Charlotte
a review by TheGruesomeGoblin
a review by TheGruesomeGoblin
Today, we're starting a new experiment with Subject T-33. For whatever reason, the Head Researcher of the Theoretical Generalizing Goblins group has started favoring Subject T-33 almost entirely. I'm somewhat fearful of the psychological strain that he might be accumulating by undergoing so many experiments at such a quick pace...
The last thing we want is for him to bre--wait, what's that noise? Is that the emergenc--
"WHY DOES NOTHING MAKE SENSE?!? WHY. WHERE'S MY PIZZA SAUCE??? WHERE IS IT JUN MAEDA? WHERE IS IT? THE LIZARD PEOPLE ARE TAKING OVER ANIME, AND JUN MAEDA IS THEIR LEADER!"
Sounds of violence very quickly begin to ensue throughout the research facility, as the research subject begins his escape attempt while solely bashing his head into various objects and those who attempt to approach him.
It has begun. The comet has fallen to Earth.
THIS REVIEW THING IS GOING TO BE FULL SPOILERS BECAUSE I'M BREAKING THIS THING DOWN ENTIRELY. MY SCORE FOR IT IS A 5 OUT OF 100, AND I WOULD ABSOLUTELY RECOMMEND IT IF YOU WANT TO WATCH A... I WOULD GO AS FAR AND CALL CHARLOTTE AN ESSENTIAL "BAD SHOW." BUT A DISCLAIMER: YOU MAY POSSIBLY BE CAPABLE OF GENUINELY ENJOYING IT IF YOU DON'T THINK ABOUT ANYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN THE ENTIRE SHOW. EVEN AS NEGATIVE AS I OFTEN AM, I ADMITTEDLY CAN IN FACT SEE A GENUINELY ENJOYABLE SHOW IN THIS.
SOMEWHERE.
#SPOILERS HERE ON OUT.#
#C-4: Introduction#
Charlotte is anime from 2015 and the studio behind it is PA Works. But the man (the Junji Nishimura to this Glasslip, if you will) at the heart of Charlotte is none other than Jun Maeda. Jun Maeda is a co-founder of Key and the original creator of Angel Beats!. Angel Beats! apparently is/was super and massively popular.
I personally have not watched it, though.
It's probably safe to assume that if it hadn't been massively popular, then obviously, Jun Maeda wouldn't have been able to get Charlotte made. Because apparently Jun Maeda had the idea for Charlotte somewhere deep within the dark recesses of his reptilian mind even before Angel Beats! happened.
Did he have the entire story in his head at that point? Did he change his mind on stuff? Or was it just a bunch of nonsense that he was throwing at the wall and seeing what stuck? Even now, I honestly just don't know. Writing this review is partially an attempt in figuring it out. Because... like alright, let me start with trying to just accurately describe what this show even is.
Charlotte is a comedy/drama series about teenagers developing strange and mysterious superhuman abilities and all the woe that comes from just having these abilities or foolishly abusing them. But the thing with Charlotte is that over the span of its thirteen episodes, there are numerous different shows that happen that could be pulled from Charlotte and expanded into an entire series themselves. Several of which simply just do not work at all.
Show #1: Protagonist is antagonist, and is abusing his power to become king of the school.
Show #2: Slice of life with the school council going on about their business while occasionally dealing with other ability users.
Show #3: Comedy. Just... the comedy is almost found throughout the entire thing.
Show #4: Ro...romance. Because... there is a male protagonist and a female protagonist... and... romance!
Show #5: I mean since the entire thing is superhuman abilities, of course action would be throughout the entire show but, it gets fucking ridiculous towards the end.
Show #6: Tragedy. I'm sad, so I'm gonna go off and just beat the shit out of thugs and fuck around because I'm depressed because something very bad happened.
Show #7:
...Now maybe you see the dilemma. This is not just one show review. This is ten show reviews. Because I'm going to go through every single one of these and everything that is wrong with them. However, there actually is one or two of these ten different shows, that I really really enjoyed and wish were larger parts of the show. Some of the other stuff in the other ones could have worked and been cool, but they were either done very quickly or very weirdly.
Let's start, with the beginning.
#Charlotte Review #1: The Unlikable Protagonist#
The first show of Charlotte is centered around our main male protagonist, Yuu Otosaka. He's our protagonist, but in the very first episode, he is doing things that a protagonist shouldn't be doing! He possesses the ability to take over other people, literally anybody he wants to take over and can see in his sight of vision, he can just take them over for five seconds.
He has no idea why he has this ability, and to his knowledge, he's the only person in the world with an ability such as this. Since he can basically become anybody he wants and he has no reason to believe there'll be any consequences as a result of his selfish actions, he starts rampantly abusing this power. He cheats at tests, he makes himself the most popular student of his school, and he gets the most popular girl to fall in love with him after saving her after using his ability to put her in a life or death situation.
