Charlotte - Episode 1 "I Think About Others"

Key Discussion
#21

Characters were all great. Yuu was as arrogant and hilarious as I hoped. Nao was pretty cute and badass at the same time. Takamat- I mean, Joujirou was a lot cooler than I was expecting.

It did feel a little scattered though… Like, I dont know… it was very funny and enjoyable, but it didnt feel like near enough happened. It may just be part of my preferring to not only watch one episode per week. I hope that doesnt cut into how much I enjoy this series.

Also, music was great. Umm, not much else to say on that at this point, besides the fact that it just was.

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#22

I’ve felt that too… But I have a gut feeling that we won’t be dissapointed, Key has its own pacing, for good or “bad”. It’s just… I’m just a little bit worried if this “not enoughness” (allow me that word) will affect negatively the success of the series. Meanwhile, I still have High Hopes for it, but I certainly understand you.

Extreme extrapolated joke: :wink:
— EP1 Synopsis:

[/spoiler]

#23

Aight, time to let the kittens out of the box.

Wow, such forced.

First half was super good, no complaints there, Yu being hilarious swaglord, pace was fine, sets up things all fine and dandy, I have literally no complaints about that. It’s after Yu starts running away that the cracks start to show and we get into that forced I was talking about.

“yo she went invisible”
“ACHULLY she is only invisible to you even though this information is irrelevant right now, but I must point it out so you can notice it is imperfect just like how you explicitly commented on my ability being, as it is, imperfect even though I have no reason to explain it in detail to you right now.”

Not even the slightest hint of elegance to that delivery, there are so many other ways to deliver that information in a natural way.

“omlettes are oishi just like mom DESU”
“Mom? You mean that bitch and whore who divorced and pushed us onto our uncle, as you would be fully aware, I, in fact hate her so much I only consider the two of us family”
“what about our dead big brother NANO DESU”
“he’ll show in episode 8 or so, shh”
“lol k DE GOZARU NANO DESU YO”

I basically vomited.

“im fuko now, it helps sell units”

ok this one is unfair

It’s likely a bit of pushing into a box too small, but even then, the way those two chunks of exposition were delivered was just terrible. Other than that, fairly decent set up.

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#24

Calling it now. He slowly becomes a better person, regresses to being a jerk after some drama, and then gets better again.

Definitely.

It looked like the dream was about when the protag was a lot younger. Hair growth is a possibility.

Anyone who faults a first episode for being slow is not worth acknowledging imo.

He looked a few years older than Yuu. I’d hope he’s not their father.

It’s a first episode. There’s no point making stuff happen if you don’t know why, or have no reason to care. This is Key. They start by developing a story. Look at CLANNAD, that thing was incredibly slow compared to many anime.

They are forcing him to hang with them. There’s no point hiding basic info from him, especially when he’s going to live surrounded by that info every day.

Dead is a big assumption to make.

#25

I found this a nicely set up excuse for Yuu get the fucked up, personally.

The entire loli thing was gross is gross I hate that thing.

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#26

It was thrown out there purely to stress that the abilities are imperfect, it was completely half assedly throwing that point in your face, that’s the issue.

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#27

Maaaan episode 1. There’s so much to say and I don’t even know where to start ^^;

First things first, it was a very entertaining episode. I find myself very hit-or-miss when it comes to comedy; I either love it, or can’t stomach a minute of it. Charlotte’s comedy I would definite put under the “love it” category. Funniest part was when he transfers to the student council president’s body :wink:

We get a lot of good character introduction, and I think it was pretty well-paced. There is one flaw that I did see, and I actually agree with @Kanon on this: the way Yuu introduced their parents. He’s telling it to Ayumi as if it’s something she doesn’t even know to begin with, which was somewhat unnatural.

So far, the points of interest are the comet, which we see in the first minute of the anime, and the unknown “family member”, which most already agree seems like the other guy from that dark charlotte poster :stuck_out_tongue:

I’ll definitely have to rewatch it on my own time (with the freedom to pause and rewind), but for now, I quite enjoyed it, and while it wasn’t perfect, it was pretty damn good!

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#28

I loved this episode, but, too bad we didn’t get to hear the opening and ending songs :confused: The Op doesn’t sound too good from the snippets we heard from the promo’s tbh. I hope the ED sounds good though, and I’m expecting at least 1 beautiful song like Ichiban No Takaramono. LOL, Yu’s face when he got dumped though, that was priceless :joy::joy::joy:

#29

Indeed, I tend to agree @Takafumi…
I’ve watched several Clannad episodes that were hard to take at first, but my will power guided me for my own good, and now Clannad is one of my all-time favorite stories. All arcs.

That’s why I was referring or talking about “the masses” only (not people “worth acknowledging”). The average viewer.

The mass media these days is a hard territory, too much sex and violence. Easy “sellers”.

Ergo, my point was this: from a commercial POV (not from an artistic one), I was a little bit worried. Because a company needs money to survive and grow.
So I wish commercial success to this anime (without sacrifying anything with meaning of course).

