Angel Beats!
Angel Beats!
Key worked in collaboration with Dengeki G's Magazine published by ASCII Media Works to produce the project into a media franchise. Four manga series are serialized in Dengeki G's Magazine and Dengeki G's Comic: two illustrated by Haruka Komowata and two drawn by Yuriko Asami. A series of illustrated short stories written by Maeda and illustrated by GotoP were also serialized in Dengeki G's Magazine between the November 2009 and May 2010 issues. Two Internet radio shows were produced to promote Angel Beats!. A visual novel adaptation titled Angel Beats! 1st Beat was produced by Key and released for Windows on June 26, 2015.
Angel Beats! received generally positive reviews from critics. The integration of various individual elements together, such as musical performances, humor and action, was commended in one review but panned in another, saying that the story was overloaded with too many elements. P.A. Works was praised for the animation of the action sequences and attention to detail with the weapons used. A major flaw noted by critics, however, was the length of the anime, with its short run leaving many of the characters' back-stories unexplored. The anime was selected as a recommended work by the awards jury of the 14th Japan Media Arts Festival in 2010.
Plot
Angel Beats! is set in the environment of a high school in the afterlife, a type of limbo for people who have experienced trauma or hardships in life and must overcome them before passing on and being reincarnated. The story follows Yuzuru Otonashi, a boy with amnesia who ends up in the afterlife. He meets Yuri Nakamura, a girl who invites him to join the Afterlife Battlefront, or SSS, an organization she founded and leads which rebels against an unseen God for their unfair circumstances in life. Their enemy is Angel, the student council president, who has supernatural powers and is believed to be God's associate. After joining the SSS, Otonashi meets other members, including Hideki Hinata, the co-founder; Masami Iwasawa, the lead vocalist of a four-girl rock band, Girls Dead Monster ; and Yui, a younger fan of GDM. Other than the SSS members, the afterlife is populated by fabricated students and teachers, whom Yuri refers to as "non-player characters".Otonashi participates in several SSS operations and missions, despite still questioning the morality of their actions. During one of GDM's diversion concerts, Iwasawa passes on from the afterlife after achieving satisfaction through her music. After the SSS manages to demote Angel from her position, Otonashi partially regains his memories with the aid of deputy president Ayato Naoi's hypnosis. He later befriends Angel, whose real name is Kanade Tachibana, and remembers the rest of his past while in her presence. Otonashi helps her make peace with the SSS and learns of the afterlife's true purpose. He subsequently offers to aid Kanade in helping other SSS members to pass on, and Kanade is reinstated as student council president in accordance with their plan. They are joined by Hinata and Naoi, with the former helping Yui move on by fulfilling her desire for marriage.
Mysterious shadow-like entities begin appearing, attacking the residents of the afterlife by turning them into NPCs. Otonashi reasons with the other SSS members and many of them agree to pass on in lieu of becoming an NPC. Yuri destroys the source of the shadows, which were created by computers programmed to activate when love was detected in the afterlife to prevent it from becoming a paradise. Her affection for the members of the SSS allow her to finally overcome her regret, and by this time, the only other ones who have not passed on are Otonashi, Kanade, Hinata and Naoi. The five remaining students hold a graduation ceremony before Naoi, Yuri and Hinata pass on leaving only Otonashi and Kanade.
Otonashi confesses to Kanade that he has fallen in love with her and wants them to remain in the afterlife to help others move on. However, Kanade reveals that her regret was being unable to thank her heart's donor, Otonashi, for extending her life. Otonashi is heartbroken after she thanks him and passes on, leaving him alone in the afterlife. Later, two people resembling Otonashi and Kanade encounter each other on the street in the real world. In an alternate epilogue, Otonashi becomes the high school's student council president and helps lost souls depart from the afterlife while waiting to see Kanade again.
