Charlotte - General Discussion

Key Discussion
#307

First of all, according to my current definition, the Charlotte anime is a key work, the Angel Beats anime is a key work, Little Busters and Clannad visual novels are key works. Their anime adaptions are not key works - they’re adaptions of such.

The reason I like the Angel Beats anime way more than Charlotte is pretty simple: Angel Beats completely blew me away. It gave me tons of feels. I didn’t even know a work of fiction was capable of eliciting so many emotions of that intensity. It was what got me into Key in the first place. Angel Beats is just really powerful. It’s incomplete, with a big chunk missing right in the middle, but the parts parts of it that we did see were doing their job wonderfully. Also, I consider AB’s setting to be the ultimate emotional setting, something Key arrived at after working on many masterpieces. A place where children’s souls arrive at after a short life of struggle and an unfair death. With just that, there’s an immense potential in the story, and even the incomplete AB anime made good use of it. Even with all its faults, the AB anime is still up there, right next to the other Key works.

Charlotte didn’t have that kind of impact to me. It didn’t leave all that much of a lasting impression compared to any other Key story. It didn’t leave behind as many fond memories. Even in terms of music: Angel Beats has “Ichiban no Takaramono”, Little Busters has “Haruka Kanata”. Memories and feels start flowing into me as soon as I hear those. No part of the Charlotte OST will be that kind of “trigger” for me. The most memorable piece would be the opening.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not blaming Charlotte for not being dramatic or emotional. It never tried to go all-out on drama. The thing is, it just didn’t leave any other comparable kind of impact, either.

So for these and several other reasons, I will always like the AB anime way more than I did that of Charlotte. It’s not an answer I arrived at after sitting down and counting the number and gravity of mistakes that the respective anime have made or anything like that. Those aren’t all that important to me.

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#308

Are we doing AB vs Charlotte now? Because frankly it’s too hard to judge which is “better” or “worse” without a set criteria, even subjectively.
Perhaps, on some levels, they could be objectively argued; I personally think that Charlotte’s entire plot was way more polished than Angel Beats’, and that’s an objective observation. But is plot really all it takes to make a series better?

There’s a reason why I have my own rating scheme, and in that scheme, AB beats Charlotte overall; but it doesn’t trump it in every aspect. Perhaps some aspects are more important to you than others, and that’s where the subjectivity comes in.

So, yeah, if you wanna argue about AB vs Charlotte, at least be specific about what aspect you are arguing on.

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#309

I disagree. You are a mad man!

Charlotte had plot?
I’d merit Angel Beats for actually having content. Sure, it eventually threw it into an abyss of “we fixed it all off-screen” but at least it had some worth. Charlotte just did random stuff each episode until the last episode, and then it was like… Oh… We only have an episode left to be something.

Angel Beats had a goal. It had a cast that, while underdeveloped, actually had some personality and chemistry. It had a fairly decent romance. It had an interesting world. It made good use of it’s initial concept. It had a good use of BGM.
I don’t like AB, but it actually did some stuff right. It’s main downfall was it’s reliance on comedy and it’s rushed final episodes.
As far as I can tell, Charlotte didn’t do anything right until it was too late.

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#310

Despite the overwhelming Western negative backlash on Charlotte after the last episode, volume 1 BD sales are top of the rankings in Japan.

Didn’t see that coming if I’m honest.
Then again everything this season seems to have sold poorly.

#311

Haven’t DVD/blu-ray sales been getting lower and lower? It might just be in the west due to Netflix and stuff though.

#312

Okay guys! With the series having come to a close and the final podcast around the corner, I’d like to begin calling for submissions for the Charlotte Anime Bookclub Anthology!

Much like the AIR Bookclub Anthology, we’re asking for forum members to submit voice recordings sharing their final thoughts on Charlotte. For prompts, you can try answering the questions “What does Charlotte mean to you?” or “What did you gain from watching Charlotte?”. The only real requirement I ask is that the recording be positive. Criticisms of the series are entirely valid in our discussions, but the Anthology isn’t really the place for negativity. We’re looking to end the Bookclub on a good note, so please only volunteer your thoughts if you believe you have something nice to say about the series. Try to aim for 3 minutes, and make sure your audio quality is as good as possible before sending it my way!

I’m not sure on a deadline for this yet. It may be as late as next weekend, but if we can get this done by the end of the week, I’d be elated. So, if you’re interested in contributing, please don’t delay!

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#313
#314

What. You gave Angel Beats! a 6 on characters but every other Key work excluding Rewrite and LB, a lower score ? Angel Beats didn’t even flesh out their characters. Other than Takajo, Charlotte fleshed out their characters better than Angel Beats!

