Charlotte - Episode 13 "Memories to Come"

I like this episode.

But thanks to it Charlotte is now a quite mediocre anime to me.

Meh.

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Charlotte’s end is finally here.

The idea the episode ran on was pretty interesting, but how poorly executed it is on a lot of aspects and how it ends the show with viewers having just as many questions as they did before if quite regrettable.

Nonetheless, the episode did have entertainment value so at least the final episode is nothing to completely spit on. This makes Charlotte (to me) an average show I’ll probably rewatch in a few years for the sake of it; but it unfortunately doesn’t live up to the rest of the KEY shows and is probably under Angel Beats in terms of my KEY anime ranking.

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If the entire show was just Yuu traveling the world stealing abilities and being a psycho, that would be awesome.

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Okay it is all over. You know what it might of had its rough patches here and there, might of not been the legendary key anime some where looking for, but I am glad it came, and I watched it all the way through. If you just turn off your logic in your head and watch this as an emotional piece it is not bad at all IMO. I think they could of done more with the side characters, but they did have their late moment in epi 12 which was very enjoyable. This episode yuu feels like he isn’t such of a screw up after all, and nao’s reaction to him forgetting her was very nao like… it was a nice touch.

Overall I enjoyed it, I won’t be calling one of key’s best but still was fun and emotional like key’s other works.

I am glad I came here and looked over the forums every episode you guys where a lot of fun to discuss the show with. Even when it got a bit negative at times, I still think it added to the experience because honestly some things where bothering me a bit so it was nice to see what others where saying about those things. It made me not get stuck on them as much and made me enjoy the show that much more.

Well, I enjoyed the series overall, I also felt in love with tomori and liked the other main cast. I had its flaws and there were some question that will never be answered but I think I can live with it! … about the episode, I liked how yuu was becomming more and more powerful always sticking to his character (becoming an overpowered badass) and loosing himself… the music on the final scenes was splendid but I expected a more bittersweet end so that is the main reason why I’ll say charlotte didnt live up to my expectations… I loved and enjoyed it thought. Thank U maeda-san

So that was Charlotte - the story of a boy who shouldered the responsibility of an entire world.

There are - needless to say - a lot of series in which teenagers save the world, but most of the characters are just thrown into it. They fight because they have no other choice.

But Charlotte in this regard is different. Yuu decides to go and capture everyones ability despite the fact that nobody would blame him if he didn’t. And yet he does. This I think is the defining point of the series.

There are 12 episodes which show what is necessary to make a selfish teenager leave home and save the world. In a lot of stories this process is incredibly easy, often as short as a single episode or a single chapter of a book. But in Charlotte this was executed perfectly. From the fun, light-hearted first episodes Yuu spent with the Student Council, over the tragic loss of his sister and being saved from his own self after that it all builds up to that. And then when he is suddenly shouldered with responsibility he never wanted by a completely random attack he fails. After that his friends take care of him (I think these scenes were extremely important) and at that point he makes the decision only a lunatic or an extremely selfless person would make. But Yuu is,or rather was neither of these and yet it feels completely natural.

The superpower to gain courage - the one he plundered at the very end - was this one superpower Yuu didn’t need. Because this one special power he didn’t gain by plundering, but by experience.

Unlike all those stories which simply tell how the world is saved Charlotte is one which believably shows what is necessary to make the decision to do so.

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Well, guess this episode happened, didn’t expect them to spend that much time on Yuu’s world travelling, and Shu & Co showing up with the heli there felt a bit deus ex machina

And I’ll be honest, not even Yuu being reunited with Naonao had any real impact for me because I have pretty much no emotional attachment to any of the characters, which is a shame

Of all the KEY works, this is easily my least favorite, so mediocre… I really wanted to love it, but I just couldn’t

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Charlotte was fine. Despite the existence of too many loose ends and uninteresting episodes, the great moments still made it quite fun.
Oh, I also loved both ending songs. Loved, because I kept listening to them over and over again to the point where I kind of have had enough.