Characters
Main
Supporting
Girls Dead Monster
Production
Creation and conception
The original creators of Angel Beats!, Jun Maeda and Na-Ga of Key, were interviewed in the July 2009 issue of ASCII Media Works' Dengeki G's Magazine. Around the time Key completed the first release of their sixth visual novel Little Busters!, Yōsuke Toba of Aniplex approached Maeda around October 2007 about collaborating to produce an original anime series. Maeda began meeting with Toba and Aniplex on a monthly basis and the story started to gradually progress. Aniplex wanted Maeda to write a screenplay that would be very "Key-like, with touching moments of laughter and tears," but initially Maeda found himself at a loss to write a story more amusing than Little Busters!, because he thought that he had reached a limit with Little Busters! in regards to a "Key-like story". However, one day Maeda was struck by inspiration, where he thought up the initial idea of a story set in the afterlife. Furthermore, with everyone already dead, Maeda conceived of flashy battles where the combatants go all out without fear of death. According to Maeda, the theme of the series is "life", which in Angel Beats! is depicted as a precious and wonderful thing, despite the characters in Angel Beats! who fight against their fate.Maeda nominated Na-Ga to begin work on the character designs near the beginning of 2008. Na-Ga was worried that other computer graphics work for Key would get delayed, but he took the position because of his accumulated experience in CG. Maeda nominated Na-Ga because of the popular characters he designed in Little Busters!, and because of his frankness. Na-Ga designed Yuri based on her personality as a leader, though it was per Maeda's request that he added the black headband, taken from the character Yukiko Amagi from Persona 4, who was Maeda's favorite heroine from that game. The length of Yuri's hair and the addition of a green ribbon were decided at production committee meetings. Angel's original concept began with the idea of a brave, fighting girl. Maeda cited that Angel's image had changed considerably over the development process and that originally she was similar to Shiki Ryōgi from Kara no Kyōkai. Eventually, Angel's concept changed to being a "silent and mysterious girl". Before Na-Ga decided on Otonashi's design, Maeda told him that anything would be fine and to just draw something, and eventually drew up a prototype for Otonashi and Hinata, among others. Some of the characters had vague initial conditions given by Maeda, such as asking Na-Ga to draw an "all female band bass guitarist" in the case of Girls Dead Monster member Sekine and particularly the cryptic "character who speaks in puzzling English phrases" for TK.
Development
The Aniplex producer of Angel Beats!, Yōsuke Toba, was interviewed in the November 2009 issue of Dengeki G's Magazine, where he commented that a 13-episode anime with about 21 minutes per episode was not enough to tell the whole story of Angel Beats! Maeda had envisioned. Therefore, the various additional media, such as the illustrated short stories and manga, contain some of the story that was unable to make it into the anime because of time constraints. Toba wanted fans of the series to be able to enjoy it to the fullest by exploring all of the media types. Maeda found it tiring to go back and forth between Osaka and Tokyo for business meetings when he was in the process of writing the script, and found it difficult to write an entire script by himself, since he had never done that before with any of the games he produced as a member of Key. It was only after the script was done that Maeda was able to work on the music, which he greatly enjoyed and never tired of it. Maeda composed about 15 songs for Girls Dead Monster and spent about two days each composing each song. He made sure to create songs for Girls Dead Monster that high school girls would compose, including the lyrics. Due to this, Maeda pointed out that the opening and ending theme songs for Angel Beats!, which Maeda also composed, sound like they were composed by a different person compared to the Girls Dead Monster songs.In regards to bringing in P.A. Works as the animation studio, Toba had taken notice of the company back when they provided in-between animation and production assistance for Fullmetal Alchemist and Darker than Black, respectively; Aniplex helped produce both series. After watching just the first three episodes of P.A. Works' True Tears, however, he was shocked at the high quality and immediately went to P.A. Works' studio in Toyama Prefecture to meet with the production staff in the hope that one day Aniplex could collaborate with them on a project together. The following week, Maeda brought up the subject of deciding on an animation studio for Angel Beats! and mentioned that he too had seen True Tears and had become interested in P.A. Works. Shortly after that, Toba formally made the proposal to P.A. Works to animate the project.
Maeda focused on making jokes an important part of Angel Beats!, leading Toba to seek out Seiji Kishi to be the director, because of his experience in directing and his pulling power influence on the staff of P.A. Works, where there are many that are still young. Kishi was ultimately approached by P.A. Works representative director Kenji Horikawa about working on a "school comedy written by a game scenario writer" and was shocked after taking the director's position to discover Maeda was the screenwriter. Kishi commented how, far from just being a comedy, the series contains many different aspects, including flashy action scenes, live musical performances, and drama. Kishi stated that normally he would be hard pressed to cover this range of aspects, but was motivated by Maeda's uncompromising attitude in regards to the script. The decision to add in the all female band Girls Dead Monster was due to Maeda's intent to add in many different and interesting elements into the series.
Kishi specifically requested that sound and music director Satoki Iida work on the project, who also helped with the proofreading of the script due to Maeda's fixation on the music production. Iida was interviewed in the April 2010 issue of Dengeki G's Magazine, where it was stated that Maeda and the group Anant-Garde Eyes received Iida's approval to employ a minimalist approach to the background music used throughout the anime. Iida admitted that it was uncustomary to use this music genre in anime and that he had to go through various trials and errors with Maeda and Anant-Garde Eyes to get the music right. Maeda and Anant-Garde Eyes strove to create individual quality music tracks, while Iida pursued the goal of having music that would be useful as BGM tracks, which caused problems during the creation process. Iida realized that it was important for the music and the visuals to combine to create a synchronization between the two. Toba first took notice of Angel Beats! character designer and chief animator Katsuzō Hirata during the production of Gurren Lagann with his skill as an artist and ability to finish work quickly, but thoroughly. It was after Toba saw Hirata's work as chief animator of Strike Witches, however, that he pursued Hirata to join the Angel Beats! staff; Maeda also gave his seal of approval to Hirata.