Should I watch Charlotte?- Rowen Writes

Welcome to the review of Charlotte. 286 minutes. That is nearly 5 hours. That’s nearly ¼ of a day. Also, that is the approximate duration of this 13-episode anime. Time is a precious currency is today’s fast paced world. Is it worth it to invest 286 minutes for the potential satisfaction that this anime has to offer? This article will help you in making that decision.

The story revolves around a high school boy Yuu Otosaka. He is basically a cocky teenage boy who has a special power to temporarily possess the body of people for a certain period of time. He uses the powers for his own benefit until he gets caught by Nao Tomori and Joujiro Takajo who then forced him to transfer to their school and be part of the student council. From then on, Yuu is forced to work with the student council to apprehend other people with supernatural abilities and get them to join the school for protection.

For the first half of the story, Yuu and the gang went about to capture all of the people with supernatural abilities. The conflicts usually lasted one episode. The first half also explores the interaction between Yuu and the other main characters of the story, as well as the environment that he was placed into. The first half of the story was well paced.

In the second half of the story, things really started to take a weird turn. For the purpose of this review, I will not give any spoilers. Nevertheless, there are many plot twists and at the same, a lot of characters were suddenly introduced within a short number of time. The pacing suddenly increased by tenfold and it was quite confusing, to the point where the viewer will have to rewatch some scenes to understand the story better.

Charlotte is another unfortunate example of an anime which tries to do some much with so little time. Six episodes to cover the new characters and the story is simply too much. As a result of that, the second half of the story was too fast paced and confusing. Charlotte would honestly be a great anime to watch if it has 24-25 episodes instead of 13. With more episodes, the storyline can progress at the same rate as the first half of the anime. Also, character development will not suffer as there is more time to cover the characters and their struggle.

Should I watch Charlotte for the story? No.

The character design is typical. The designs are basically moe characters created to please the Otaku community with their cute designs and personalities. The main character Yuu looks exactly like Kanie Seiya. In fact, they share the same voice actors.

The personality of some of the characters is extremely annoying. Ayumi Otosaka has a habit of saying –desu or –gozaru with her extremely annoying voice. While she has a lot of fans among the Otaku community, casual anime viewers might find her to be a nuisance for the most part of the story. She also seemed to suffer from brocon, cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner for her brother and is overly concerned for her brother’s life.

Nao Tomori is the typical tsundere-kuudere anime girl who is disliked by many people in her school. Takajo is idol otaku who is overly obsessed with Yusa Kurobane, which honestly destroyed him as a character (he has a rather badass special ability).

Should I watch Charlotte for the characters? No.

The character development for most of the characters is terrible, with the exception of the main protagonist himself. His character development was not solely due to his effort, but rather the radical changes and twists in the story forced him to change. Yuu’s character development is a saving grace for this anime. The character development for the other 3 main characters is less impressive. Due to the radical plot twists in the story, their presence is replaced by the addition of new characters.

As a result of too many characters, it became more difficult to develop the main characters as the focus on them starts to shift towards the new characters. Most of the new characters are useless if not for their special abilities. It seems that their place in their story is to merely exist and provide a convenient way for the creators of Charlotte to add special abilities to solve the conflicts that the main characters faced.

Should I watch Charlotte for the character development? Yes

The Opening and Ending songs are quite enjoyable even though they are not breath taking. In addition to that, there was a horrible attempt at singing an English song in one of the Episodes. While the melody was good, the horrible English turned me off completely from enjoying the song.

The title of the opening and ending songs as well as the artists’ names are listed in the Songs table below. Also, the voice actors of the main cast are listed below in the Voice actors table. It is quite interesting to note that the voice actor for Yuu is the name as Kanie Seiya’s, as their character designs and even their personalities are quite similar.

Should I watch Charlotte for the songs? Yes.

Charlotte is animated by PA works. It also produced other anime such as Angel Beats, Another and Hanasaku Iroha. The animation is quite good, though it not the greatest visual presentation of all time. The animation is fluid and smooth. Also the lighting is appropriate for different situations in the anime.

Should I watch Charlotte for the animation? Yes.

Charlotte is a good watch for the boring Saturday afternoon. It is unfortunate that it is not a 24-episode anime, or it would have been a better paced anime with properly developed characters. The trailer of the anime is in the video below.