battlefront put together by Yurippe and infodumping happens before the episode is wrapped up by the first battlefront mission.
It’s a large cast for a thirteen episode anime and many of the secondary characters therefore are no more than stereotypes; their introduction is remarkably efficient at establishing their parameters. There’s the smart guy with glasses (“acutally an idiot” according to Yurippe), the lead singer of the all girl band, the aggressive loudmouth, the quiet but resourceful girl, the big martial arts guy etc. And there’s TK, the bandanaed English nonsense spouting show stealer. In later episodes a fair few of the cast will get their moment to shine, but for now they’re mainly there as background characters, with the focus purely on Otonashi, as he finally remembers he’s called, Yurippe and Tenshi, with the latter as the unstoppable antagonist.
For a first episode, this does everything right: introduce the main characters, establish the plot and setting, end with an action packed climax so it isn’t all talking heads. There’s even a bit of humour, with TK and the many slapstick deaths of Otonashi. But what sets it apart is the music. Both the opening and ending theme are great, even without the emotional impact they acquire as the series progresses, but even better is “Crow Song”, played by Girls Dead Monster as shown above, during Operation Tornado, the SSS daily operation which ends the episode. The first of what’ll become an album’s worth of great rock songs, good enough that their real live counterparts would play a series of sold out concerts. GiDeMo’s music is at the heart of the series and for me will always be associated with several heartwrenching moments, this song included.