Angel Beats - 13

Overall, good series, but a few really poor plot points and pretty disappointing ending. Needless to say, spoilers abound.

Summary:

We end with everyone getting ready to move on. As it seems, the rest of the gang has already moved on, leaving only Naoi, Hinata, Yuri, Kanade, and Otonashi. They plan to hold a fake graduation ceremony before they all leave, complete with a song about Mapo tofu from Kanade. After Naoi, Yuri and Hinata leave in that order, Otonashi asks Kanade to stay with him and help all the future souls who get lost. Kanade can't answer, because she knows if she does, she will leave.

As it turns out, Otonashi's donations did reach people. Kanade got his heart and was able to live longer. When she died, she was so overcome by grief that she could never thank her savior she came to the school. It was realized when she first stabbed him noticing no heart, and was the key to unlocking his memories. Now as she is able to say her thanks, she gets ready to disappear. Despite Otonashi saying he loves her, she moves on. Later we see a reincarnated Kanade and Otonashi walk past each other, and he turns around to meet her.

Reaction:

Well, the end is here, and a lot of questions were answered, and more were wasted. First off... i was wrong. It turns out that the programmer never was Kanade. So that means the question of who the programmer is, why Kanade had angel player, all of it, is left. Also with that, the whole shadow arc becomes useless and a waste of time. I already wasn't too thrilled with the arc, but at least i thought it would be plot important later, which it wasn't.

If the shadow arc never existed, this would have been a great ending. It was very touching and very sweet. It also explains the title as "angel beats" is literally the beating of Otonashi's heart inside Kanade "the angel". A lot of people have complained that characters were changed too much this episode, but you have to realize that the situation is now different. Kanade is finally able to do the one thing she never could, and is her last chance to speak to him. Yuri no longer needs to fight, and can be more relaxed.

Perhaps its a culture thing, but i didn't get the whole graduation scene. It just seemed to eat up precious time. Speaking of timing, while i have already bashed it to death, the whole making everyone move on off screen just seemed too cheap. We also never got any background about any of the SSS members. While yes this is a mixed media series, and you are suppose to read the manga and light novel to understand it all, it just seemed bad to not mention anything about them. Again, i blame whoever plotted this to be a 13 episode series. Also, i know its a minor thing, but Yuri disappearing before Hinata felt weird to me.

Overall series review, awesome, but way too short. There was no way this could be finished in 13 eps in a satisfying manner, so the pacing was a mess. Aside from that, the shadow arc and Naoi arc were pretty poor in my opinion. But it is still a great show. As Divine put it, people haven't given this series enough credit for working within pretty unreasonable constrains as well as many who simply bash this for being popular and a Key work.. While the director isn't completely off the hook knowing the series cannot all fit in, he did a great job. The sound track for this was also amazing.

7.5/10