So like right away, the main character is a purposely unlikable sack of shit. And even when the other characters this show is centered around show up who also possess abilities appear to stop the shenanigans Yuu is getting into for his own good... he doesn't really ever satisfyingly redeem himself? He immediately goes from completely unlikable but interesting to completely and utterly generic in the transition from episode one to episode two.
Like right after his shenanigans are put an end to, he goes home and it's revealed that he has a loving little sister. You know what I wouldn't have thought Yuu was given what we're shown of him and his personality up to this point? A good big brother. No, part of the purpose of why his sister even exists is because the show itself has already established Yuu as unlikable, but he's still the protagonist of the series.
So what's the quickest way to help ease that transition? Throw in the little sister character.
But you know, this episode is basically entirely worthless. Because the next episodes aren't even really about Yuu redeeming himself... really, basically the only purpose episode 1 has is that the main female character repeatedly says to Yuu later on:
"Well, you've come a long way since being a scumbag who cheats on tests."
But then there's an episode later on where Yuu does a whole fuckload of shit way, way, WAY WORSE THAN ANYTHING HE DID IN EPISODE ONE.
Over the course of the entire show, he goes from unlikable, to still kind of unlikable but he's supposed to be trying to become better, to completely fucking insane, back to kind of unlikable, and then literally insane. And the most fucked up thing is that the only times I liked his character at all throughout all thirteen episodes was when he was absolutely fucked up and purposely unlikable.
The show's trying to get you to want to root for Yuu trying to redeem himself, but I was genuinely upset when the show itself finally had enough of Yuu's behavior, and had the main heroine step in to stop Yuu from SNORTING COCAINE.
I was honestly way more interested where the show was gonna go if Yuu had crossed that line than the main heroine forcibly dragging the show back onto the rails where it belongs.
#Charlotte Review #2: The Filler Episodes#
So the student council of this school that shelters ability students show up and put a stop to Yuu's shit, and our main heroine, Nao Tomori, basically more or less forces Yuu to join the student council and help out with finding new ability users and reining them in, basically what the student council did with Yuu himself in episode 1.
This entire section of the show is almost completely worthless, and was probably the toughest section of Charlotte for me to slog through. To be fair there are various things established and there is actually at least sort of a purpose for these episodes that comes back later but...
It's just a whole lot of nothing. Like there's even an episode where basically to get an ability user to come out of hiding, they were forced to go camping at a specific spot for an extended period of time and... I immediately was transported back into the world of Glasslip. I'm watching all of these characters I really just do not like at all on a camping trip. Why am I watching this? Why is this still going on?
Thinking about it now actually, there was a part in one of these episodes where like a bunch of the other female students of the school show up and take Nao away, and then literally beat her up outside, and then that's never brought up or elaborated on ever again.
So you're just left thinking, well, what was the point of that? Nao is actually viciously assaulted or just punched directly in the face three times through the entire series, and almost every single time it happened, I sort of laughed. The first one especially because it came so out of nowhere.
Like why would you stop and wait until you could suckerpunch one out of the three people chasing you? There's still two other people chasing you.
And then when you get to a certain episode about halfway through the show, the show just rubs the fact that there was almost no point to the preceding episodes, and that the rest of the show was going to go into a completely and drastically different direction now on the drop of a fucking dime.
It's fucking absurd that the sole thing that fucking actually heralds this moment of complete change for this series is that the sister's jar of pizza sauce is almost empty. Which... brings me... to the next Charlotte Review.
#Charlotte Review #3: Unfunny Inappropriate Comedy#
Stop with the comedy. STOP IT.
I could probably count the times where I actually thought it was funny on one hand. But even if all of the jokes and the comedy parts actually landed 100% of the time, this show would still be the tonal disaster it ends up being. You can't mix drama and comedy. It's oil and water. They do not go together. Especially if you're constantly switching from one to the other. Am I supposed to be seriously invested in this scene? Or am I supposed to be laughing because it's just gonna immediately swerve right back into comedy?
I think the ultimate moment with the comedy stuff that I think actually kind of worked but it is actually kind of blatant, was when Yuu has isolated himself at home because he's depressed and in mourning, but then here comes the student council members knocking on his door. "Let us in! We're doing whacky comedy things! We wish to cheer you up because we're the happy comedy part of this show!"
And Yuu's just like...
"Dude. My sister JUST fucking died. Let me eat ramen in peace, you sacks of shit."
That's of course not a verbatim quote, because if he actually told them that, I would rate this show a lot higher than I am. But no seriously, this show is a fucking tonal disaster from the very first episode.
Actually, I guess the best and greatest joke of the entirety of Charlotte is of course the final appearance of the pizza sauce. But we're not there yet. We have to work up to the pizza sauce. Because while it's laughable and hilarious (in a bad way) in the early episodes, the ultimate purpose of the pizza sauce actually sent me into a wheezing and uncontrollable fit of laughter.
