So whereas Episode 11 was shallow, plothole-ridden, and
boring, it was foreshadowed that Angel Beats’ twelfth episode (“Knockin’ on
Heaven’s Door”) would have something different.
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| And a new day will dawn, for those who stand long. |
And yeah, that’s all I have. These opening paragraphs I have
are getting shorter and shorter because Angel Beats is sending me further and
further into virtual numbness. I think it broke me in some way. When I call
Angel Beats a “short series”, I mean that literally, not figuratively.
Figuratively, this has been a long, nightmarish slog, where I’ve had to suffer
through some of the worst writing ever put to animation. And I want to point
out something that I believe is crucially important: I do not begrudge anyone for
liking Angel Beats. It’s one of the most popular Japanese-animated series out
there, and I can see where its appeal lies. It just isn’t my thing, for many,
many reasons, be it the horrid story or mono-dimensional characters or
poorly-established universe.
Luckily for me, Episode 12 fails in an entirely new way: it’s
balls-on-the-wall crazy, and it’s one of the series’ most entertaining twenty
minutes for all the wrong reasons, and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” left me
simultaneously empty and giddy. Don’t get me wrong – it’s fucking bad. The
story – if I can deign to call it that – feels like pieces of Neon Genesis
Evangelion and Earthbound put together in a blender, pissed on, and then cursed
at for several hours, then left in the sun to rot. It’s total trash that tries
to come off as “deep” and “complex” whereas, in actuality, it has the narrative
depth of a shallow pond.
So let’s explain the absolutely crazy narrative that goes on
in Episode 12. Naoi and Hinata have a fight in the opening scene because ha-ha,
pointless and repetitive character drama is so rich. Otonashi decides to pay a
visit to Girls Dead Monster, who have all decided to pass on. They say a
goodbye to Otonashi and vanish. So long, bland characters with zero development,
zero personality, and zero screen-time. You’ll be fucking missed. Oh, boy! It’s
gonna be a good one tonight, huh?!
The entirety of the Battlefront join together, all of them
spouting lines that I’m sure would have been badass and grand if I wasn’t busy
shooting heroin through my veins. Using the power of teamwork, they start to
beat up the shadows. Hey! That was easy! So much for the Shadows being threats!
So long as you have the super power of teamwork, you can conquer anything!
SONIC HEROES! There’s no scale or difficulty or tension in the Battlefront’s
fight against the Shadows, but it’s okay because it’s full of action and
excitement and dudes looking badass and muttering ominous, Bondian boasts while
also proclaiming the occasional philosophical musing or comedic one-liner to
keep the audience hooked. How forward-thinking Episode 12 is!
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| "Nobody cares about us, but we're still relevant!" |
Meanwhile, we cut back to Yuri’s heroic, self-sacrificing
mission to go do God knows what, which has taken her venturing into the depths
of the Guild because I don’t know! She also meets Char and he passes on. So
long, random guy with zero development, zero personality, and zero screen-time!
You’ll be missed! Yuri then takes a moment to reflect on her actions, but then
she’s absorbed by shadows! Oh no! What will happen to poor old Yuri?
It turns out that she became assimilated by shadows and woke
up as an NPC! She’s soulless, but not entirely soulless, because she apparently
has enough self-awareness and passion to stand up in the middle of the class
and blurt out a speech about her life! Hm, where have I seen this before? A
main protagonist becomes assimilated into a decisively grounded, happy world
where everyone is living out their lives as average high school, where everyone
is basically one? Oh, yeah! Neon Genesis Evangelion. What a clever (ripoff)
reference! Clearly, I’ve underestimated Angel Beats’ pseudo-intellectual
pretensions; this series isn’t above outright stealing shit from other shows!
Yuri wakes up and finds out that she hasn’t become an NPC,
that the shadows somehow existed her body because of the power of her heart!
She has a heartwarming reunion with Otonashi, Hinata, Kanade, and Naoi (HINT:
THEY’RE THE ONLY IMPORTANT CHARACTERS LEFT, IN CASE YOU DIDN’T PICK UP ON IT
YET), and then sets off to do her previous heroic, self-sacrificing mission,
aided by the backup of her greatest friends, confidants, and allies, because
the power of teamwork makes everything better! They have an absolutely
electrifying fight scene against the Shadows, and Yuri discovers a sign called “Second
Computer Room”, and she’s confronted by an NPC called the AI, who apparently
has been running a lot of the AngelPlayer interfaces, which have the power to
warp reality itself—
AUGH, FUCK THIS FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT.
If everything else about the episode hasn’t sent you spiraling
into pure misery, “reality-altering computer software” ought to do the trick.
It’s my most favorite of all the “bad episodes” because of how deranged it is,
but nothing excuses how genuinely ghastly the script is. There’s plot holes and
contrivances and strange questions everywhere. How did nobody ever find out
there was a Second Computer Room in the Guild, despite there being a very
definite sign and guiding markers toward it? How long was Yuri inside the alternate-reality
shadow world, and how the fuck did she manage to escape with her soul using the
power of her heart? It was never implied this was possible beforehand, so why
is it possible now? Magic? Fuck, man, I would have preferred “Otonashi and the
gang fight robot ninjas” over this. And the entirety of the scene between Yuri
and the AI who has taken control of AngelPlayer is just pure dicking around. If
AngelPlayer has the ability to alter reality and give people powers, why has
nobody other than Kanade used it? It seems like all you need is sufficient time
and coding prowess, which someone like that Hacker kid was experienced in. But,
no, that would have been too
interesting for something as down-to-earth as Angel Beats.
Episode 12 is straight-up horrendous. The story is trite,
the characters are annoying, the action is lifeless and the dialogue is
especially horrible. “That's why I'll fight. I will continue to fight!” goes
Yuri. “Blargh,” goes the blood coming out of my ears, “pshhh” goes the smoke
roaring out of my brain. No, it’s not even a bad episode, it’s a bad everything.
It’s rushed, chintzy, unintentionally confusing, poorly-written, and so
divorced from anything before it that it barely seems to be a continuation of
the same world at all, more like a terrible fanfiction writer’s wettest dream.
But it’s entertaining trash. I was hooked from start to finish because of how
utterly bizarre and trashy the entertainment at hand was, and its failure to
make sense is a disarming yet charming seasoning. Maybe there’s actually
something really good inside of Angel Beats, just out of sight.
Or maybe this fucking terrible show broke me at last.
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| It makes just as much sense in context. |
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