Keep in mind that he only has 13 eps to work with. I’m pretty sure he’s saving much larger things for later eps,
If he needs to shove things in early to leave room for the rest of the story then he shouldn’t write a damn story that won’t properly fit into 13 episodes.
5 Likes
Very true, I’ll give you that much. However, what he did here not only started going into Nao’s character and past, but also started to set up the setting and the gravity of their situation, very similar to what he did in Angel Beats!, but I found it to be handled a tad better here.
Really great episode! OP was absolutely incredible and the ED was top notch too (thanks based Lia and Tada). After what was pretty much just fun and games last episode it was interesting to dive straight into the dark side of what life is like for those with abilities. We really got a feel for why Nao is the way she is through her backstory. I wonder whether the stuff with the scientists will come into play later as antagonists or whether they’ll be relegated solely to backstory.
I’m willing to bet a month’s worth of pay that it’s going to be the former.
Kanon actually saying something right for once. I can agree on this, which is why I didnt like the episode as much, with it already going in this direction in episode 2 it already makes it seem rushed again, which really shouldnt be that case if we stick with the amount of main characters we have at the moment. Too many characters is what ruined AB a bit. So I am gonna hope, this was just the beginning of even better more awesome and more feels things.
I should think more about what I write, so I dont have 3 lines for one sentence.
Alright I just finished watching episode 2!
Well, first things first, time to check out my prediction. If you didn’t listen to the podcast of Episode 1, I predicted that Hoshi no Umi would be a school where not everybody has powers or even knows that other people have powers. So it wouldn’t be like X-Men and Xavier academy where students know about each others’ powers and train themselves etc etc. Looks like I was more-or-less spot-on! Not everybody in the school has powers just yet, and many of them seem surprised after Joujirou used his power, thinking it was a bomb or something. Well, except the lunch lady, who was probably sick and tired of those sort of antics already 
What totally took me by surprise is that guy who has the power of finding out other power-holders. He is pretty mysterious, and he raises a lot of questions by default. Firstly, why the hell was he wet!? I know we’ll be getting lots of side characters, but this is one that I think we deserve knowing some backstory about, otherwise I’d be pretty disappointed.
We then go into the chase of the power-holder! This was probably the most entertaining part of the episode, and I hope we’ll be getting more of these, at least in the first half. Interesting to see how they use their powers, and why exactly they needed Yuu and his power. Also interesting to see Nao’s diverse personality during this chase. She wasn’t all serious like when they chased down Yuu, and I guess it’s more fitting, depending on the power-holder. Nao’s very versatile 
And Joujirou is a total boss, too.
Next was the introduction to Nao’s own backstory. I have more to talk about that in response to other members. But I thought it was, more than anything, an introduction to the seriousness that these power-holders have to face. Plus it was a good intro into Nao’s personality! Also interesting to find out a lot of our expectations were false haha. Like how that cliff is near the hospital, and how the guy in the wheelchair is Nao’s brother. It’ll be interesting to look back at the pre-release speculation topic as early as now. BTW did anybody else notice that ZHIEND playing in the background, while they were outside the hospital? Pretty sure that was the guitar sample in Episode 1, and I think @Bizkitdoh will be happy to know that.
All-in-all I really liked this episode. It was pretty exciting, and it gave us even more insight to their situation as a whole. It’s definitely not a happy-go-lucky power-holding life that they have to look forward to, so I’m more excited to see how they deal with these things. Initially, I hoped for a lot more internal conflict, but at the rate this is going, I wouldn’t mind the external conflict with the scientists becoming more of a focus.
Oh yeah and the ED was amazing. Can’t decide whether I like the OP or ED more, but I loved the Nao montage of her eating different things for the ED 
Now to respond to some other posts~
That’d be pretty interesting, yeah. Nice reference, if ever, and they’re just going all out with these references
They are very very generic male high school uniforms. The university I go to in Yokohama has a high school and the uniforms look exactly like that. So nothing more than coincidence, I wager.
That’s actually a valid complaint. If anything, I felt it served two purposes:
- Woobify Nao. It’s a very easy way to do so, and they were mostly successful with it, I think. Who wouldn’t feel sorry for a person going through that sort of pressure
- To put into Yuu’s head that his powers are something that he shouldn’t just monkey around with, both for his own and for Ayumi’s sake. If anything, that’s something that is worth putting into the series this early. If they didn’t, Yuu would continue not taking his powers seriously and that’d end up a main plot point, which I find not very interesting.
So while it is definitely something that is too early for this sort of story, I think it serves its purpose well. I think heavy hitting backstory revealed in the end should really only be left for parts of the main story, and Nao’s brother seems unlikely to be part of that main story. If they leave him in the hospitable, and uncured, it would be unfortunate, but I wouldn’t be dissatisfied either.
4 Likes
Sweat Saito, bitch.
Episode review: MARINA AND AOI TADA HOT DAMN
I like this running gag of Ayumi ruining the end of every episode.
I’ll admit this is better paced, relatively. This backstory was a focal point of a good half of the episode and took place over a lengthy period of time within the world as well. It didn’t seem as awful. Its presentation was better in context and the actual content was fair- Closer to the actual good pieces of AB!- Now it just needs to maintain a good wrapping.