...The more I think about it, Charlotte's the best comedy series of all of anime! It's just that all of the actually funny stuff comes from when the show's trying to be serious.
#Charlotte Review #4: Shoehorning Romance Into It#
Another laughable aspect of Charlotte. Okay, so, you watch the opening of Charlotte and there is a part in the opening where like both Nao and Yuu are falling through the sky, and they're like moving towards each other midfall in an attempt to catch each other.
And the moment you see that in the opening, you go oh. So they're gonna end up together. The show fucking does that thing where both Nao and Yuu say they supposedly dislike each other and they don't get along, but they really do get along, and the other characters mention wow you guys get along, are you dating???
Look, I will fully admit I am not the biggest fan of the romance genre. There is probably like a handful of romance series that I can even remember, let alone say I actually enjoyed. But despite my cold dead heart, I am actually not against romance in things. It can be pretty good. It can also be pretty bad. It can also feel completely shoehorned in there and completely worthless, useless, and undeserved.
Like why do Nao and Yuu get together in the end? The correct answer is they are the main male and female characters, and the show needs them to be together in the end. Like I guess you could argue she fell in love with Yuu after he did the self-sacrifice thing, but that was entirely her idea she floated out to him with no intention of him actually going off and doing it, but then he does... and before he does, he RANDOMLY confesses that he loves her.
Then she basically laughs at him and goes:
"Um. Do you remember the entirety of any of the last episodes? We don't get along together!"
I mean Yuu does at one point sort of cures Nao's brother of his insanity, and at one point Nao helps Yuu drag himself out of a descending spiral into depression and insanity, but both of those events due to some circumstances which I will soon get into, ARE ESSENTIALLY RETCONNED FROM THE SHOW.
Yuu retains memories of Nao helping him out, but I don't think he actually bothers to help Nao's brother again after the retcon. As a matter of fact, that whole plotline happens directly as a result of a series of events that happens after Yuu's spiral into depression, and after the retcon, the show gives no reason to believe that Yuu made any of what happened before happen again.
All as a result of Jun Maeda being a hack or him just not feeling like covering that detail. Because it's not like Yuu's later self-sacrifice thing would help out Nao's brother in any way. It's what he does before the retcon that helps curse his insanity and--oh fuck everything.
EDITING TGG: Actually, in the credits of the very final episode, Nao's brother is shown smiling contently in his hospital bed with an autograph of the band's singer in his arms, so apparently he actually was cured of his insanity but... the series of events that leads up to when he's cured of his insanity is still retconned, so I don't know if this is just a plot hole or Jun Maeda was just considering that to still be canon even after he retcons it in a later episode. Additionally, I don't care enough to fucking tear my hair out to try and figure the finer details of this disaster out.
_Also, I'm sorry, perhaps I haven't delved far enough into the romance sphere to be an authority on the subject, but it's probably safe to say that you completely failed at creating an effective and well made romance when the "confession scene" is just then the characters discussing why it totally makes sense and is totally deserved for them to be in romance with each other._
Yuu: "I love you because another version of you stopped me from doing cocaine in another timeline which I entirely abandoned."
Nao: "Um, yeah. I'll reciprocate on your feelings if you travel the entire globe before you reach adulthood and take in all of these mind destroying superhuman abilities and SUCCESSFULLY return intact and alive."
Did Nao even ~~want~~ expect him to come back???
#Charlotte Review #5: Protagonist Fails to Be the Action Hero#
There's a part towards the end of the show where like the other characters have no other choice but to rely on Yuu and basically they send him to deal with a bunch of random foreigners who have taken several of the ability users hostage. This is after when the truth about Yuu's ability is revealed. Whenever Yuu takes over an ability user, he in fact takes their ability from them and gains it for himself. Additionally, Yuu has gained the power of retconning at this point.
So the other characters are like... well shit, man. Yuu's the most powerful ability user on the entire planet! What could possibly go wrong!
Apparently everything. There is an episode before this where Yuu fucking snaps and becomes a wonderfully violent psychopath who is just brutally beating the shit out of people while also taking other people over, but despite the fact while Yuu still has clear memories of that, he is just completely fucking helpless when the show actually needs him to be an action hero the most.
He tries to take over the random foreigners, but neither of them have weapons. So then he uses telikinesis to like throw shit at them, but then a random ability user girl just jumps out from nowhere and slashes at one of Yuu's eyes. Apparently the retcon power requires both eyes to use.
Oh... how convenient, because if he just possessed the retcon powers, then he could just essentially erase all of these events and prevent everything from going horribly wrong. It'd be sort of hard to have any possible dramatic tension on the table after introducing a convenient retcon ability into the mix, so just make that character unable to use it anymore.
Also, when he was rolling around on the floor screaming in pain after the small girl cut his eye, I was just thinking to myself that now he knows what all those random thugs he brutally fucked up before felt. Violence isn't quite as fun when you're on the receiving end, is it, you complete jackass???
