Angel Beats! | Poor ending?

So I know, that Angel Beats! is an Anime known by basically everyone who has watched Anime. Even if you haven’t watched it, you probably have heard about it from a friend who has watched the Anime.

If that’s the case, then they’ll tell you how beautiful the Anime was, how the each individual story gave you the feels and how it’s arguably one the best Drama Anime to grace the genre.

I am not here to take away from all that, I too loved the Anime. I really did. However not to the extent that most people do or did. Maybe it’s because my emotions have steadily grown cold due to the multitude of Drama Anime I’ve seen over the years – which could be true.

Getting to know each character and how they ended up where they did in the Anime was really nice and very sad. You get to know each of their tragic end to their lives as teenagers and the traumatic experiences they witnessed before their passing. HOWEVER, many people say that hearing/watching their stories gave them the feels or even cried, but to me, it just made me feel sad.

I’m not here to talk about the Anime as a whole, I’m here to talk about the ending. The ending, in my opinion, was lackluster and could have been a lot more ‘dramatic’. I felt as if the studio did not give Angel Beats! the proper ending an Anime this popular should deserve. This is why I think the Anime fell short on.

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As you all know, at the end of the Anime everyone starts to disappear because they were able to find their own resolves.

However, this was my problem with all that. Finding one’s resolve is always important, it is something I agree full-heartedly. But how it played out in this Anime was bland and abrupt. Here’s why.

As each character finds their resolve, they literally disappear – but not in the way you think. When they find their resolve each character literally just poofs, there are no effects that indicate that they have just left, just a cut scene between the characters before cutting back to where they person was supposed to be.

This was the case for all the characters and the two characters that highlighted the ending when Tachibana and Otonashi come to their emotional end. Otonashi finds out that Tachibana was able to live because when he did his heart when to prolong her life and so Tachibana’s resolve was to tell him ‘thank you’ – which she does so while hugging him. However, in comes another cut scene and then it quickly comes back to

However, in comes another cut scene and then it quickly comes back to Otonashi hugging air and stumbling forward because Tachibana had disappeared. As dramatic as this scene is, it lacked something.

If you’re familiar with the movie Hotarubi no Mori e, (you should go watch it) and you know how the ending plays out Gin when he finally shows his face and touches Takegawa, Gin slowly disappears in a beautiful effect.

I’ll post a video down below, it’s an AMV though so you may want to skip towards the end. But anyway, that was how I thought each character should have faded out in Angel Beats! especially when it came to Tachibana leaving Otonashi.

Bitter-sweet ending to Angel Beats as they get to meet again in the real world when they reincarnate… Well, it’s suggested anyway. This is why I thought Angel Beat!’s ending was a poor end to the Anime.

(Skip to 3:00 in the video and you’ll see what kind of ending I wanted to see).

 

 

– OOCentral