Right, thats kinda my point. Now, we can look back at how he acted through the episodes and see that maybe. But when we were at episode 3, for example, it really just seemed like the arrogant, show-stealing, in-your-face, Im-the-best protagonist had simply shut up just because a girl told him to. He didnt do anything. He just sat there and went along with it like a side character. The only reason we even remembered he was there was because every once and a while we would hear would of the snide comments he would think in his head.
Well to be honest I wasn’t very fond of episode 3 either, although that’s more because I felt it spent too much time on somewhat unimportant matters, especially considering Yusa’s shocking lack of prominence throughout the series (I really can’t stand how they pretend Takajo & Yusa are part of the main cast and even Pooh gets more development, it sounds ludicrous and a really bad move to me).
But regarding Yu being pushed aside during episode 3, I always thought that was to underline the importance of Nao. Charlotte was always going to be the story of Yu going from a mere “main figure” to a “real hero”, but Nao has that “heroine” status from the very start. So early on in the show, it didn’t shock me he would take a step back, because he can’t really do anything, especially when someone as competent as Nao is leading the operation. But even more than that, it’s simply crucial to show Nao in that heroine role, because that’s what she is and in the end, mostly everything that was shown of her back then has become hugely relevant in later parts of the story, and especially to Yu’s own development, so it was really important to show what she is & can do before those elements come into play a few episodes after that.
And regarding Yu’s behavior at the time, let’s be frank - what was he going to do? He’s been warned about the dangers of using his powers the way he did up until now, he can’t leave Hoshinoumi on his own anyway, what is he gonna do? Not play along? Why? How? To do what instead? He doesn’t have good enough a reason to run off on his own, and he can’t go anywhere regardless - if he locks himself up in his dorm room, he’ll most likely be dragged out in no time anyway because unlike in episode 7, there’s really nothing to “respect”.
So he was obviously going to play along because in the end he doesn’t have a choice, but then at this point he can’t really shine in the situations episode 3 puts him through - the way he was back then, he can only go with the flow and watch Nao do her magic, and it’s obvious he would be on the side because he has no reason to take a more predominant role since he doesn’t even see why he’d be doing this, and I genuinely don’t think he had the ability to do so at the time regardless.
I don’t know, it all seems to fit inside the puzzle to me, and I thought so back then too, although I didn’t like episode 3 overall.
I understand what youre saying and can to agree with it to an extent, but I think if it was actually written/presented well, you wouldnt have to push Yuu out of the way to let Nao shine. In fact I feel like this is a problem that the whole show has had in general: completely losing focus on some characters just to show off some others, with no one really being fully developed in the end. Even though they are presented as if they were supposed to be…
Well I may be more forgiving of that aspect since I went into Charlotte fully aware that there would be holes similar to those found in Angel Beats!. I just don’t see Maeda ever writing an anime without such flaws, anime isn’t his background & 13 episodes is too short to achieve much in the first place.
As I mentioned, Yusa & Takajo are annoyingly underdeveloped, but unfortunately that was to be expected with such a short series. Recently there was an interview with the producer of the show & he admitted that the toughest part of making Charlotte was fitting all of Maeda’s scenario into those frames, he’s always going to write far too much to make a story manageable in 13 episodes. Which I understand, but at the same time it’s still a problem when you take on writing the scenario of an anime & you can’t make something that’s a good fit for the medium, especially when you can’t say it’s your first try anymore. (Which is why AB should have never been an anime in the first place, at least in my opinion).
Regarding Yu not having to step while letting Nao shine, I disagree. I don’t see anything strange with him getting “left behind” at that point, because he wasn’t “fit for the role” back then, he was no more than a very average dude somehow thrown into the main character role. Nao is fit for the role though, so I can definitely see her taking precedence over Yu early on. It’s actually very relevant to a certain vision of his development, and that’s why I praise it so - at first he’s no hero, so he’s just struggling with this overwhelming change (note how his development is forced onto him at first without him getting any time to accept this drastic change in lifestyle), and he gets left behind in the middle of all that, but that situation changes progressively. As he develops, he’s not pushed aside again, so that suits this outlook. In the grand scale of things, it makes a whole lot of sense, and in fact I think that’s the superior route to take.
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Well it wasn’t him who actively sought the production, they came to him.
