Disclaimer: This review will include *SPOILERS* so read at your own risk.
Having recently hit its 10th anniversary, today I’ve decided to take a look back on a classic show that, amongst many, marked the beginning of anime in the last decade: Angel Beats!.
At first glance, Angel Beats! has a relatively simple premise: when you die, you wake up in an afterlife as a student in a school. Your job from there is to fight “Angel”, the mysterious student council president, and thus prevent yourself from becoming one of the many mindless NPCs who populate the school. However, for me, the true strength of the show lies not in its plot, but rather in its characters and the struggles they go through — at any rate, it is definitely more of a character-driven show than anything else.
The first few episodes of the show are fairly light-hearted and fun. Bits of comedy are sprinkled here and there (some of it being quite hilarious too) as character introductions are made and more of the setting is established. However, once the show has gotten you comfortably settled in, the tone shifts dramatically, and the true themes of the show are revealed.
You see, the real deal behind the afterlife in the show is that only some people can enter it upon dying. In fact, only a very specific type of person can enter it: people who lived tragic, unfulfilling lives prior to their death. Just from reading that, you probably already have some clue of what this show is really about.
In the show, different characters with different backstories are presented one after another, and it is up to Otonashi (our main character) to help them come to terms with their past, thus allowing them to move on from the afterlife. From medical disabilities to train accidents, Angel Beats! tells a simple yet powerful story about characters who have been dealt the short end of the stick in life and yet still dare to dream; their motto, “rebels against the god”, a proclamation of their willingness to fight, even against destiny itself, for their right to happiness. This is where Angel Beats! gets its reputation as a tearjerker anime from, because every episode from here on out is bound to be filled with cathartic goodness. I cannot tell you how many times I cried while watching Angel Beats!, because it would surely be too many times to count — it felt like every second episode I was once again bawling my eyes out, having what was probably way too much empathy for a fictional character.
Of course, Angel Beats! is by no means a perfect anime. Being only 13 episodes long and having a sizeable cast of characters to get through, some parts of the show do feel a little rushed, especially towards the end with Yui, and some characters don’t receive as much development as they probably deserve. Furthermore, there are some things that are left entirely unexplained at the end of the anime, such as the ending scene where Otonashi and Kanade meet each other in real life, and also the fact that Kanade was in the afterlife before Otonashi even though Otonashi’s heart had been used to save her life. All in all, however, I would say that those minor nitpicks don’t really matter too much to a show like Angel Beats!, which, first and foremost, is designed to be experienced.
At its core, Angel Beats! is a show that celebrates our collective humanity — our ability to have free will and to stand against any of life’s adversities. I remember that when I first watched Angel Beats!, a very profound revelation came over me: that I lived a great life. As I watched all those characters struggling so desperately in their pursuit of happiness even given their unfortunate circumstances in life, I began feeling a genuine sense of gratitude for all of the things I had in my own life. I began feeling grateful for all sorts of things I’d never paid attention to before, like the fact that I was able to move my body at all and that my family was with me. And more than anything, I think I felt inspired — inspired to make the world a better place, even if just by a little, because life’s already harsh enough as it is. And to me, that is the final parting message of Angel Beats!: to live life with all one’s heart, just as Otonashi had given his beating heart to Kanade.