But no like, Yuu is unable to shake this small girl off of his back and for some reason does not take her over, THE ONLY ONE THERE WHO IS ARMED WITH A WEAPON AND IN FACT AN ABILITY USER. So basically, Yuu got fucked up, is entirely powerless, and his retcon ability has been removed.
What does he do then? He gets really worked up, and that triggers one of the ability's he's obtained at this point, and that ability is basically causing the entire area around him to explode and fall apart, potentially killing everyone including himself.
Also, the foreigners somehow knew that he wouldn't be able to use the time travel ability if he lost an eye and was aware of the "IMMEDIATE DEATH" ability Yuu possesses and will trigger if he's worked up enough... and their plan was just to have small girl stab and cut at him, which is what causes him to freak the fuck out and trigger the collapse ability.
Not to mention he actually almost straight up triggered the ability before this when his brother was just simply telling him the plan back at their facility. He could have killed his sister (again), his brother, and all of his friends right there and then. Good job, Yuu. You really are a worthwhile and GREAT AND USEFUL PROTAGONIST. He's just completely worthless whenever he ISN'T insane.
But then the show cuts to the other characters who sent Yuu into this situation in the first place, and they had told Yuu that they would be right behind him and backing him up just in case things went wrong. However, there is a HUGE distance between where they're at and where the ongoing scene's happening and they're like...
"Oh shit, Yuu's making everything explode! WHY ISN'T HE USING THE CONVENIENT RETCON ABILITY THAT WOULD EVENTUALLY MAKE HIM GO COMPLETELY BLIND IF HE KEPT RELYING ON IT?"
And then in another fucking unintended hilarious moment, they fucking comically run to the scene. But they're so far away, as if they didn't anticipate this at all. Why wouldn't they assume the foreigners would at least have an idea of how to disable the retcon ability if they made it clear to them that they were in fact even aware of it in the first place? And I'm not even going into the foreigners' safeguard against the retcon ability and everything that's wrong with it because my head would explode.
This random guy that the viewers didn't even previously know? We will kill his family if you travel into the past. But when you travel into the past you're essentially abandoning this entire timeline so who even cares about this version of this guy's family???
No, fuck that. We're moving onto my favorite show out of all of Charlotte.
#Charlotte Review #6: Protagonist Snaps and Becomes a Violent Lunatic#
Okay so like halfway through the show, the sister says she's feeling sick and the pizza sauce jar is almost empty, so a completely random and out of nowhere series of events happen and it turns out the Yuu's important sister who is an actual character you should care about, possesses an ability of her own. The ability is to make the entire area around her explode and fall apart (WOW WHAT A USEFUL AND CONVENIENT ABILITY), and it causes her death when a completely random yandere shows up with a box cutter and wants to cut her and see some pizza sauce.
The sister dies and Yuu proceeds to completely rescind into his own asshole. You thought he was unlikable in episode 1? His reaction to his sister dying is basically just saying fuck the entire world, I'm just gonna eat a bunch of ramen our uncle (that never appears or is ever mentioned again) sent us in the very first episode and watch TV.
But when apparently the secret society of scientists who hunt and capture ability users come knocking (now that I think about it, it was most likely just people from the school since that's just what Yuu himself says), Yuu's like fuck it and decides to leave, but before he does, he takes over one of the guys there to capture him and force him to leap off the ledge of the building.
We hear the impact of the fall, we hear his pained screams, if he survived that fall, his legs are most likely broken, and the entire rest of his life has permanently been changed. And there were two other people there. With what we've been shown of Yuu's ability, he could have just taken one of them over and had the other one knock the other two out and then have the one he was controlling knock himself out. Actually, he leaves the third one perfectly fine.
There was absolutely no reason for Yuu to force him to jump off and have his legs get broken unless Yuu had completely stopped giving a fuck. And sure enough, I was completely unaware that they were just getting started.
Yuu just wanders around aimlessly eating pizza and other snacks and he like starts to frequent an arcade with a zombie shooting game and he's just screaming DIE! DIE! as he's playing this game and he just sounds and looks like a fucking complete psychopath, and then when thugs are playing the zombie shooting game and won't let him play, he just fucking provokes the thugs and then fucks them up.
The protagonist Charlotte needs, but doesn't deserve: Insane Yuu.
Then from there on out, it's just a fucking descent into horrific violence and Yuu stabs a guy twice in the same leg, and at one point, he's about to stab a thing through a guy's eye permanently blinding him. And I was just... I didn't know how we got here from Yusarin's magical spells, but for once in the entire show, I was fully on board for Jun Maeda's wild ride.
On the top: Charlotte. On the bottom: Also Charlotte.
No other series has actually had me rooting for the protagonist to start snorting cocaine. But then Nao just appears and kicks it out of Yuu's hand
~~oh by the way, Nao's ability is she can turn invisible~~
and reveals that she had been there the entire time. Wait, the ENTIRE time?
