Angel Beats (spoilers)

[Spaz]

Why is Angel Beats so highly rated? It's the same basic premise as Haibane Renmei but poorly done. Why are they attacking Kanade? Why doesn't Kanade say anything? "Hey, I'm just a regular person in this purgatory like you guys so could you please stop shooting me? I wouldn't die anyway." The band is an obvious attempt to sell soundtracks and feels out of place in an anime about the afterlife and coming to terms with one's previous life. The whole story feels incoherent, as if they switched writers every few episodes, with each writer having a different idea of where to take the show. The characters don't have any real depth. TK's only purpose is to spout random English.

It makes me sad that Angel Beats aired in 2010 and has 101,185 viewers on MAL, compared to Haibane Renmei's 28,694 viewers 10 years after airing.

[Kaasoljoyyx]

Never heard of haibane renmei so maybe it's not as popular/great as you think it is.

In saying that, it depends on people's tastes. Also anime was not as popular back then as it is now. People tend to not watch older anime either for various reasons. Personally I do not watch much anime pre-2004~ish due to the animation style.

[JoeTang]

No one likes old things.

I'm fairly sure everyone in the show assumes that "disappearing" means death, and Kanade decides to play the villain because everyone who she had previously befriended had disappeared? Or did she play the villain so the SSS would work together and have some fulfillment in their afterlives? I can't remember that far back.

The band was terrible. There was definitely way too many characters. Honestly, only really needed Yuri, Otonashi, Kanade, Hinata, and Yui. Everyone else had way too much screen time for proper character development.

[madanthony]

Never heard of haibane renmei so maybe it's not as popular/great as you think it is.

In saying that, it depends on people's tastes. Also anime was not as popular back then as it is now. People tend to not watch older anime either for various reasons. Personally I do not watch much anime pre-2004~ish due to the animation style.

I agree with Spaz about Haibane being substantially better. I encourage you to check it out.

@Spaz
While I agree that all of your listed flaws are more or less valid, the show did have enough going for it to qualify it as a decent watch in my book, coming from someone who's never been able to sit down for other Key shows. On that note, I think the show had some heavy Key fanboying propelling it as well.