Angel Beats!

Angel Beats! (エンジェルビーツ!)

 

                Angel Beats! takes place at a high school acting as a Purgatory, where students learn to give up any lingering attachments they still have from life before continuing to an afterlife or reincarnation. While the injury or cause of death are gone, those in the afterlife school can still feel pain or other things as they did when they were alive, as well as dying again, only to awaken with no injuries several minutes later. The story follows the main protagonist Otonashi, a boy who lost his memories of his life after dying. Upon awakening in the afterlife, he meets a girl named Yuri who invites him to join the Afterlife Battlefront (死んだ世界戦線, Shinda Sekai Sensen (SSS)), an organization she founded and leads which fights against God for the cruel fates the SSS members experienced in life. Their only enemy in the world is the school's student council president Angel, a being with supernatural powers who fights against the SSS. Yuri believes that anyone who follows Angel's orders and behaves like a normal student at the school will eventually disappear and pass on. However, those who fulfill their dreams in the afterlife will pass on as well.

In the SSS, there are two sub-divisions which help in the SSS's operations against Angel. The first is a four-girl band named Girls Dead Monster whose objective in the SSS is to cause a diversion from other activities the SSS is engaged in, while on the surface appearing to be a normal all female band. This includes distracting Angel and a large number of "normal" students and teachers at the school Yuri deems "non-player characters" as they are not human, but look and act the part. Another organization in the SSS is the Guild, located far below the surface of the afterlife world, which serves to supply the weapons the SSS uses against Angel. Anyone in the afterlife is able to create out of dirt anything that they had memories of in life, and the Guild uses this ability to mass produce weapons.

Angel uses a similar ability to create her supernatural powers known as "guard skills", with the aid of a computer program called Angel Player. The primary ability that she uses is called "hand sonic", a blade on one or both forearms that is capable of changing into five different forms. Other skills include but are not limited to: "distortion", an invisible barrier that deflects bullets or other projectiles away; "delay", which creates an after-image to disorientate an enemy in close range; and "harmonics", where a clone with a consciousness of its own is formed from the original. These abilities are activated at her will; however, her ability "overdrive", which gives her great physical strength, is passive and is always on.

The Guild is purposefully destroyed after Angel infiltrates the compound, but the Guild members relocate to the old Guild location, which Angel does not know about. As Otonashi begins to get used to life in the afterlife, the leader of Girls Dead Monster, Iwasawa, disappears in front of a crowd of people after a solo musical performance as she fulfilled her dream that she wanted in her real life. The SSS find out Angel's real name is Kanade Tachibana, and after a successful operation, Kanade loses her position as student council president and the vice president Naoi succeeds her. Unlike Kanade, Naoi cracks down on the SSS and even uses powers of hypnosis to control NPCs to fight for him. Otonashi is able to stop him after acknowledging Naoi's existence and Naoi subsequently joins the SSS. Otonashi regains his memories with the aid of Naoi's hypnosis and agrees to continue with the SSS.

With Kanade a normal student now, Otonashi befriends her and invites her to join in on SSS activities. Kanade uses one of her powers to clone herself while engaged in combat, resulting in a violent red-eyed Angel. The clone replicates itself many times, but the clones are later absorbed back into Kanade after Yuri rewrites the Angel Player program. Kanade manages to overcome the personalities of the violent clones after awakening from the ordeal. Otonashi starts cooperating with Kanade to help the other SSS members move on after he fully remembers the details of his life and death. Kanade is reinstated as student council president in accordance with their plan. Otonashi and Kanade cooperate to allow Yui to pass on by fulfilling her wishes, but it is Hinata in the end who fulfills her final wish to get married that allows her to pass on.

Mysterious shadow monsters appear and begin attacking the SSS. Takamatsu gets devoured by one, only to reappear as an NPC. Otonashi reasons with the other SSS members and many of them agree to pass on in lieu of becoming an NPC, including the rest of Girls Dead Monster, Chā, and several unnamed members. Yuri notices that the NPCs are turning into the shadows, and her investigation into who is behind this leads her back into the Guild. After receiving help from Otonashi, Kanade, Hinata and Naoi, Yuri meets a boy who tells her he was programmed to activate the shadow program when love was detected in the world. The programmer himself turned into an NPC long before. Yuri destroys the computers responsible for the shadow program. Three days after the incident, Otonashi, Yuri, Kanade, Hinata and Naoi are the only ones yet to pass on. They hold a graduation ceremony where they thank each other for their support. After Naoi, Yuri and Hinata pass on, Otonashi learns that Kanade's regret was not being able to thank him for the heart she received from Otonashi after his death. Otonashi is heartbroken after she thanks him and passes on, as he has fallen in love with her. In the epilogue, reborn Otonashi and Kanade pass each other on the street in the real world. Otonashi recognizes the Girls Dead Monster song she is humming and turns to run after her. The scene fades to white as his hand touches her shoulder. In an alternative epilogue, Otonashi is shown to have stayed behind in the afterlife helping people pass on.