So all of that horrific violence and bloodlust Yuu was reveling in, Nao had no problem with that, but oh no... if Yuu snorts a bit of cocaine, he's gonna stop being a human entirely.
...HE STABBED SOMEONE IN THE LEG TWICE AND WAS LAUGHING ABOUT IT. Is this Jun Maeda's personal reptilian morals? Horrific violence is okay, but drugs? They're no good!
Jun Maeda was probably on cocaine when he wrote this fucking series' script jesus christ
...Wait, oh my GOD. I was gonna actually move onto the next section without actually addressing the pizza sauce! Okay so, the way that Nao sparks a renewed will to live in Yuu is...
The pizza sauce.
The fucking meme pizza sauce that is brought up time and time again throughout the earlier episodes, actually has a serious plot purpose. YUU IS AT HIS LOWEST POINT, BUT HE IS THEN BROUGHT BACK BY THE PIZZA SAUCE AND...
This is why I'm just so set on the Jun Maeda being a reptile theory. Yuu just eats a pizza sauce omelet, cries a little bit, and he's back to normal. Dead sister aside, stabbing and breaking people's legs aside, Yuu is back to normal and we're just gonna pretend that 90% of this episode never even happened and then it'll just be retconned because go fuck yourself.
You know, as much as it set me off when I originally watched it, I wouldn't even be against the pizza sauce omelet being the trigger for Yuu's redemption... if it was just set up better.
Like the pizza sauce is just this weird dumb and recurring joke. Why did you put pizza sauce in this when it obviously doesn't belong? Why can't you just cook normal food? Why couldn't it have just been a more normal ingredient that only the sister put in stuff, rather than this comical pizza sauce that I just... I just absolutely cannot take seriously.
To conclude on episode seven, this actually contains almost the sole instance throughout the entire show where I could actually sympathize with Yuu. It very much feels like his sister JUST died and these characters are coming in when he's just trying to mourn and hassling him. Not so much the other student council people, but his "girlfriend" from episode one that randomly comes back for some reason (?) and then proceeds to call him mentally ill??? Which I guess is probably kind of true but like why you would straight up tell a person in mourning that they're mentally ill to their face and...
But then of course Yuu's "mourning" just transitions into horrific violence and while I was still on board, I was on board for probably the wrong reasons at that point.
#Charlotte Review #7: TIME TRAVEL#
So if you looked at the spoiler tag for this one at the start of the review, you already knew ~~or I guess could have just assumed~~, but the "retcon ability" Yuu obtains is essentially TIME TRAVEL.
...The time travel stuff just comes so completely out of nowhere that it's why I recommended just going off and watching Charlotte for yourself. There was no fucking reason for this show to have time travel, and yes, I know it's sort of kind of set up from the very beginning. Jun Maeda is a fucking hack. The only thing the time travel contributes to anything is that Yuu saves the sister and essentially retcons THE MOST INTERESTING AND ENTERTAINING PART OF THE ENTIRE SHOW (see previous section).
But like the twist is actually genuinely effective and certainly I didn't fucking expect that this show would head in this direction. And like that entire flashback portion of that episode with Yuu and his sister and forgotten older brother being captives... like if that had actually been the show...
...
...Why wasn't that the actual show? No, why wasn't that the actual fucking show? The science facility and the ability users secretly plotting and trying to form a resistance...
But it's basically just fodder to lead into... this series also has time travel and the Yuu in this flashback is actually a different Yuu but actual Yuu for some reason gains the memory of this other timeline's Yuu after going to a concert and hearing a band's brand new song which he had previously heard in the other timeline.
...There was no fucking reason this series also had to have time travel beyond Jun Maeda being a hack and also why not. This is basically solidified when again, the small girl slashes at Yuu's eye therefore disabling the time travel ability he took from his older brother. Then later on, he gets the ability to heal and he briefly considers healing his now blind eye and going back in the past to save Winnie the Pooh from dying which is entirely his fault and he can probably do now since I guess apparently he takes the abilities he's stolen with him to the past somehow, but then he decides not to.
...You know, Yuu saving his sister... that's basically the same exact situation, except he's personally responsible for Pooh's death because Yuu is a horrible failure. So he's basically saying he shouldn't have saved his sister either, and that his brother shouldn't have did any time traveling to save the ability users.
Or Yuu is just saying this because at this point, it's the final episode, and Jun Maeda is completely out of time. Pooh has to be forgotten. We can't go back for Pooh!
...Did I even mention one of the character's nicknames is POOH? AS IN WINNIE THE POOH? AS IN WINNIE THE FUCKING POOH? See, his last name is Kumagami, and "Kuma" means bear, and Winnie the Pooh is a bear. So Yuu's big brother calls him Pooh.
...I was so waiting for him to scream out "POOH!" when they came to him after he was brutally impaled as a result of how much of a failure Yuu is. I would have probably literally died with laughter. But of course, he didn't.