1 Like
Hmm mixed feelings about this episode. First of all, and this is the most important thing we confirmed this episode, Nao is a cutie. A super cutie. I love her.
Anyway, I was surprised to learn the school is more for people who might have powers. I was expecting powers (or even the suspicion of powers) to be a lot rarer and be limited to the student council of this school, but apparently there are ways to suspect powers and such “symptoms” are common enough to have an entire school for them. I suppose it could be DNA related, with certain genes, etc. but that could make searching a lot easier and streamlined if you had enough political power to do so.
Which brings me to my huge issue with this episode. I think a lot of people already suspected the whole experimental lab rats drama to play some kind of role, as did I, but apparently it’s a much more open thing? Like, if you get exposed by anyone other than Nao and friends, you’ll be captured by scientists? And this is just an accepted thing in the upper echelons of society? I really want to know the political logistics going on here because they don’t make sense to me right now. Powers are definitely unknown to society, but scientists have enough power to make entire fake schools and hire random teenagers to be fake friends while they experiment on other teenagers that should clearly be illegal. And somehow the only safe haven is Hoshinoumi thanks to Nao’s trusted person, who is no doubt the mysterious missing sibling but of course no one can say his name until episode 7 lest the memories return. It also seems if they are “protected” by sibling #3, they don’t need to worry about being abducted by scientists (which I otherwise would assume they would do if they’re perfectly fine with turning people into suffering zombies) since they just go around using their powers all the time. Basically my problem is there is clearly at least 2 opposing groups of people with a lot of money and power to deal with these teenagers but I really don’t want to see such political drama in Charlotte but I’ll be simultaneously really annoyed if it doesn’t get explained properly.
I felt pretty neutral about the archer guy case. Again, these powers seem to be more common than I assumed so I guess this is a really common thing for the student council, but I hope it doesn’t become too repetitive or focused on. Granted, I was mostly distracted by Nao being best girl. I want to eat gyuutan with Nao.
Meanwhile Ayumi continues to serve the sole purpose of making blatant foreshadowing. Maybe she has the power of foreshadowing?
2 Likes
Oh yeah, and the water guy.
God damn the water guy.
I feel like the big bad nasty scientists(coming here after having recently been fired from their jobs in Punchline) would kill to get their hands on the water guy, it seems unusual that the school has 24 hour security good enough to protect pretty much the most valuable asset to the Hitler-Scientists from them.
God, Nao is such a glutton. Crazy gluttony sow! Not to mention in the ending song she’s also eating! Why are you so hungry gurllll
Anyway, it’s great that my question on episode 1 is now answered: How can they find Yuu despite of the distance between Hoshinoumi and Hinomori. They have this weird wet guy which ability is to track other power users. That’s damn convenient power, I have to say. But I have a gut feeling that he won’t appear much, much less explaining his backstory. Ain’t nobody got time fo dat.
I see that Nao is really overly too cheerful in some way. Her ability makes her distanced with her classmates. Even Takamatsu doesn’t eat lunch with her. (Yah, I know there might be a lot of reason why he doesn’t, but I can set that aside for now). The way she tracked down ability users is kinda like playing around, even. I guess that’s just how she tries to handle her situation, especially with his brother. (Also when Nao’s brother was introduced I almost thought Jun Maeda is Nao’s nii-nii. And then backstory happened. Nope nopity nope.)
Seeing Nao completely calm and rather deadpan handling her brother, is really depressing. I guess when she first found out about his brother, she tried so much, she tried any means to make her brother notice her as a sister. But eventually she broke down to the state she is now.
The story somehow getting similar to AB! Like, in AB! they gathered people to rebel against god. Now they’re just rebelling against this country and shitty scientists.
Anyway, we still haven’t seen Yusa/Misa in action, or neither the ZHIEND girl. I have a feeling that the ZHIEND girl is probably the one Nao can trust, but again that’s just a wild speculation so I know nothing.
Or maybe it’s Professor Xavier.
Love the opening animation, but the ending animation was meh bleh. I do think it’s better than AB! ED in my taste though.
Also we all want to see Naonao lingeries. They should’ve make that a BD bonus or something.
1 Like
Unless the school is privately owned by the Hitler-Scientists.
1 Like
Something of note, both Nao and Yu are shown to have some pretty major similarities in this episode. The way they’re both untrusting of others and self obsessed (Maybe that’s a bit too powerful a phrase I’m using here) in order to deal with themselves and their circumstances is pretty blatant at this point.
This is sorta coming from her ‘trusting noone’ scene when put into the context of the archery scene. She has alot of self confidence, forced or otherwise, in order to act how she did whilst not expecting to have her back covered. Which is pretty similar to Yu’s actions in episode one. Completely self serving and wrong as they are, they do sorta reflect something very similar.
Oh I missed this mention somehow- It isn’t. No clue what that episode 1 piece is. Could just be BGM or a sample of something else entirely. Idk. They are at different tempos and have somewhat similar progressions but nah they’re totally unique. The BGM in episode 1 is also acoustics, ZHIEND is two clean track electrics.
