Angel Beats!: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Angel Beats!: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie Review

They're not quite dead yet.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 9, 2011

The vast majority of people reading this review would probably have no problem with the assertion that high school can be hell, but what about the proposition that high school can be purgatory? That’s more or less the setup in Angel Beats!, one of several death-obsessed animes (Yu Yu Hakusho being a recent prominent example) which have come down the pike over the past few years. When Otanoshi, a teenaged boy, comes to in a courtyard with no memory of who he is or what’s happened to him, he finds himself suddenly in the midst of an epic conflict. An extremely excitable girl named Yuri has an automatic rifle and has another girl named Angel in her sights. Yuri immediately launches into a recruitment speech with Otanoshi, asking him to join her group in their efforts to defeat Angel. Otanoshi is understandably confused, even more so when Yuri informs him that he’s actually dead and this is a purgatorial afterlife, set in a high school of all things. Otanoshi doesn’t immediately believe Yuri, and instead (much to Yuri’s exploding head dismay) decides to venture down to Angel and see what’s really going on. Angel seems to be some sort of automaton almost suffering from a hypnotic trance, but she also let Otanoshi in on the little “secret” that he’s actually dead, at which point Otanoshi totally loses it and screams at Angel, “Prove it!” Within a second, Angel has transformed one of her arms into a sword (scythe?) and stabs Otanoshi violently. And that concludes Otanoshi’s first lesson (of many, it turns out) about some of the “rules” of this Afterlife, namely, you can die again (and again and again), and being dead does not deprive you of any receptor cells or nerves, meaning that dying can be incredibly painful. The rest of Angel Beats plays out as a sort of recurring set of Mission(s): Impossible, as Otanoshi joins Yuri’s brigade (which undergoes virtually second by second name changes) and the group attempts to defeat Angel, the putative student council President and evidently the henchwoman for God on this semi-astral plane. But of course, all is not as it seems, this being anime and all, leading to a slowly developing story arc that manages to find some resolution by the end of Angel Beats’ 13 episodes.

Angel Beats is an at times very strange amalgamation of all sorts of different ideas, seemingly jumbled together to become something akin to a Buddhist videogame. We get recurring references to Buddhist theology, replete with long, philosophical discussions of reincarnation and its implications, along with more modern, tech-savvy ideas like computer games and programming, as this Afterlife seems to be a “game” of sorts through which Otanoshi, Yuri, and their friends must navigate to the final “level up.” This analogy is made even more obvious by Yuri referring to large swarms of background students and teachers at the high school as “non-player characters.” Also entering the mix is a weird kind of proto-music video ambience, as one subsection of Yuri’s brigade is an all girl rock band called Girls Dead Monster, a group whose main function is to divert attention while the brigade undertakes any number of surreptitious activities.

This is yet another recent anime which struggles between two seemingly disparate tones. On the one hand, it’s a rueful meditation on lost opportunities and regrets, sprinkled with an overtly philosophical bent as Otanoshi and his new friends in the afterlife come to terms with their predicament and need to decide if they’ll “pass on” to whatever plane awaits them next. On the other hand, Angel Beats often incorporates the goofy humor and slapstick ethos that is part and parcel of so many modern anime outings, and while this does provide the series with some welcome comedy relief, it seems to be at least somewhat at odds with the overall serious intent of the show.

Angel Beats also doesn’t quite have the courage of its convictions, as in the case of Angel herself, who is initially shown to be a near indestructible force of evil, at least in Yuri’s estimation. And yet the series slowly reveals that Angel herself is controlled by a mysterious computer program and indeed the character herself ends up not being evil (no big surprise there), simply misunderstood. What this ultimately does to Angel Beats is make the opening half of this relatively short overall series seem like a cheat, where any number of plot strands are simply discarded and thrown by the wayside. While it’s laudable that Angel Beats does attempt to give most of the major characters passably effective story arcs, Angel’s seems ineffective, at least until the last few episodes of the series when things are reclaimed, at least in part.

This is a series which may be hamstrung by its own ambitions. Angel Beats probably could have benefited from at least a few more episodes, as so much is crammed into these 13 outings that it simply becomes a jumble some of the time. The tonal disparities are what will probably strike most first time viewers as off-putting, but there are several logical inconsistencies sprinkled throughout the show, and once Angel comes to the light, as it were, the show struggles to find another malevolent force to replace her. In fact, one of Angel Beats’ unexplored, but extremely relevant, ideas is what exactly is God’s plan in all of this. It’s hinted at, and even talked around, but never really addressed effectively in the long run, and it ultimately keeps Angel Beats from delving as deeply as it might have.

All of this said, Angel Beats boasts a solid enough premise and has several charming characters populating its afterlife high school. The show also benefits from a great music score, courtesy of several “mini-concerts” given by Girls Dead Monster, and the show, while weirdly cartwheeling from idea to idea and style to style, has its own kind of manic allure which may appeal to those who ultimately couldn’t care less about logic and motives.

Angel Beats!: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Angel Beats is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Aniplex and Sentai Filmworks, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is an often bright and colorful presentation which boasts very good to excellent line detail as well as a nicely robust and well saturated palette. While character designs aren't exactly innovative, they're colorful as well, especially with regard to the often oddly hued hair of several of the major players. Some of the concert sequences look especially good and almost seem to have been assembled with motion capture, so fluid and convincing is the girls' movement. While backgrounds are often minimal, they pop relatively well in this high-def presentation, and overall Angel Beats sports a nicely sharp and well defined image.

Angel Beats!: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Though obviously spread across a narrow soundfield, Angel Beats' two DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mixes, one in the original Japanese and the other an English dub, both are very forceful, with appealing and often very robust low end. You'll notice the low end especially in the nice opening theme, which features a pulsating kick drum which sounds like a rapid heartbeat. I personally had some issues with the English voice talent (specifically Yuri, who is made to sound like a petulant Valley Girl), and so many of you will want to check out the original Japanese track if only to hear the original intentions of the creators in terms of how they wanted these characters to sound. Both of the tracks are virtually identical in terms of fidelity and overall mix, though to my ears it sounds like the English dub has the dialogue mixed slightly higher. The balance between dialogue, effects and music is artfully handled over all of the episodes, and the music especially sounds great on both of the tracks.

Angel Beats!: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Clean Openings (HD; 19:57)
• Clean Closings (HD; 21:13)
• OVA: Stairway to Heaven (HD; 25:36). Though not officially labeled as an extra (it's accessible through the main episode menu on Disc Two of this two disc set), Stairway to Heaven is a "bonus episode" that really doesn't make much sense if it's thought of as a sequel. It's about Yuri's "Operation: High Tension," a plan to throw Angel off of her game and get the SSS to God's doorstep (if God in fact has a doorstep). It's OK as a filler episode, no great shakes, but enjoyable and a little goofy.

Angel Beats!: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Angel Beats is an odd little anime, certainly nothing too unusual in the often wild and wooly world of Eastern animation. Though it boasts an interesting premise, the show perhaps tries too hard to work in too many disparate ideas and styles to ever feel completely coherent or cohesive. The show boasts a creative, if not overly innovative, design, and many of the characters are extremely appealing. If the series cheats somewhat in terms of setting up a conflict that just sort of fizzles after a while, it also benefits from its unusual setting and especially from its interpolated musical elements. While Angel Beats may in fact not be entirely successful, it's intriguing enough that anime fans may want to check it out, albeit without having grand expectations or hoping for some kind of lost masterpiece. This is a show which never quite hits a home run, but which manages a solid double or triple, at least some of the time, and so comes Recommended.