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Oh btw, during that Arizona scene in the desert, did anyone else think of Independence Day where Will Smith drags the alien around in his parachute and complains about stuff? That was the one thing in this ep that made me chuckle

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Yeah, the English was really fun to watch in this episode. The ending seemed a bit forced, and there are some parts that I wish we saw more of (like the plan for the vaccine) but this was fine enough.

This wasn’t a perfect episode and Charlotte wasn’t a perfect series, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. As far as Key works go it was pretty mediocre, but I was still in love with the series by the end. This episode was executed in a really interesting manner, very different from the series as a whole I feel. Its Key, so I don’ think anyone was expecting much to go differently as far as the ending; sweet. In a few months I’ll probably rewatch it so I could give better comments but for now I’ll just say that I really enjoyed Charlotte.

But Maeda really should stick to Visual Novels.

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Well.
There’s nothing about Charlotte that sticks out as particularly bad to me.
At the same time, it’s not memorable. I mean, I liked Charlotte, but it didn’t make me feel much, it didn’t stick out, and it doesn’t seem like something that will give me nostalgia when I think about it in the future. So, it didn’t do for me what Key’s other works did for me. It gave me what I’m fine with in an anime, but not what I want in something made by Key.
The ending was nice and wrapped up more neatly than I thought it would be. I’m wondering if Yuu only forgot Nao or if he also forgot his siblings and other friends. I can’t remember if that was stated or not, but if it was I didn’t notice.

So this is it, huh? The end of Charlotte.I was still holding out a bit of hope that they would do something amazing with this final episode, but honestly, this was more in line with my expectations.

It had the same issue as pretty much every other episode: on its own, it made for a solid 24 minutes of entertainment. There were some genuinely good scenes in here, particularly the Arizona scene (side note: of all the places in the US he could go, why those two? I understand New York, but why Arizona?), the scene with that girl after he gets shot, and the moment where he takes the healing power from a girl that was using it for good. They were all powerful moments in their own right, and I feel like in any other show, those would have been memorable scenes.

The problem is trying to look at this show as a whole. As many before me have pointed out, it never quite found its sense of what it wanted to accomplish, and as a result it didn’t really deliver on most of the fronts it attempted to cover. It’s like they tried to cram so many things into such a short runtime that nothing was fleshed out for me to care much about any of it.

The romance between Yuu and Nao started off nicely, but suffered from some crucial scenes (the confession, the moment in Yuu’s hospital room with the ~surprise amnesia~, etc.) being out of character, somehow. I’m sure they were trying to go for an “absence makes the heart grow fonder”-type deal with Nao, but the difference between “yeah, I guess we could maybe date eventually” and “You’re my lover, even if you don’t remember it” is just too big a stretch to have it happen offscreen.

One mistake from Angel Beats they don’t seem to have learned from is the amount of side characters they added in. Everyone who got a backstory (mainly Yusa and- for the ONE episode they had her- Sala) gave just enough details that you got the feeling that you were SUPPOSED to care, but didn’t give you enough time to actually develop any emotions towards them. So it ended up being like, “Oh, her sister died, that sucks” and “Oh, she’s blind, that sucks”. And that’s not even getting into characters like Ayumi and Takajou, who were just kind of… there. Well, Ayumi did a decent job as a plot device, but seriously. Unless I’m forgetting something, I want someone to name one important thing Takajou did this entire series besides questionable comic relief.

I think the issue I have with this show can be summed up like this: too many amazing, Key-trademarked moments crammed into one show. Everyone remembers scenes like the goodbye in Little Busters, “Goal” in Air, and The sunflower field in Clannad. These emotional climaxes were memorable because there was nothing quite like them anywhere else in the story. Things had to build up to them, so that when they happened, we felt the same amount of emotion as the characters in the story. But here, there were SO MANY moments that wanted to be that “most memorable scene” that none of them really were. Misa’s goodbye last episode, Nao’s “You’re my lover,” Ayumi’s first death, and Yuu being pulled out of his depression in episode 7 would all have been so much better with the right amount of buildup. Instead they just kind of… happened, I guess?