Also, it's supposed to be just another one of the comedy bits, but I couldn't even remember Pooh's actual real name without looking it up.
...I can't provide a better example of Charlotte being a tonal nightmare beyond the character who is nicknamed after Winnie the Pooh getting goddamned impaled. And out of the two deaths throughout the entire show, it's the only one that matters because it's purposely not undone via time travel. Also this is by far probably the ~~visually~~ goriest moment out of all of Charlotte and there was absolutely no reason for it beyond attempting to emotionally suckerpunch you with this character you probably don't even care too much about's death. I mean, they didn't even bother to show the little sister's death back when she died! Why Pooh? Why did we have to see Pooh impaled?
To be honest, I actually liked Pooh a lot more when he was just some weird guy we couldn't see's face that for some reason is dripping every single time he comes into the student council. But then the show explains why he was dripping all of those times and it was just... him throwing a glass of water into his face to hide his identity from people who... have never met him? What? Why. So his ability is completely irrelevant to the dripping...
Couldn't he have just told them where the ability users were vocally while not having to soak himself every single time he shows up? There had to have been another and easier way to hide his face--oh just... it doesn't matter.
#Charlotte Review #8: Who IS Charlotte?#
It's fucking bizzare to me that Jun Maeda actually included an explanation for the origin of the superhuman abilities. I was fully prepared to get Glasslip'd again but thinking about it, I'm not sure if actually including an explanation is actually better or not.
Because first of all, it basically comes out of nowhere almost at the very end of the show, but to Jun Maeda's credit, he sort of actually sets it up early on?
But then like episode 11 is just outright named Charlotte and there's not a character named Charlotte throughout the entirety of Charlotte. Then a scientist man just straight up starts exposition'ing to Yuu and his REVIVED VIA TIME TRAVEL little sister about the comet named Charlotte.
Basically Charlotte is a comet that passes over Earth at the earliest every seventy five years or so and it leaves particles, and people who are exposed to the particles, eventually develop superhuman abilities. Completely random abilities that can literally be anything you can think of. Telikinesis, time travel, freezing powers, fire power, healing, invisibility, being able to take other people's powers and possess people, and being able to sense other people who also have abilities, and so much more.
The show even goes as far to basically state Charlotte the comet was in fact the cause of witch trials in Europe, and the pro-ability user scientists have developed a vaccine to prevent the development of superhuman abilities for those who don't already possess them and...
Everything about this is just so fucking wrong, and the show is basically trying to barrel through all of this information as quickly as possible before the viewer tries to connect the various dots they've presented to us only to fail horribly. Because like right after this random exposition dump about Charlotte, it just goes right into them playing mahjong but my head was still back in the comet stuff.
Like... they've developed a vaccine for... particles of a comet, that passes over Earth... only once every seventy five years. How exactly did they develop this vaccine? ~~I mean they do actually have a fragment from probably the comet itself in their possession but.~~ How exactly do they intend on vaccinating the people of the world with this anti-comet vaccine? How are they even sure it'll fucking work? How are they going to proceed with these global vaccinations when I thought there's a group of scientists hunting for the ability users and wouldn't they directly be opposed to the idea of preventing future ability users from being created?
If it was just the comet, you could just let it pass. I'm not going to be an asshole and go "well how the fuck does the particles of a comet give people abilities anywhere from telikinesis to goddamned time travel?" because really, it doesn't matter how. Magic! Whatever!
But the moment the idea of a vaccine is introduced, it becomes different. Because you assume the vaccine is going to be an important plot device that matters. Ultimately how they get the powers in the first place... it would have been passable if it was just magical comet particles.
However, then Yuu himself asks his older brother a question along the lines of "can't they create a vaccine to remove already developed existing abilities?" and his older brother just fires back that it takes time to create a new vaccine and they can't because they just finished this one. But how are you even sure this one works? There's no way of testing or finding out because assumingly, Charlotte has already passed and it supposedly takes centuries to make it back again.
If they had instead started with a vaccine to remove already existing abilities, they could at least test it and have a very easy way to know if it works or not. "Can you still breathe fire? No? Then we've completed the vaccine."
...Usually, I'm on the side of "well, you SHOULD explain this thing" but Jun Maeda should have just left it at "magical comet" and moved on. Because right after all this exposition about Charlotte and the vaccine, the show moves right into the action section of the show, and thus we don't get any further answers.
But that leaves us with the question of... well, the vaccine should stop any future magical comet particles, but what happens with the current ability users that have already gotten their abilities?
#Charlotte Review #9: Traveling the Entire Globe in a Single Episode#
Let's talk about the final episode now, which... again... could have been an entire and much better series on its own. Actually, this is without a doubt the most blatant one. Yuu travels the entire fucking globe in a single episode and we're shown his adventures throughout numerous countries until the show says "oh shit we're running out of time, WE JUST HAVE TO START CHECKING OFF COUNTRIES NOW."