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Angel Beats! - General Discussion
#315

Here is my contribution: https://www.dropbox.com/s/bsi8eb7ca0p5hjg/Charlotte%20Bookclub%20Anthology%20Thoughts.mp3?dl=0

I hope it’s not too controversial. :stuck_out_tongue:

#316

Is there a possibility that an interview with Jun Maeda will arise, addressing the overall negativity of response toward the anime?

#317

Now that Charlotte is over and things have settled down a bit, I thought I’d take this time to give my comments about the series as a whole. A lot of my comments are very independent of each other, so I thought I would list them down, instead of writing them as an article. So, here goes:

Things I loved about Charlotte

  • More than anything, I absolutely loved Yuu’s development in the series. He starts out as this selfish ass whose every move is directed towards his own (and Ayumi’s) benefit. We see just how his personality changes, from enjoying his selfish life, to being able to appreciate the company of others, then realizing the gravity of situations and how he can help change those, until losing hope in his own ability only to realize that he has the power to make sure that the bad things he experienced don’t happen to other people. It’s something I enjoyed seeing throughout the entire series, that’s for sure.
  • The art quality of Charlotte is just amazing. From the backgrounds to the character design, I thought every bit of it was appealing. It’s something I hold in great respect to P.A. Works for. For example, Glasslip, no matter how shitty it was, was a very pretty anime, and just looking at scenes from the anime was enough to make me appreciate it. The same is true for Charlotte, especially with the scene of the ledge near the hospital, and the stars. Sure, the stars ended up not being very significant in the series, but they sure made extra effort to make those stars pretty.
  • The music of Charlotte is just absolutely great. It’s arguably the best part of the series, and I am confident in making that assertion even if the story became better than it was. The BGMs had good composition and arrangement, and were used very well throughout the series. The in-series bands also had stunning compositions, despite many of them not even being part of the series. I would, without a doubt, enjoy a concert where they performed these songs, and even if I don’t get a ticket to that Charlotte mini-live, I’m looking forward to Animax Musix 2015 (which feature marina and maaya uchida).

Things I hated about Charlotte

  • I really disliked the lack of direction and foreshadowing throughout the series as a whole. While some may argue that it takes away from the shock factor, I think these two aspects heavily play into the mood of the viewer while they are watching the series. Because of the lack of this, a lot of the things that happened just went over our heads, because we, as viewers, weren’t set up for these situations in the right time. Ayumi’s death. for example, had good foreshadowing, and we were able to get into the mood as it happened. Whereas the whole hostage-taking in Episode 11 just came in and left way too quickly, and by the end of it, we were left just confused by it.
  • I also hated that many of the scenes lacked impact. It’s those little things, like having a heart-touching scene last more than 5 seconds, that add in to the impact of it all. Or being able to see things from perspectives other than that of the main character, which is something I believe can be utilized to an advantage in a video platform.
  • There were also a lot of plot points that were simply left untied at the end, which left a bad taste in my mouth. The biggest criminal of this is how Yuu was even able to regain his memories from an alternate timeline. While, sure, none of these plot points have any bearing on the story as a whole, it would have been nice to actually be given an explanation, heck, even hints of an explanation as to how it happened. Especially since this issue was foreshadowed, only to be forgotten in the long run.

A lot of my issues seem to be through the fault of the director, as Jun Maeda is only in charge of the story, and my issues are with the execution. For that, I genuinely blame Yoshiyuki Asai and would be wary of watching an anime with him as a director again.

Anyways, I’ve been doing some research on the voice actors of some memorable roles of the series.

Courage-chan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Emi_Bridcutt
Mind-reading “Leader”: Michael Rivas (AKA TK!)
Angelo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriertiernan
Round shades Foreigner: Nile Minai? Even 2ch doesn’t seem to know who he is lol

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#318

A post was merged into an existing topic: Key MADs & AMVs

#319

Bumping this topic as a reminder for other people to start getting their anthology recordings ready :stuck_out_tongue: Here’s mine, if you’d like to check it out

#320
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#321

YOOOOO DAT THIGH BE PHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT

alsobadlydrawn

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#322

Quick warning that if you haven’t read Tomoyo After yet, there’s a slight spoiler for it in this interview, so proceed with caution.

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#323

A post was merged into an existing topic: Key Sounds Label - Music Discussion

#324

Visual Arts posted some pics from their secret live show.
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#325

What secret live show???

@Pepe subtly forgets the existence of a certain live show that a certain person wasn’t able to get tickets for

2 Likes
#326

lol I wish I could have gone but too bad im on the other side or the Earth.