I’ve probably gone on way too long already. I haven’t actually posted in one of these threads in weeks (despite lurking pretty consistently), so I guess I just had a lot to get out now that it’s over. For the record, despite my ranting here, I don’t regret watching Charlotte. It had its good points that kept me coming back every week, just to see what it would do next. The music was, of course, incredible. The tense moments did have me on the edge of my seat, wondering what would happen next. It was a nice “sit back and enjoy the ride”-type-show as long as you didn’t look too much into anything that was happening. I would probably put it at the bottom of my list when it comes to everything Key has done, but it’s competing with some of my top pieces of entertainment of all time, so that may not be an entirely fair comparison. Still, I can’t help but wish we had gotten something more out of this final episode, because it just sort of fizzled out. “Everything is fine again! We’re going to make HAPPY memories!” Even if they earned it, it felt too abrupt.

Seriously now, end rant.

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LOL

NOTHING EXPLAINED.

Episode was fun to watch at least.

6/10 Worse than Angel Beats.

Hamonia, pls save key.

EDIT: Actually there was no scene where he said bye to Ayumi. 5/10.

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Charlotte is a good anime. Not great, but not terrible either.

I had next to no expectations for this last episode, and I suppose, as a result, it helped me understand and enjoy it. Yuu’s journey from episode 2 all the way to now has led him to this point, and to close it all up he made the last leg an epic journey that should have spanned years and quite a few episodes telling. That would have been great, but unfortunately Maeda had to crunch the story into 13 episodes, and as a result this monumental task is heavily abridged to show the highlights of what happens. This episode reminds me a lot of episode 7 in terms of structure, from Yuu’s slow but sure start to his gradual weakness and psychological breakdown, and then his downfall and redemption. If Yuu had died on this trip, it would have had more of an emotional impact. But pretty much everyone except Kumagami survives in the end, which makes for a bit of a cheap ending.

This would have been better off as a two to three hour movie rather than a twenty-four minute episode, so Maeda could more comfortably write out a thoughtful, detailed story. As it is, though, I’m okay with it. The journey to make it here was rather bumpy, but it had its moments. As it stands, I guess I can safely call Charlotte my least favorite Key work, not because I didn’t enjoy it, but because the lasting emotional impact it left me with is weaker than other Key works. It didn’t feel ‘Key-like’, so to speak.

…So, how about that Rewrite anime? :stuck_out_tongue:

I need some more time to gather my thoughts, so for now I’ll just leave this here:

I really liked how Yuu became Accelerator.

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Badly written? Yeah, he did get that huh.

This is exactly how I feel ^^"

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Heh, I thought I was the only one who got vibes from Index’s favourite psychotic albino, Accelerator. That was probably one of my favourite moments of the entire show.

My thoughts about this episode:

  • It feels a bit unrealistic that he is able to plunder the ability of EVERY ability user in EVERY country in the world in such a short time…but after plundering so many power it might be possible
  • The Engrish was hilarious this episode…I started to think he should get an ability that allows him to speak english and he did.
  • The ending was really beautiful

Overall I enjoyed Charlotte; the last episodes felt random and rushed, but I really wanted more.Next time Maeda does an anime project, it should really be at least 2 cour.

By the way

Best girl.

…oh I’m sorry do you think I’m joking? No, I’m not, her total screentime was less than the OP but she got a more developed backstory and personality than most of the cast. Just from her power

…assuming that powers from desires is still a canon thing, show is such a mess it might not even be, but I choose to believe it still is, in a world where you could desire god damn anything and have it pop up, the thing she apparently desired most was wishing to be brave and that’s adorable.
Following that is losing her power and still managing to stand up to the guy made it a super nice heartwarming scene(UNLIKE THAT SHIT LATER WITH NAONAO WWWWWWWWWWW), showcasing that though the power, she’s just gained normal courage, the thing she wanted.

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