On topic: In regard to this, I don’t think any of Yuu’s development was sacrificed. Others, certainly- But not him. His development has been very very good from the start and I’ve enjoyed it more than anything else in the series. I think he’s a great character.
Yeah, but when you already have experience and still make the same mistakes… I don’t think he has any excuses in that regard, whether it was him seeking the production or not. It’s okay to make mistakes on your first try, I just think that looking at Charlotte, he doesn’t seem to have learned quite enough from Angel Beats, although it’s clear Charlotte is less ambitious if we consider the vastness of the cast.
Good to see someone who agrees on Yu. Out of all the anime I’ve watched in recent years (and that’s a lot!), I can’t seem to recall a protagonist with a development quite as good as his. It’s been memorable so far, although in the end, so much comes down to the last episode, which worries me I have to say. Even for his development, as exceptional as it’s been up until now, if all he’s learnt doesn’t quite come together… my opinion of it will inevitably be affected in a very negative way. He might very well turn into a classic protagonist if the ending is good enough though.
Yuu is essential to my current assumption on Charlotte’s message, so I like him quite a bit. :kgoha:
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I dunno about you but I never really thought that way, even back in Episodes 2-5 
I thought it was pretty obvious that he hadn’t yet changed as a character but was just begrudgingly following orders for the sake of his sister’s well-being.
Did anyone notice that Yuu turned out to be almost as crazy about food as Nao is? That’s a really interesting trait these two share! It just seems that, due to Ayumi’s pizza sauce overuse, Yuu had forgotten how delicious food can be until Joujirou treated him to some cafeteria food. Yuu loves delicious food, sometimes reacting in a similar fashion as Nao does.
Thinking about it, I was very surprised when I realized how often food appeared throughout Charlotte. Heck, food played an important role several times in the show!
Episode 1: Shirayanagi Yumi invites Yuu to eat pancakes on what turned out to be their first (and only) date. Also, enter Ayumi’s pizza sauce cooking - omurice
Episode 2: Yuu’s bento is another portion of Ayumi’s omurice. Nao mentions that Ayumi gives her best to make food for Yuu every day despite low budget. Nao eats her bento by herself. Joujirou uses his power to buy sandwiches. Nao goes crazy over kiosk-bought beef tongue on her way to the hospital. Dinner: Pizza sauce curry.
Episode 3: Omurice bento, Yuu erases ketchup message. Joujirou procures beef tongue curry for Yuu. Yuu is ecstatic. Henceforth, they associate this dish with happiness, school life and youth. Misa’s hideout: Yusa happily munches on marshmallows and later roasted marshmallows. Dinner: Meat sauce pizza sauce spaghetti.
Episode 4: Breakfast: Pizza sauce french toast. Dinner: pizza sauce broccoli cream stew.
Episode 5: Barbecue in the mountains. “Eat some vegetables, too.” ~ Otosaka Yuu. Ignored. Only eating meat reminds Yusa of Misa. Dinner after returning home: Noodles with vegetables witout pizza sauce because they’re out of pizza sauce.
Episode 6: Buying ingredients with Nao and Yusa on their way home. “Enoki mushrooms rule!” ~ Tomori Nao. Eating dinner with Ayumi, Nao and Yusa. Spaghetti in the cafeteria. Pizza sauce revenge - Ayumi sneaks out of the dorm. Spaghetti in the cafeteria.
Episode 7: Yuu declares war on healthy food. Cup ramen. Yusa brings over some cream stew but can’t enter. Shirayanagi invites Yuu for some pancakes but has to retreat. Pizza all day. Nao sneaks in some salad but he doesn’t touch it. The discovery of mitarashi dango as both food and weapon. Nao brings Yuu back to his senses with pizza sauce omurice.
Episode 8: Once again, cafeteria beef tongue curry for Yuu. Sala asks Yuu to bring her to an okonomiyaki place. Yuu points out there’s nobody waiting at home with dinner. Ramen in a station noodle stall on their way to the hospital.
Episode 9: Drug-filled, tasteless curry in the research facility. Bloodbath.
Episode 10: Second scene after time leap: breakfast at otosaka’s, 3 years ago. Cake for Shun’s 15th birthday. This is where he gets the best ideas several times.
Episode 11: No food scenes. Most disastrous and brutal episode yet.
