EVERYTHING. I think you missed the bigger ones.
Yes. It probably was.
Anime kids don’t need parents.
I didn’t think there was.
The girl with less screen-time than the friend of the girl that Yuu tried to hook up with at the start of the series?
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Yes. I don’t necessarily consider characters like “the friend” as important since in episode 1 All she did was further a “love” that wasn’t there to begin with.
Plus, she was more useful than half of the main cast members.
but at least the other cast members played BASEBALL BASEBALL AND MORE BASEBALL
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New character drawing shown for the Charlotte OVA.
Since I took it from the mobile Twitter, I have no link for it
But you can find it by going into Twitter and searching up “@Charlotte_AB_”
Charlotte OVA, coming bundled with the last episode of Charlotte, on the 30th.
This character design, particularly, looks really really nice. Thanks, Na-Ga and P.A. Works
(I hope it will be a hilarious episode in the vein of the AB OVAs)
Something I wanted to do in the Bookclubs but never got around to is comparing the ratings for each episode. So, better late than never I figure!
IMO, Episode 3 was rated way too high, and 11 way too low. But this should give some insight into the general opinion of the forum here. RIP Baseball.
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B-But the hug… entrusting the camera… trying one’s best without relying on power…
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Well, I can definitely agree in that the peak of the series was from episode 5-9
RIP Baseball
I never liked the first few episodes, so it’s surprising to see them rated so high on the graph. Episode 6 was where the series was actually starting to get interesting, so I’m fairly okay with how the rest of this graph plays out. I haven’t seen the OVA yet, but I heard it doesn’t add anything significant, so…meh. 
This kind of made me realize that there were a lot of episodes I liked on their own, but the place where Charlotte fell apart for me was that is that it kept changing gears.
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I can’t say it any better. There were many funny episodes, a couple sad ones, interesting backstories… However, as a whole, it never felt like a cohesive story. The objective kept changing and irreversible events, like (Charlotte episode 6 or 7 i think) the death of Yuu’s sister , are left without importance once they reveal that (Charlotte edisode 9 or 10 I think) they can just go back in time and fix everything…
PS: (minor Nayuki Kanon route spoilers) Nice snow bunny you have there, very appropiate now that we are about to do the Nayuki’s Podcast.
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Without a doubt. I’m not usually one to analyse plot holes in my anime, but Charlotte constantly kept shoving them my face! The links between each episode are tenuous at best, and when you’re constantly yelling at the screen asking wth exactly is going on and why, any sense of immersion and journey that could otherwise have been achieved is totally lost!!
This is a reaction video that pretty much sums up most of the criticisms for me~
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Honestly the concept was open-ended enough that they could have not had any over-arcing plot and doing a power-of-the-week style like they did for the first few episodes. Without a connected story it wouldn’t be a fantastic anime by any means but it would be better than what we got. Each individual episode usually had quite a bit of standalone strength but they don’t work well when you put them together.
not sure where to put htis but there will be a P.A works exhibit at AX and it will have charlotte and angel beats.
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So good news for Charlotte fans. This year at Otakon, there will be a dub premiere and cast Q&A by AniplexUSA
Really hope the dub streams on Netflix like Your Lie in April and Aldnoah Zero! Even if this series was a disappointment for me (as I elaborate below), I’m looking forward to seeing how they dub this one. Aniplex’s home video releases are just too expensive for me…
Sigh…
I had a lot of hope for Charlotte when I started watching it last year. It was Maeda’s first work in five years, it had an interesting concept, and unlike Angel Beats, was meant to be an anime from the Get co. In my opinion, this should have been one of his best works, possibly eclipsing Clannad in quality.
But… The cluttered narrative issues I’ve heard Angel Beats has couldn’t be as bad as the ones Charlotte has…
In just 13 episodes, the series goes from a superpower themed slice of life show to a save the world through questionable means story The series awkwardly transitions from plot thread to plot thread without truly elaborating on the characters it introduces. Although conceptually I understand why, it was probably a bad idea to spend 40% show on a portion of the show that wasn’t plot critical or particularly interesting.
Each of the main characters had potential. I was really looking forward to seeing Yu’s character arc, because I feel Maeda has never been so daring with a lead before. I mean, this guy was just out and out horrible. I understand that he was never intended to be a straight forward sociopath, and he had sympathetic reasons for wanting to do really well in school, but everything else he does feels like self-indulgence.
