Angel Beats!


On the surface, Angel Beats! might look like your typical High School-type anime, given that the setting is a High School. But don’t let that fool you as this is not actually a real High School but the Afterlife, which means that all the characters are already dead and living out a semi-normal existence in purgatory masquerading as a high school.
The series starts off with Otonashi waking up next to a sniper-wielding school girl, Yurippe, who’s trying to recruit him to the “I-Ain’t-Dead-Yet Battlefront”. She also explains to Otonashi that he’s already dead and that the purpose of their Battlefront is to fight an angel, Tenshi, who is actually the School Council President. Their reason for fighting is not to get obliterated or disappear, which only happens if you have no more regrets from your past life. Tenshi as the School Council President is there to enforce school rules and make you accept a normal high school existence, which if you do means that you’ll disappear.

The Battlefront, headed by Yurippe along with a bunch of idealistic followers, doesn’t want to accept being “obliterated” due to their belief that they might be reincarnated as something else other than human, like say, a Barnacle. So, their ultimate goal is to obliterate Tenshi and seize the world that they’re living in.

To say that Angel Beats! is all original would be incorrect since it clearly sticks to some well worn standard anime conventions but what it does best is to turn those ideas upside down and come up with something new. Case in point would be the high school band in this series, GDM (Girls Dead Monster), which is clearly influenced by other animes featuring girl bands, such as K-ON. But what makes Angel Beats! different is that GDM is actually just a diversion for when the Battlefront fights Tenshi. The music still rocks, though! ^^

As such, I have to say that Angel Beats! is one of the best new animes I have seen this year as it completely turns some tried and true anime conventions on its head and gives us something new and fun to watch. Too bad that it’s only 13 episodes long.
Good things just never last.

Rating: 10/10