Jun Maeda has essentially written himself into a fucking corner because he's a complete hack fraud. The action section where Yuu attempts to save his friends is over, but it's left basically everyone either completely fucked up or depressed because Winnie the Pooh is fucking dead, and like nothing is resolved at all.
So here comes main girl Nao and she just casually floats the idea of Yuu travelling the entire world and stealing every single ability of every single ability user that is living on the entire planet Earth. She basically says it's probably a terrible idea because if Yuu consumes all of the abilities, he'll probably basically entirely lose it and go completely fucking insane.
"Protagonist, you have to do this thing that may end up leading you to genociding the entire world."
But then Yuu basically fucking says you know what, I'll fucking do it why not also ~~I LOVE YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE A FEMALE AND I AM A MALE~~ Yuu in fact takes the time to confess to Nao because he has developed a deep and true love for her, and Nao's all like ~~REMEMBER THAT TIME WHEN I JUST WATCHED AS YOU BEAT PEOPLE'S FACES IN AND STABBED THEM IN THE LEG IN THE OTHER TIMELINE~~ I'll accept your confession of love if you manage to make it back after having absorbed all of the abilities of everyone on the entire planet before you lose your ability when your adolescence ends (that's when the abilities naturally go away).
...You know, this episode is actually the perfect note for Charlotte to go out on. By this point, actually, FAR BEFORE this point, I was just fucking shell shocked and in disbelief that this show could go any further than it already had. But no yeah. They also had to do the self-sacrifice thing.
Only one episode left but Yuu is gonna go on this journey around the world and consume every single ability and... like assuming... there is like seven billion total people living on planet Earth. How many ability users were created by the last time the Charlotte comet passed by? A couple of million? A couple of hundred thousand? Nao herself in the final episode says it was at least "tens of thousands" of them. He apparently has to at least go to literally every single fucking country and I don't care if he picked up on every single ability that would make this journey more and more convenient... it would take a massive amount of time to pull off this endeavor.
Oh, I picked up an ability that allows me to not have to sleep anymore. Oh, I picked up an ability that allows me to speak in literally any fucking language I want. Oh, I picked up an ability where I can tell where ability users are just by looking at a paper map. Oh, I picked up an ability to see where people who have been exposed to the Charlotte comet and will in the future develop abilities, and also an ability to force them to develop their abilities immediately, so I can consume them and not have to return to this country in however many years.
Basically, once more, Yuu is fucking sliding into his "unlikable" or "insane" personality, and like if he goes to sleep, he just wanders off in his sleep and starts fucking shit up. But the show doesn't have time to develop or expend any time on any of this. The show is just rushing itself as fast as it possibly can to get Yuu back to Nao so the show can just fucking end, to the point where LIKE THE MOMENT AFTER YUU OBTAINS THE VERY FINAL ABILITY, HIS BROTHER IMMEDIATELY SHOWS UP IN A HELICOPTER AS SOMEONE ELSE IS ABOUT TO KILL HIM BUT...
HIS BROTHER HAD ABSOLUTELY NO WAY OF KNOWING WHERE YUU WAS, AND HE JUST IMMEDIATELY AND CONVENIENTLY SHOWS UP VIA HELICOPTER AND SAVES YUU.
...Couldn't he have just died? I mean yes, it'd be a downer ending, but it would have been neater than... well...
#Charlotte Review #10: Please Care About the Protagonist#
The note the show ends on is... Yuu makes it back to Nao and he has essentially removed all abilities from everyone who had them and everyone who would have developed them, and the vaccine is a thing just in case that pesky old Charlotte comes passing by Earth again with its pesky particles.
There's supposed to be like impact in Yuu and Nao's reunion and especially when Nao realizes that Yuu has lost all memory of her as a result of his ridiculous globe trotting journey. But as I've expressed previously, the romance between Yuu and Nao is just so fucking laughable and undeveloped. The show really wants you to care, but you honestly shouldn't. It is completely undeserved.
"Your flash cards that you created for me were the only thing I couldn't part with because even as I was being driven insane by this plan that you yourself told me about, I still remembered that these cards were something you gave to me, and I love the flash cards because I love you and you created the flash cards."
Like every single time this series tries to fucking manipulate your emotions one way, it just completely fucking fails or is just laughable. Like even when Nao starts crying and welcomes Yuu back I was just like... "why is she crying?"
She basically verbatim asked if Yuu was joking when he first confessed his love to her, but no, I'm supposed to be "feeling emotions" because they are together and they are the romance together because they are the main male and female characters of the show. But there was no fucking development or depth to their relationship. You can do the whole "everybody else tells us that we get along, but we don't think we get along" but there has to be development.
You can't fucking slap some sentimental flash cards down on the table with a side of self-sacrifice and say "okay now they love each other."