Episode 12: Spoon-feeding Yuu is the new fad. Return of the trademark dishes: beef tongue curry, cream stew, pizza sauce omurice. Cream stew has a special meaning for Yusa and Misa. Touching scene of Misa tasting her parent’s cooking in their soba bar. Nao appears, munching on poki. Those poki go over to Yuu after he promises to return.
Nao’s ending video: Has several clips of Nao chewing on different things.
…not even sure if this still counts as Yuu discussion xD
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So Charlotte is actually a food montage, huh. I guess it works just as well as Shokugeki no Souma :v
So lets take a moment to appreciate how broken Yuu is.
He has the power to posses people, stealing abilities, flight, go invisible to one person at a time, move sonic fast, channel the dead, pyromancy, telekinesis, telepathy, taking pictures of people in their underwear, ‘collapse’, a currently unusable timeleap(That he COULD fix), the ability to go though walls, erase memories, hypnotize/force sleep, find power users, create ice, translate any language, ability to make illness worse, some sort of super sight, forcefield creation, healing, seeing the future, power to create explosions, a super jump, shooting lightning, disintegration of objects, turning things to gold, making spikes, a legit teleport, aaaand ‘courage’.
Confirmed existing powers that he is not known to have taken are shooting light out of your mouth.
Plus ‘tens of thousands’ more unknown powers.
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He has thoughtography. He posses the dude to throw the picture of Nao to her. Also did he take the brotherhood’s powers? We never saw him take them.
Oh yeah that’s right.
EVERY POWER USER
Even if he didn’t take them before going nuts, he would have forcibly taken them later.
Unless they were in Japan I guess.
They were literally right there when he was using his map to look at Courage-chan and they wern’t blipping.
They’re plunderlooted.
I’m a little confused about Yuu’s morals about hurting other people. He
clearly has a sister he cares deeply about at the start and although he
was poor as was mentioned, it did not appear to be any level of
traumatic life threatening poor. Thus brings up the question how he can
disregard other peoples’ LIVES so easily when he doesn’t appear to be a
sociopath. He was willing to possibly kill a stranger by making them
crash their truck so he could act as a white knight to end up dating a
rich and pretty girl from his school that he didn’t care about that much
emotionally. (Playing with life/death isn’t a laughing matter) But Yuu
isn’t a complete scumbag at heart as he can make friends and show
empathy and help others.
In episode 7 when he goes on a depressed rampage, he still isn’t able to
kill those he beats up despite wreaking havoc and coming close to
stabbing someone’s eye. Although there was the security guy whom he
forced to jump over the balcony and that wasn’t something like the 2nd
or 3rd floor, it most certainly looked like it was high enough to kill
someone fpr sure. Although it was also implied the guard had a cushioned
falling from the sound of trees and bushes. I chalk this up to his
stupidity+depression, but he probably didn’t actually want to kill the
guard.
I’d put that down to confidence. In his mind, there wasn’t much of a risk of hurting people.
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Agreed with what Taka said; in the episode 1 example, he checked if the driver was still okay after having him crash into the post. In episode 7, he first checked if there was a tree down there to cushion his fall.
He definitely has no intent to murder these people, so I wouldn’t call him a sociopath, but he definitely is willing to take the risk of harming others in order to achieve his goals…
Well, at least pre-episode 8 Yuu thought that way. Episode 13 Yuu also started to regress into that after he had lost the memories of his experiences with Ayumi and Kumagami
Otosaka Yuu starts off as an arrogant cheater who wants others to admire him. He isn’t content with just being good-looking. He aims for the position of the smartest student of his grade and when it comes to girls, only the school madonna is good enough for him. He puts great effort into his preparations, abuses his supernatural ability to cheat his way through life, and even frivolously puts other people in danger for the sake of his schemes. He doesn’t care much about other people.
His shenanigans end when he gets subjugated by Tomori Nao. She knows his true nature, she’s smarter, driven, and always one step ahead of Yuu. Others in his position might have tried to break free from Nao’s control, but Yuu gives up rather quickly. He is weak. He lacks courage, determination, and a decent reason to oppose her. “I don’t want to” and “It hurts” aren’t good enough a reason.
Yuu is by no means hero material.
He gets forced into the position of a Hero’s sidekick.
