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