Main characters

Yuzuru Otonashi (音無 結弦, Otonashi Yuzuru)

Voiced by: Hiroshi Kamiya (Japanese), Blake Shepard (English)

Otonashi is the main protagonist of Angel Beats!. Due to his past, he has a caring personality and does not want anyone to experience pain or sadness. After dying, he lost his memories of the time when he was still alive, but later regains them. He had a younger sister, Hatsune (初音, Voiced by: Mai Nakahara (Japanese), Jessica Boone (English)), who died of an illness and who he cared for very much. When she died, he decided to go to school to become a doctor, but died in a train accident before he could take the entrance exam to college. Initially unskilled in any equipment, he starts to practice his marksmanship, and pulls through for the team when they are in danger. He carries a Glock 17.

Yuri Nakamura (仲村 ゆり, Nakamura Yuri)

Voiced by: Harumi Sakurai (Japanese), Brittney Karbowski (English)

Yuri, also known as Yurippe (ゆりっぺ), has a determined personality and invites Otonashi to join the SSS, an organization she founded and leads which fights against God. She is smart and decisive when making operations and decisions. She carries a silver Beretta 92 but is seen using a TDI Vector, CheyTac Intervention, and Mk 18 Mod 0 CQBR with a drum magazine. Not only is she skilled with a gun, but she is also capable in close range hand-to-hand combat, which is shown when she fends off Angel's hand sonic with a combat knife. She vowed to fight against God after her three younger siblings were murdered by burglars looking for valuables when she was alive and never forgave herself for failing to prevent their deaths. She is an effective leader, but does not think so. She does not really notice that she actually cares a lot for the SSS members like another family. She regrets even fighting with Kanade later in the story, because she feels she could have been great friends with her. After coming to terms with Kanade, she often adores and fawns over her. She disappears after the graduation ceremony.

Angel (天使, Tenshi) / Kanade Tachibana (立華 かなで, Tachibana Kanade)

Voiced by: Kana Hanazawa (Japanese), Emily Neves (English)

Angel is the student council president at the afterlife school. This places her at odds with the SSS as her responsibilities require her to suppress delinquency and other disruptive activities that the team does. The SSS initially calls her "Angel" since they do not know her real name, but they still refer to her by it even after finding out her real name to be Kanade Tachibana. It is difficult to understand what she is thinking due to her rarely showing any outward emotions and her way of talking bluntly. Despite her gentle demeanor and small frame, she is incredibly powerful and near indestructible to the point of ejecting bullets out of her wounds during battle. She creates her powers through a program called Angel Player. She is personally dedicated to helping others overcome their regrets and pass on. However, she often lacks a proper understanding of others, as she never thinks to try to explain to the SSS why she was doing what she did. She has a taste for mapo doufu, a spicy dish.

 

SSS members

The characters of Angel Beats! (from left to right):

Irie, Sekine,Takamatsu, Matsushita, TK, Naoi, Otonashi, Yuri, Angel(Kanade), Noda, Hinata, Yui, Ōyama, Fujimaki, Iwasawa,Hisako, Takeyama, Shiina, and Yusa.

 

Hideki Hinata (日向 秀樹, Hinata Hideki)

Voiced by: Ryōhei Kimura (Japanese), David Matranga (English)

Hinata is a bright, dependable boy who is the closest to Otonashi. He always tries to save his friends if he can and is a reliable force in the team. He and Yui constantly irritate one another on a daily basis, but deep down, he cares for Yui, as shown when he helps her pass on by telling her he would marry her no matter what she looks like from before. He is a talented baseball player. His regret in life was his failure to catch a baseball, which cost his team an important baseball game. He nicknamed Yuri as Yurippe when they co-founded the SSS as he did not feel comfortable calling her Yuri, because his mother has the same name. He died by getting hit by a truck.

Takamatsu (高松)

Voiced by: Takahiro Mizushima (Japanese), Kalob Martinez, Illich Guardiola (English)

Takamatsu is an honor student who has a polite personality and wears glasses. He mainly contributes to the SSS through intelligence gathering and other affairs, but does not actively fight. Yuri herself says to not be fooled by his glasses and that he is actually an idiot. Though appearing to be slender, he works out and is actually well-built muscle-wise. After he first reveals this, he tends to take his shirt off, much to everyone's discomfort. He is absorbed by a shadow and is turned into an NPC. However, having strong enough feelings (according to Yuri), he is able to regain his senses and manages to disappear like the others.

