Adapting roughly 2/3rds of the 1999 manga, BECK follows teenage Koyuki as he becomes part of the titular band and rises to fame in the local music and festival scene.
He navigates his first love, high school bullying, and interpersonal drama against the backdrop of small music venues, recording studios and early 2000s urban Japan.
Key to his arc is Ryusuke Minami, a musical prodigy with a shady past involving a stolen, bullethole riddled guitar. Ryusuke sees in Koyuki a promising vocalist and takes him under his wing.
Stories revolving around music carry with them a wealth of storytelling potential, and anime as a medium has no small number of series that explore various facets of playing, composing and performing.
Productions like Kids on the Slope, Sound! Euphonium, K-On!, Carole & Tuesday, and Given combine the two different mediums in their own way and with different goals in mind.
They can show characters' coming of age through practice, explore their inner worlds as they work through trauma, or place their musicianship in a wider cultural context.
Their skill level, personality, the era they live in, the things they think about and struggle with become part of the lyrics they write and define the sound of their music.
And when animated these personalities can be made relatable, made real, in how they move on stage, how they hold their instruments, the energy they have when playing, etc.
The combination of animation and music can really nail a vibe, an aesthetic, an identity that's quintessentially "that show".
#####Good vibes
BECK has the potential to be one of “those shows”. You only need to look at its gorgeously boarded and animated OP to get a sense of the promise it holds.
It’s a dream of pure, distilled Americana, featuring roadside diners, Las Vegas billboards, Greyhound buses, Coca Cola, a Chevy Bel Air cruising down Route 66 and the streets of the Big Apple.
It's the ambition of touring around America brought to life in a music video, an approach arguably emulated in K-On's EDs
But unfortunately it's just that, the ambition of a show that never materializes, and the fault lies squarely with the series’ subpar production.
Visually the anime is all over the place. Characters are frequently off-model and move around awkwardly, shots will linger on unmoving faces for uncomfortable stretches of time, and entire musical performances get copy-pasted across episodes.
The latter is made more grating when BECK's entire setlist contains only a handful of tracks.
The band’s sound owes a lot to Rage Against the Machine and Red Hot Chili Peppers, both of which I really dig, but I can only hear BECK’s frontman yelling “YOU OPEN UP THE DOOR WITH NEGATIVE AURA” so many times in a row.
▶ Video #####As a former drummer I gotta see those cymbals moveTo boot the majority of the animated performances don't match the rhythm, chords or lyrics at all. A shame as the music is the star of the series and could've been done real justice.
▶ Video #####The best cuts in an anime about performing music are featured in a fight sceneFrustratingly there are a few moments of fantastic animation sprinkled throughout the series, and on the whole BECK’s locales are realized with a noir-like aesthetic that really helps establish a gritty, urban vibe.
The contrast between the animation and environments makes it seem like there were shenanigans going on behind the scenes.
Perhaps there were budgetary concerns, or maybe the production had near impossible deadlines.
The series was made well before the internet as we know it today, so I couldn’t really find any answers.
Whatever the cause, the end result feels stiff, awkward and shoddy to the point of being distracting, and the show is hampered from establishing a strong and confident visual identity.
But unfortunately the problems don't stop at the animation.
For much of the first half the story meanders around, moving from one subplot to the next without any real payoff.
▶ Video #####Teach also shows Koyuki how to efficiently swim using only half a dozen framesKoyuki starts learning the guitar from an eccentric teacher and deals with a group of high school bullies among other things, but ultimately there's very little in terms of narrative thrust or any kind of stakes, making the pace feel glacial at times.
Things, for want of a better phrase, just ‘sort of happen’.
▶ Video #####K-On zooms in on the tiny little details in those little moments in-between with care and granularityI mentioned K-On! earlier, which is probably the “queen of having no stakes”, but that whole franchise focuses on finding meaning in those lowkey, fleeting moments. It’s carried by intricate animation, environments and detailed sound design, giving its world and characters a sense of verisimilitude.
Outside some stellar musical performances, BECK fails to establish any of the sort.
▶ Video #####Even further into the series performances feel unpolished and awkwardThe story gets a much needed sense of purpose when the second half of the series comes around. BECK is invited to play at one of Japan’s biggest music festivals, but to be able to perform they have to contend with a much more successful, rival band and Ryusuke's checkered past.
Watching the members try to get their act together and having the different character arcs and subplots finally coalesce gives glimpses of what might’ve been, but it comes as too little, too late.
BECK’s production continues to lack on pretty much every visual front and it never reaches a level of competence to create a palpable feeling of time, place and character.
Ultimately the series falls flat across the board, never coming close to fulfilling its potential.
At least there's the soundtrack, which is pretty great on its own.
Loose thoughts
The manga was adapted to a live-action film in 2010 where each actor learned to play an instrument to make Beck’s performances feel authentic.
Spoiler, click to view
The band eventually does end up touring America, but in an ironic twist the entire trip is told through a montage of photos presumably taken during a research trip. I can't think of any better metaphor for the entire series.####h/t @ChaosAlfa