By the way, I noticed something strange. In the episode, it is shown that Yuu’s seat is the most left, second from the back. But in the opening, his seat is in the middle of the class. The seat in the opening is more likely roughly similar to Yuu’s seat in Hinomori, but the sequence clearly showed Hoshinoumi uniforms and students. So, is it error? Is it intentional? Or just to make the opening visually appealing? (I think it’s either the first or the last, but who knows)
Another week passes and I was able to avoid gaining any information about the series beyond the first episode (though Monthly Terra almost spoiled me… I think… I stopped the video just in case ^^; )
I really enjoyed the OP, and it only served to emphasis the whole “Astronomy/Astrology” references that appear all over the place. That aside, it’s cool (and on a side note, blonde side ponytail didn’t appear this episode), and I thought both the ending and the opening was good. Yep… good… I shouldn’t be typing this when I’m this tired.
First the bad stuff just cause. This is Key so of course I was expecting this to take some sort of dark turn eventually but I was kind of caught off guard that it happened this soon. It’s not a horrible thing but at the time it kinda felt like they really intended to jump straight into the seriousness, where I’m use to the lighthearted tone commanding the first half of most Key series. Though another thought I had was that “hey, it’s only 12 episodes right… I guess they gotta jump into the story quickly”. That goes into my other concern of the guy that could find powers. I like side characters as much as the next person but his inclusion with the whole “12 episodes” only thing is making me concerned the same way Angel Beats initially concerned me, where they introduced so many quirky and colorful characters into the series yet most were barely explored. Granted, there’s the VNs coming out now but what… am I going to have to wait for a Charlotte VN after this? This is mostly just baseless paranoia as I really want the series to pan out well yet I’ve had expectations betrayed season after season… or maybe I’m just jaded.
All that nonsense aside, I did like that while the serious backstory came quickly that it made a lot of sense and gave us some good insight into Nao’s character. She’s only really be in 1-ish episodes and I already feel like I know a lot about her (definitely more than I feel I know the main character :P)
Onto the good stuff, I really really really really really enjoyed the first half. The chasing the guy with the photo power and everything leading up to that, I loved every single moment of it. These scenes just showed how each characters personalities work so well off each other and was a great way introduce Nao and uh… teleporty guy… I can’t remember his name… but he was funny as hell. And speaking of character I really like how severely contrasting Nao and Yuu are, yet also similar where one uses arrogance and reputation to mask his family situation (I mean his LITTLE SISTER has to cook to save them money… he needs to get his stuff together, and weren’t his parents estranged or something… I need to rewatch ep 1), and Nao uses her blunt and her outgoing disposition masks the fact that she hasn’t got any friends.
And last but not least… I LOVE NAO! Seriously, I thought she looked cute last ep but I expected her to be some bitchy tsun. I like her a lot~ Anyways, sleep time… hopefully I won’t re-read this post tomorrow and think I was stupid for saying something dumb in light of my fatigue~
2 Likes
Can I just say that I want that beef tongue bento soooooo bad? I love beef tongue to begin with (just this week I used homemade beef tongue for reubens), and the thought of a Japanese style rice bowl with grilled tongue never even occurred to me. Nao has some awesome taste in food!
Honestly, this was one of my favorite things about the episode. Not only does it act as exposition for the story as a whole, but the very fact that Nao is so open with her backstory is some very strong characterization for her. You could easily come away from the first episode thinking that Nao is just a quiet, standoffish, reserved person, but in this episode we not only saw her more energetic and excitable sides, but we also saw that she’s actually very open about herself and her past.
The reasons why you normally don’t share a tragic backstory from a character right away is either that it’s irrelevant before you get to know them (not the case here as her backstory reveals info about the setting), and that most characters are at least reserved enough that they don’t want to reveal something so personal immediately. It seems that Nao is not such a reserved character, which I think makes her very intriguing!
3 Likes
To me, having the backstory now was the ideal choice. The central point was not much about having feels for Nao as it was about Yuu understanding the dangers his powers can bring to him and the people around him.
I think comparing Charlotte and Angel Beats might be a good illustration for the difference between “fast-paced” and “rushed”. Both series had super different second episodes, the only similarity being the backstories of each heroine being revealed so soon; Angel Beats did a lot more of comedy, but Charlotte seems much better at making episodes packed with content that don’t drag exposition and still have some room to breath (from Jojiro’s comical scene in the hall to Yuu reflecting on his situation).
My only problem so far is that the series might be a bit chuuni, and I agree with @Kaze that the politics here are a bit messy; I mean, having superpowered teenagers to go after other superpowered teenagers instead of a professional, specialized team? Of course this is supposed to be more of a teenager drama mixed with some fantasy so I wouldn’t treat this kind of world-building as a huge priority, but a bit more of elaboration would be nice.
2 Likes
Because the normal weak human evil scientists don’t want to risk getting shot in the face with arrows and peers are more appealing when it comes to getting rounded up like lab rats.
Well, Charles Xavier never had that problem 
Jokes aside, I have to agree is easier making contact with people of the same age. But I wonder about the security procedures of the school.
