So, I just finished Charlotte. I talked to my friend who hated it (read: thought it had lots of potential and didn’t like that it ended up being rushed). He had some fair points, even if I didn’t fully understand it. He thought episode 13 was too rushed and could’ve been done into two episodes. I believed it would’ve been too drawn out that way, but conceded that if they were able to expand onto it more somehow then it could’ve been nice. He said that the characters could’ve been developed better. I think I may be a bit of a simpleton, so I didn’t mind - Ayumi and Yuu were great, the former being perfect as the little cutie she is, and the latter being well-developed enough in my opinion. There’s Tomori who, admittedly, had a bit of an empty, lacking feeling about her character. Yusa and Takajo were a bit too comic relief-y, not that I really noticed until the post-watch discussion.

I went to the anilist page to see the reviews and wow - none of them held much positivity! I was a bit shocked - sure, the end wasn't the best, but it wasn't that bad, was it?

So, I guess it's time to discuss what I did and didn't like about this anime! Spoilers ahead!

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I'm not gonna get too into episode one. Why? Its tone is just so different to the rest of the anime that I feel it just doesn't warrant a discussion in this review!

I'm not gonna go into a lot of detail about everything, I'll just talk about some specific bits - no one said this was gonna be a good review! Once again, be ready for spoilers!

One thing I wanted to discuss was Yuu's depressive phase after Ayumi's death. I’m the type who gets emotionally attached to characters easily so, needless to say, I was rather heartbroken watching Yuu let himself go to shit after Ayumi’s death - after all, it’s not what Ayumi would’ve wanted for her dear older brother. However, apart from that, I was really interested in this. As we see in the first episode of the show, Yuu may not be a completely bad and evil person, but he wasn’t a great one either. We see this version of Yuu rear its ugly head in a much worse way than before. He stops eating healthily (remember when he would be the only one eating vegetables?), he doesn’t leave the house, he gets addicted to the only things that can really make him feel anything (video games and starting fights). When Yuu steals the drugs, it still hurts, but it’s interesting - at this point, I was invested to see how far this kid was going to ruin himself. I felt, however, that Tomori stepping in at this point was just a very shitty thing. Like, apparently she’s been watching the whole time and she didn’t think it was bad enough to step in until he was about to do a line?? Tomori really was like “almost stabbing a guy’s eye is okay but I draw the line at drugs.” I really liked the scene with the omurice though. I’ve seen people criticise it, but I think it’s very heartfelt. For so long, he’d been hating on his sister’s special omurice (even if he never said it to her), and he’d missed it, realising that he had taken it for granted. I almost cried, and fiction doesn’t really make me cry these days.

One thing I majorly disliked was the romance. There is a buildup for the relationship, yes, but the thing is, Yuu and Tomori had almost no chemistry together. At first, I wondered if this was my natural aversion to heterosexuality, but I’m not the only one. Tomori and Yuu would have been better off as friends. Even Tomori comments on how strange the sudden romance is! One thing I hated was how Yuu pointed out Tomori watching him during his post-Ayumi death grief was one thing that he liked as it showed her care, or something like that. Sounds like bullshit. Her just watching as he spiralled shows more curiosity than care, with her basic human decency only taking over when he was, as aforementioned, about to do a line.

Returning back to the aspects I did like! I really enjoyed the portrayal of his struggles with depression (after Ayumi’s death), panic attacks (the things that triggered the collapse ability multiple times), and his struggle with sanity (in the final episode when he goes around the world to loot all the abilities. It’s all horridly realistic, and it hurt to witness it all happen as a fan of Yuu. Getting to see Yuu at all his major lifetime lows is what made me fall for him more. However, the very end of the final episode when he comes back to Japan is just too cheesy and erases everything he’s struggled with. Giving him amnesia was the easy way out when a better alternative would have been him struggling with these mental issues as he recovers at home surrounded by the people he loves. At least, that’s what I think would’ve made it better.

Another thing I want to talk about is the time travel/loop plot twist. I like time travel. I think it’s fun. I’ve seen people criticise how it was used, but I believe it was used interestingly. One thing I do think was dumb was Yuu refusing to use the healing power on his eye to allow himself to time travel again. I would’ve understood if it was more of a “but I don’t want to have to start the ability-looting all over again”, but no, it was just a “I shouldn’t mess with it like that” which I felt to be rather dumb. Perhaps if this was a longer series (like 16 or even 20-24 episodes), then perhaps they could’ve made that happen and expanded on it. It’s not like Kumagami’s death was necessary or anything, they should’ve fixed it like Ayumi’s death.

Finally, I want to talk about Yuu a little more. I’ve seen criticisms saying that he wasn’t good because he wasn’t able to fight back against the girl who attacked his eye and wasn’t able to do much apart from collapsing the building. However, what more could he have done? In my opinion this was a good choice as he’s not trained or anything, he’s just a normal boy who doesn’t have any outstanding physical skills. Yuu is not a perfect hero - something that he acknowledges and literally has a panic attack over - as that’s a good thing. It would simply be boring and unrealistic to have him suddenly be able to fight back when he’s had no practice or training, especially after something as shocking/traumatising as losing your eye like that. No one likes a Mary Sue (or whatever you call a male one).

In conclusion, I may be a bit simple minded, but I thought Charlotte was good and that if you’re a simple minded unpicky person like me, you should give it a shot. Charlotte has some flaws, yes, but none are so glaring that it would make me rank it less than a 9 considering how much fun I had watching it.