...Now that I think about it, I'm actually not sure what emotion the ending is actually trying to manipulate you into feeling. Happiness that the plot has finally been resolved and Yuu is back with Nao or like the bittersweet thing because Yuu is now basically kind of a shell of himself because he doesn't fucking remember anything.
#C-4: Conclusions#
...There's probably tons and tons of more details that I was gonna bring up but forgot or missed ~~or maybe I edited those in~~, but my overall conclusion and opinion on Charlotte is that it's completely fucking batshit insane. It's absolutely fucking horrible, the show did not need time travel and bringing it in only made it even more of a mess, it's a tonal nightmare, the characters are either unlikable, boring, or joke characters, it's like ten shows in one, and all the serious moments are fucking hilarious and all of the comical moments are almost entirely dumb and unfunny.
I give Charlotte a 5 out of a 100 and while if you've read this far into the review, I've basically spoiled the entire show for you if you didn't heed my warning at the start and just went and watched it yourself, I still would absolutely recommend watching Charlotte. At several moments, Charlotte actually had me thinking that this was TOO perfect. That Jun Maeda knew what he was doing, and was making something completely fucking horrible and wrong on purpose.
Now, that I've finished it, I'm still honestly not really too sure. It feels genuine, but just... dropping time travel like in almost the very last part of a show? Nobody can be this brilliant!
It's a fucking horrible masterpiece. I give it a 100 out of 100 on the pizza sauce grading scale.
So... you weren't even actually attempting to escape the compound? You were just trying to make sense of Experiment C-4?
"Yes."
And... what you came up with was just... bashing your own head into varying objects over and over again?
"...Yes. Look, I know it sounds stupid, but if you just watch it yourself, you'll know what I was going through! Nothing made sense! Like PA Works makes fine looking shows, but what drugs were Jun Maeda on???"
Oh no, you're not going to fool me. I saw firsthand what happened with the last researcher who risked firsthand exposure to the works themselves. Look, next time, just ask, and we'll provide you with a proper head bashing area. The Head Researcher was furious over the fact that you almost escaped.
"...Wait, I almost escaped?"
Yes. Thank goodness after the thousandth intern you bashed your skull into, you finally passed out and we could capture you.
"...I apparently almost successfully escaped this secret compound run by a group of secret super scientists that kidnap people all over the globe for use in their experiments without even purposefully trying to escape?"
...It's rather hurtful when you word it that way.
...In the past and in a dimly lit room at P.A. Works.
Jun Maeda: "Okay, so... the idea is teenagers who gain supernatural powers that try and hide from an organization of adult scientists who wish to capture them, study their abilities, and then eventually dissect them."
Yoshiyuki Asai (the director): "That sounds pretty good. Pretty original."
Jun Maeda: "But that's just the start. Firstly, we start the show out with the protagonist being a complete asshole manipulator, and then the rest of the show is this character attempting to gain redemption."
Yoshiyuki Asai: "Okay, okay... you haven't lost me... this seems like it could be a very goo--"
Jun Maeda: "NO. I'm not done yet! We have to slather the entire thing in slapstick comedy from beginning to end! We can't just have tragic and emotionally effective events! No, it needs slapstick comedy to lighten things up a bit."
Yoshiyuki Asai: "Um... that seems a little..."
Jun Maeda: "We'll have an idol character who occasionally becomes possessed by her dead delinquent sister, we'll have a yandere character, we'll have a pizza sauce little sister, we'll have slice of life, we'll have action, we'll have tragedy, we'll have drama."
Yoshiyuki Asai: "This... this is getting a bit out of cont--"
Jun Maeda: "AND THEN, THEN IT WILL BE A TIME TRAVEL SHOW, BECAUSE ONE OF THE ABILITY USERS HAS THE ABILITY TO TIME TRAVEL. But of course things will get a bit too crazy, so we have to take away the time travel after a little bit of time travel. But it is absolutely important and required to get AT LEAST SOME time travel in there."
Yoshiyuki Asai: "I... nobody's going to be able to make sense of this!"
Jun Maeda: "AND THEN, THE MAIN CHARACTER, I WANT TO SEE STABBING PEOPLE AND MAKING THEM BREAK THEIR OWN LEGS. WE NEED AN ENTIRE EPISODE THAT IS JUST ONE COMPLETE DESCENT INTO VIOLENCE AND MADNESS BECAUSE THAT IS HOW YOU MOURN THE LOSS OF A LOVED ONE."
Yoshiyuki Asai: "Mr. Maeda, you're scaring me. Please stop."
Jun Maeda: "Oh yeah, and the ultimate point of the show is the romance between the two main characters."
Yoshiyuki Asai: "What? Why?"
Jun Maeda: "Because romance sells! Okay, that's Charlotte. What do you think!"
Yoshiyuki Asai: "Uh... sounds... sounds great. I just... I just need to get drunk real quick and then we can start."
427 out of 573 users liked this review