As he reluctantly follows Nao around, helping her save people he doesn’t care about, he starts getting used to his new situation and gets a little bit closer to his new colleagues, Nao included. He’s not exactly the obedient type, but he ends up doing as he’s told anyway. His “ambitious jerk” personality only awakens when it comes to him or his precious little sister Ayumi. He has no qualms throwing his colleague Joujirou out of the window just to make sure he doesn’t ruin Ayumi’s meeting with her favorite idol.
And yet he fails to save Ayumi. Grief-stricken, he runs away, taking out his agony on delinquents on the streets as he once again finds joy in dominating others - this time through violence. Despite “going wild” like this, Yuu doesn’t lose control completely. He doesn’t kill anyone, nor does he leave his opponents with lifelong injuries.
Yuu is not villain material, either.
Admittedly, he is a skilled fighter.
It is once again Nao who stops him from straying from the right path and helps him recover. As Yuu begins to come to terms with the tragedy, he loses some of his selfishness and develops a more understanding, a more caring side, going out of his way to help other people (in this case Nao’s brother) of his own accord for the first time.
Through a chain of events, Yuu’s position changes.
He finds out that he is the strongest ability user out there. He goes back in time and saves Ayumi. He regains memories from an alternative timeline and finds out that the world he lives in is far more cruel to ability users such as himself than he ever imagined. As if to drive this point home, Yuu is soon targeted by a foreign group of criminals. They kidnap Nao, who had done so much for him, to lure him out.
This is where Yuu is supposed to step up as a hero, but he still lacks the inner strength. Remember, he is not hero material.
Expecting a teenager to face armed and fully prepared thugs to save two lives is a tall order and Yuu almost breaks down when he is demanded to do just that. But he can’t simply abandon Nao and eventually, he works up enough courage and determination to go save her after all.
However, he fails, as do his enemies. Nao survives the confrontation only thanks to Kumagami’s sacrifice. Yuu loses time leap.
This is where Yuu grows the most as a person. He realizes his feelings for Nao and boldly confesses. He realizes what it is he wishes for: to make sure the people he loves won’t have to suffer. He overcomes his failures, decides to take things in his own hands and accepts the sheer impossible task of singlehandedly saving all ability users in the world, in order to end the conflict for good. Thanks to his friends, he also learns what it truly means to take away someone’s ability.
He never lacked power or fighting prowess. But only now did he develop inner strength, courage and determination, for now he has something he wants to protect. Only now did he become capable of taking on the world.
Yuu was never meant to be a hero. He never wanted to be one. Yet he decided to become one on his own.
So his battle begins. He struggles, he stumbles, he gets weary, he comes close to losing heart. But he perseveres, even as he is losing himself and forgetting what it is he is fighting for.
And he succeeds.
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I’ve been meaning to ask this, and I’ve been curious as to whether it was because of bad scripting, or not remembering things, but.
In episode 13, if I remember correctly, people were trying to shoot Yuu, but Yuu was blocking it with a self-shield. If I remember correctly, he was sleeping for part of it while people were shooting at him, yet the shield was protecting him. Does that mean that the shield protects him whether he’s sleeping or awake ? Cause later in the episode, he gets shot using another weapon (sorry. Not a big fan of remembering weapons), by a man later on, and the shield doesn’t protect him anymore. Was this just bad scripting, or was the shield only bulletproof ?
In episode 13, someone controlled him, maybe an inner thought or a dead person, and who could that have been ? I was always curious because that scene could have been a good starting for a second season if it was planned.
Yuu looses all his memories in the end. Does he still have his powers and abilities ? I doubt that powers just disappears when you loose your memories.
Is it possible that Yuu was possessed in episode 13 throughout the scenes, such as when he was dragging people in the desert and such ?
Is it possible that the Yuu we see at the ending is actually someone else who’s possessing him if he still has his powers ? When he fell asleep, someone was possessing him and burnt the whole room. What are the laws when he passes out ? This could have been some kind-hearted soul (literally) who followed Yuu around and possessed him whenever he saw Yuu throw the note cards away or ruin it, so he would pick it back up.
Why didn’t Yuu heal his eye ? He could have freaken time traveled and plunder that knife-chan little girl, sheesh.
This regards to Yuu’s powers, but isn’t it possible to save dead people using his healing powers ?
The fact that he had the power of a “medium” brings up a lot of questions that I’m curious about.