It’s not easy… But I’m quite confident that Key’ staff is smart enough, as usual, to handle both sides of the coin. In fact, I believe they are very skilled “converting” common-average anime fans, with apparent “mass-media friendly” episodes, and then (boom!)… somehow the watcher finds himself diving deep into emotional complex stories and wham moments.
Some are almost philosophical ones. (Can’t wait for Rewrite anime, who knows!)

Look left then right, and goes back to Planetarian for a little while.
(Psst yes, somebody gave me Planetarian as a gift)…

#30

The first half was great in building Yuu as an asshole worse than I expected and then having him pay for him arrogance and recklessness, but I don’t mind how it slowed down after. It gave some room for the episode to breathe.

Ayumi is not good, though. That’s probably accented by her terrible character design (this series’ CD really looks inferior to Angel Beats!, but she’s the only one that really looks bad) and the grating voice acting, but she doesn’t really feel like a character that will add much to the story.

But I think the highlight was Yuu and Nao’s chemistry. Nao is smart and she knows she’s dealing with a self-centered pretentious teen; they play off each other well and I bet she can keep him in check.

The technical side is fine - as I already said character design could be better andthe soundtrack is nice but I think it’s a bit underused. If I were to rank this in a “Key First Episodes” rank, it would probably get above Little Busters and a bit below the rest.

#31

So regarding how astronomy possibly plays a big role, I didn’t realize the school’s name was 星ノ海, or “Sea of Stars,” and Yuu then comments to the star obsessed Ayumi, in a totally-not-obvious-foreshadowing manner, “sounds like the school was made for you.” So I’m guessing via wild speculation that the “dead” brother/dad/older relative plays a huge role in people with special powers and equates each person/power to a star or constellation and thus uses the school to gather them for some reason related to Ayumi, who will also be very important to the plot. Maybe she develops a power which is important to solving whatever the problem is…or alternatively, a power which someone wants to use for selfish gain? Ayumi’s obsession with stars would also be because she always listened to said relative obsessively talking about astronomy but AMNESIA WHO IS HE AGAIN?

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Charlotte - Episode 6 "Happy You Did Not Notice"
#32

I definitely made the connection between the name of the school and Ayumi’s love for the stars before they pointed it out in-show, but the idea of connecting it to the mystery relative is an interesting one. I mean, obviously they weren’t going to give her such a love for a symbol that’s been connected to the show from the start for no reason, so I’m assuming it does have some sort of connection to her past. That’s definitely something to wait for in future episodes.

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#33

I want to see the OP… I know, I know… But I’d love to watch it now.

#34

It was a pretty good beginning, I think. It has better animation quality than Angel Beats! and Little Busters! so far.

I like how they showed Yuu how he used his power (peeking at girl’s boobs is the best one yet). He is totally a jerk, full stop. He occasionally showed evil smile, even. And laughing maniacally too in class. Don’t know what exactly happened to him except that he’s so disappointed with his mother, but I hope there’s a good reason why he acts this way now. (Or yeah he is probably just jerky beef from the beginning)

Although, I kinda hate it how he purposefully made an “accident” to save his dream girl. That’s just downright nasty. It’s like “Hey I set this house on fire so I can come in and save you from the blazing fire.” Even he wasn’t exactly sure he played his card right. (“Phew, that was close call”) But again, I like how Shirayanagi played it cool, unlike other (Key) girls who undeniably must fall in love to any boy with White Knight syndrome. That’s quite rare, I must say…
(And we’re already saying goodbye to Nakahara Mai and Tamiyasu Tomoe, after one episode lol)

I’m not exactly a fan of Joujirou being Mr. Exposition. I don’t know what good is it to expose his and Nao’s superpower immediately to Yuu, the person who has yet gained their trust. I guess that’s just for convenient storytelling. But the visuals when he chased Yuu was amazing. Badass music too.

About Ayumi. Ayumi is the moe girl in this episode. Not a fan of her actually. With her weird speech and all. She’s a nice girl though. Also, the way she called Yuu as “Yuu-oniichan” is probably a hint that in fact, Yuu isn’t his only big brother. Getting Little Busters! Komari route vibe here. And, since we’re dealing with superpowers, it’s not gonna be unexpected if someone with memory-wiping power exists.
It is also shown that Ayumi wore oversized denim jacket when they’re moving. I think it’s a subtle telling that their family finance isn’t exactly good (with their uncle only giving a cardboard of instant noodle too).

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#35
#36

I went and added a poll to the OP! Now you can rate the episode from 1-5.

#37

A great episode 1 ever. I cant stop laughing.
About mysteries I dont mind about that 'cause it makes me headache.

Finally, Yuu is a “heathy” main character lately for me. Bastard but manly, not like other MCs I saw recently, weak and “femineity”.

Man, a long time from AB! and I laughed non-stop

#38

This post is the exact representation of the pacing of the episode.

I need more Yumi in my life.

#39

I love the Key coffee reference <3

#40

He says in the episode.

Nah, that’s cool. I think it’s a pretty interesting use of the power.

Rating individual episodes? Eww.

I haven’t seen any of those in some years. We had the boom of revenge-filled teens, and then it slowly moved over to the older or more sensible protagonists.