But I feel like they virtually abandoned this character after the first episode. Through much of the series after this (until episode 7 and 7 alone), it feels like he’s resigned to be a bland variant on the Light Novel protagonist. I understand he’d be reined in even if he tried to lash out, but shouldn’t he resist this new situation a LOT more? Couldn’t you have scenes where he tries to use his ability to escape from them, or at LEAST show a lot more bitterness towards the leads? And from that point on, his character awkwardly swerves between this bland LN protagonist/ordinary high school student, the character from the first episode, and the Yu from the last episode. I never felt like there was a strong sense of continuity within his character. How does a guy who is so good at using his powers lose his nerve and botch Nao’s rescue attempt? He should accept this kind of thing is real by now I really liked the nice but eccentric vibe I got from Takajo, but I felt his characterization was distracted by lame, repetitive gags about his love for Yusa and teleportation that weren’t given enough variety. I like Nao for her cool, confident attitude, and the way Maeda was able to tie in a softer side to her character, but even she didn’t feel like a complete character. Honestly, I felt Yusa and Misa were boring, though at least the latter’s ill-temper could be amusing at times. And then all the characters they bring in the second half, just… Don’t have the time they need. Maybe if this could have been 26 episodes, this would have solved A LOT of these problems, but… I don’t know…
I also don’t appreciate the vague, undefined nature of the antagonists. They end up being EXTREMELY important to the plot, but there are no rules or guidelines that seem to constrain them. They can easily recruit super beings once they find out who they are with little resistance, so they can… Research on them? Why do a lot of the super beings end up being held in torture chambers or prisons? Because of the nature of these powers being unique for every person, once they can’t use them anymore, the patient is useless. Why not ask them to help you out in other ways? Why not actually treat them as PEOPLE instead of grown-up guinea pigs? How do they get away with this? Why would you waste a valuable commodity like super humans on dangerous experiments? And where did the terrorists come from? Why weren’t they given any build-up? How do THEY deal with the scientists? And then there was the girl who tried to kill Ayumi. What in the world was that? That’s such a rare thing, you NEED to have some kind of explanation for it, but… It just felt like a convenient way to move on the plot in the end .
And as many people have said, that ending could have been an entire series onto itself. It’s just too much content packed into the last episode of the series. I also had trouble accepting what whether Yu was doing was really right. I mean, these powers go away at the end of adolescence. Why do you need to take away the girl whose helping her village with her powers away? Are there research organizations eager to steel teens with powers away in THAT country too? The lack of answers or explanations is just all so frustrating…
And because of this large shift in the focus of the plot, a lot of earlier events feel like they lose some of their meaning. Like Ayumi’s death. It does make sense he’d go back in time to save her, but they don’t even incorporate her to the rest of the story. Because it has so little bearing on the remaining episodes,I don’t really know why they did it exactly.
I remember reading a quote from a producer on the series expressing the thought that this story was the first of Maeda’s that felt like it belonged in an anime. I actually disagree. I feel this cluttered mess of a story proves that Maeda is better suited to visual novels. I also feel like this story would have been a lot better with alternate routes so we could learn the details of how this world. Instead, we got what we got.
But… That’ s just my two cents…
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It would probably be right to read through this whole topic, but 353 posts are overwhelming… so, I’m sorry. I’ve read nothing.
I’m just going to put in a couple of my own thoughts… Which have probably (and most certainly) have been posted already.
Just about a 5 minute before I’ve started writing this post I’ve completed my re-watching of Charlotte.
I have decided to watch it again even though it wasn’t a great show even on the 1st run through. Well, why did I decide to rewatch it is completely unrelated to be topic and whatever…
Initially I was planning to post some impressions on plot, but it seems to be impossible.
Charlotte looks like… 3 or 4 works mixed in a fast mode.
It has not a bad premise… to be a slice of life comedy. Jokes are tolerable, main hero is nothing special yet seiyuu’s work was good. It could have been a good ride if it continued as a comedy show. Wouldn’t be great, but would be somewhat impressive.
I also have to mention, that I’ve loved quite a couple of songs from this anime. Basically, OP, all of the ENDs (but ZHIEND one), and some of Yusa’s songs as well. Then again… this whole music in the anime was like a self-challenge to AB!'s music. And it never been as catchy, deep, or powerful as it was there.
…Going back to the plot. Around the 6 ep (Ayumi’s “arc”) anime started to get worse with each next episode. It was going down, and down, and down. Bringing in questionable characters, questionable “twists”, questionable and extremely forced poor drama.
Seriously, it felt like Maeda wanted to make his own Rewrite with AB! music and failed miserably.
Otosaka Yuu’s strange character distortions… where he either being a hero, then wimp, then longing for his beloved, then doubting if he should go and save her… Super-puper-“high-school”-director of Esper’s school aka Yuu’s brother (whom name I couldn’t remember watching this anime twice) unable to react to things happening. Butchering of Kumamoto to make us cry… which didn’t work. POOR, POORISH, THE POORIST drama and love confession. “OH MY GOSH” © Angelo
Midway through the story half of the characters just get thrown out of the window and the new ones are coming in.
Was it meant to be like a swap between common and characters routes? Like the one in Rewrite. If so, it was done extremely poor.
Last 3 episodes were completely opposite to the 1st 5 episodes. They were so different that it would be right to call them a part of another anime. Nao who sents Yuu on the quest to save the world with cool words… and “oh, I’ll be yours if you ever come back”. Seriously? Is this a love confession? What the… hell is this? And then, our only a one episode earlier weak-willed protagonist-kun going on that quest with firm resolve? Suddenly becoming good at spying, fighting, surviving, and (generally) doing warfare? Absorbing powers of thousands? I don’t buy that.
I would give it 2/5. It still got a decent animation… something I wish they’ve done for Rewrite.
Ah, darn. It turned out to be partly rant…
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