Noda (野田)

Voiced by: Shun Takagi (Japanese), Leraldo Anzaldua (English)

Noda is a self-reliant boy who executes the strategies formed by the SSS and fights with a halberd. He does not listen to anyone other than Yuri, for whom he has adoration, and is antagonistic to almost everyone else. He has a one-sided rivalry with Otonashi. He is a complete idiot whose weakness is education; at one point, Takeyama is able to knock him out by reciting pi. He is not afraid to harm or kill anyone who gets in Yuri's way. Though he prefers to fight with his halberd, he sometimes uses guns out of necessity, the type of weaponry that he hates.

Shiina (椎名)

Voiced by: Fūko Saitō (Japanese), Melissa Davis (English)

Shiina is a female ninja who fights with dual-wielding kodachi and shuriken. She is able to sense when danger is coming and is a highly capable fighter. Despite her serious demeanor, she has a weakness for cute things like stuffed animals. She is strict in her training and is very self-critical when she fails, especially to a newcomer like Otonashi. She decides that her weakness is having little concentration. She is shown balancing a broom and other objects with her fingers for long amounts of time. She rarely speaks but will normally remark "how shallow-minded" ("this is so stupid" in the dub) whenever the obvious or something stupid is said.

Yusa (遊佐)

Fujimaki (藤巻)

Voiced by: Yūki Masuda (Japanese), Andrew Love (English)

Fujimaki is a delinquent who fights with a long shirasaya. He picks on new people like Otonashi but does not seem like a bad person himself. He cannot swim.

TK

Voiced by: Michael Rivas (Japanese), Adam Van Wagoner (English)

TK is a mysterious character who wears a large bandanna over his eyes and tends to break out in dance every so often. No one knows his real name or past. He speaks in semi-nonsensical English phrases depending on the situation, mainly quoted from pop culture, but apparently does not know English fluently. He saves the team many times and does know some Japanese but rarely speaks it, though he seems to understand what others say to him. He carries Browning Hi-Power and LAR Grizzly handguns or a PP-19 Bizon submachine gun during missions.

Matsushita (松下)

Ōyama (大山)

Takeyama (竹山)

Chā (チャー)

Ayato Naoi (直井 文人, Naoi Ayato)

Voiced by: Megumi Ogata (Japanese), Greg Ayres (English)

Naoi is a human originally thought to be a non-player character (non-human). After he died, Naoi developed hypnotic powers that allow him to control others and cause them to enter a dream-like state. In life, he was the son of a famous potter. However, it was his brother who had the talent in pottery and as a result, Naoi was ignored by everyone. When his brother died, he was made to replace him by his father and was given strict training in pottery. As a result, he felt as if his own life was fake and all he wanted was to be acknowledged for his own existence. He later befriends Otonashi after he acknowledges him and joins the SSS. As acting student council president for a time and self-proclaimed God, Naoi is strict and arrogant, but this is quick to disperse when Otonashi chastises him. He is affectionate to Otonashi, much to the latter's chagrin, and always tries to earn his affection.

Girls Dead Monster

Masami Iwasawa (岩沢 まさみ, Iwasawa Masami)

Hisako (ひさ子)

Miyuki Irie (入江 みゆき, Irie Miyuki)

Shiori Sekine (関根 しおり, Sekine Shiori)

Yui (ユイ)

Voiced by: Eri Kitamura (Japanese), Hilary Haag (English), LiSA (singing)

Yui is a big fan and initially an assistant to Girls Dead Monster. She is known to be hyperactive and talks extremely fast. Hinata finds Yui annoying, which results in bouts between the two of them though in truth, they truly care about one another, saying that had they met before they died, they would have fallen in love with each other. She wears a devil tail and shackle bracelets on her wrists, giving her an image of an imp or devil. She also has wings hidden by her hair on her back. After Iwasawa's departure, Yui becomes the new rhythm guitarist and vocalist of Girls Dead Monster, as well as its leader. Yui plays a Gibson SG Special electric guitar. She later becomes a part of the main SSS, following them along on missions, though she does not contribute much. In life, she was hit by a car and was paralyzed as a result from a young age. Her regret was being not able to do anything with her body. Otonashi helps fulfill most of her wishes that include many things she saw on TV when she was alive.

credits: http://en.wikipedia.org/Angel_Beats!