Anime/Angel Beats

So, did anyone check out Angel Beats yet?

I at first thought this would be a cross between Haruhi Suzumiya and Bleach, and I was (kind of) right. I couldn't help think of Kyon and Haruhi when thinking of Otonashi and Yuri, but I also thought of Ichigo and Rukia for a bit. Oh, and I am already declaring TK the Ensemble Dark Horse for spouting out Surprisingly Good English ('cuz he's voiced by an English VA).

edited 3rd Apr '10 12:53:57 PM by LEXicon712

Wait, a character voiced by someone who can speak English? Like, at a for-real level, not just an I-studied-it-for-a-while level like Yuko Goto?

I might have to watch this series just for that.

edited 3rd Apr '10 5:20:37 PM by Sporkaganza

I watched the first episode. I'm under-impressed. I'll watch the next episode or two, but if it goes on like this than I'll be dropping it.

Though I'm not much for A) Action; B) pushy protagonists; or C) Ontological Mystery... So Yeah.

edited 3rd Apr '10 5:22:15 PM by fzzr_miller

I don't really see much of Bleach in it. On the other hand, it totally is The Purgatory of Suzumiya Haruhi. Fortunately, I'm a Haruhi fan and not the type to care about obvious stealing like that, so I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

edited 3rd Apr '10 6:06:29 PM by Hylarn

Check it out. Dude seems to mostly do technical work for Funimation. Wonder if that means they've got a license?

I dunno, but that's kind of cool. I wonder if it's a trend - I know Doug Stone, who's done some work for Bandai, some random guy named Ryan Drees (according to ANN) did a guest shot in the original Japanese version of Samurai Champloo.

edited 3rd Apr '10 7:25:23 PM by Sporkaganza

As You Know, I've already seen episode 1 and loved it. Nothing works better for me than a story written by Jun Maeda with a Haruhi-esque feel to it. The potential for this one is huge; I can't wait for more, honestly.

It's got an awful lot of characters and not very many episodes from what I hear. I wonder if they're planning on killing off half the cast next episode or something. It would make a lot of sense, given the setting. Ultimately though, I think it'll boil down to some kind of "accept your death" moral.

No need to murder most of the cast; just don't expect many of them to get much characterization.

I predict a Mauve Shirt or two "disappearing", probably as a Sacrificial Lion.

edited 3rd Apr '10 11:09:28 PM by fzzr_miller

Soul Society of Haruhi Suzumiya, lol.

I've heard mostly bad things about it. I'll enjoy trolling the hell out of it.

The SSS Battlefront. Smokie, you win.

edited 4th Apr '10 12:46:39 AM by LEXicon712

Wait, a character voiced by someone who can speak English? Like, at a for-real level, not just an I-studied-it-for-a-while level like Yuko Goto?

As in a native speaker of the language. It's not entirely unprecedented (see Bardiche and Raging/Raising Heart in Nanoha voiced by Kevin J England and Donna Burke respecitively) but still rare enough to spark comments, especially for recurring roles.

As for the show as a whole, I am intrigued enough to keep watching. The visuals are certainly striking and the story out and out strange enough to be worth seeing more of.

Even Newstype is calling this crap a Haruhi ripoff

ただのアニメには興味ありません。 = I'm not interested in ordinary anime.

Well played, Newstype. Well played.

I would watch if I could find the show. I'll just wait for a year or so

Also, it's Newtype.

Eh... It could be good. The first ep really only introduced the premise, which certainly has potential, but there's no real sign of how much of that potential is going to be used. Angel, the protagonist and Not!Haruhi are the only people with a shred of personality beyond a simple gimmick, but that might be just because they decided to introduce so many in one episode.

Verdict: Let simmer for a few weeks, see where things go.

You had me at "highschool students try to kill god with sniper rifles."

I watched the first episode and enjoyed it way more than I expected to. I loved all the RPG jokes.

It reminds me a lot of The Massive Multi Fandom RPG. Except without the Mega Crossover aspect, obviously.

edited 9th Apr '10 4:23:41 PM by Nyktos

So, the second episode is out. We also get some back story on Yuri.

I wonder if Total Party Kill is going to be a Once an Episode thing.

Also, taking bets: who do you think is going to end up being a Sacrificial Lion?

edited 9th Apr '10 10:06:11 PM by Gilphon

Personally, I'm most interested in learning about how Yuri died. Also, Ninja-chick (Shiina?) is awesome.

She is indeed awesome. Definitely my favourite character at the moment.

Who here thinks that the NP Cs aren't really what Yuri says they are? She claims that the people who play along with Angel's rules just fade away, but what other evidence is there? So far, pretty much none. And Yuri's a self-proclaimed Naytheist, and sees Angel as god, so what if she sees siding with god as equivalent to siding with the forces of evil, and doesn't care what happens to them?

Further evidence, she said that they have a limited pool of responses when you try and converse with them, but then they still reacted, favorably, to the "Distraction Unit". One would think that the NP Cs of a boarding school wouldn't have responses built in to handle something so out of the ordinary.

Yuri is so centered on her quest for revenge against god that she doesn't care about other people unless they've sided with her. Once they side with her, she sees them as her family, a surrogate family, basically, that she leads because of her lingering guilt for not being able to protect her younger siblings years ago.

^That's pretty much what I was thinking after watching the first episode. Not totally; more like if you were thinking about that for a while and that was the result. But yeah, I'm skeptical that the "NPCs" and Angel are really the way Yuri says they are.