Spring 2010 Review: Angel Beats!

Onto the third review of the spring 2010 season, Angel Beats! is an anime produced by Key, the company best known for such anime as Air, Kanon, and Clannad.  However, unlike those titles Angel Beats! is not a romance and is not based off of a game.  The main genre here is actually action if you can believe that.  Along with that we have themes like the afterlife and school life.
A brief synopsis would likely go something like this:  Otonashi Yuzuru wakes up in a strange world and pretty much the first thing he does is die.  He is told that this is a form of afterlife and that the people here are people who died with troubles in their lives.  There's gunfights and magical powers and all sorts of weirdness as Otonashi slowly gets accustomed to this new life and the strange people around him.
While not the most amazing action anime, it's not a terrible anime overall.  There is some pretty decent music, some pretty good animation as you might expect of something produced by Key, and a pretty good plot, if not always apparent.  The characters are interesting and their interactions even more so.  You get a nice and complete ending that also leaves a sense of "huh? there's more?", which I feel is perfect for this anime in particular.  The pace was pretty good, with little dragging and yet not overly squished like Ichiban Ushiro no Daimao.  It might be a bit rough getting through the first couple of episodes due to the "what am I watching" factor, but after that it becomes pretty good so I say it's worth a watch, especially since it was one of the only real action animes of the season.
As stated earlier, the music was decent, there are a couple of interesting vocals throughout but besides that, the music is not particularly memorable, to me at least.  The OP and ED are both pretty good and are probably towards the top end for this season.  As an interesting fact, the break at the middle of the anime plays a concert A, 440Hz or so, as the tone.  Besides that I have one picture from episode 12 that I just had to point out because it reminded me of something.

So, the character in the picture is Yuri, the second character you meet and as you can tell by the gun, this is an action anime.  However, the computers in the background remind me of a much older anime, Serial Experiments Lain.  It's a good anime that is heavily thought provoking, to that end watch at your own discretion.  Angel Beats! is nothing like that, but I felt that I'd like to point it out.  Anyways, Angel Beats! was a pretty decent anime and next up is...Durarara!! I think, I got behind so maybe a different anime will be next.

Overall: 7/10
Amongst Action Anime: 6/10

--CsMiREK