< Angel Beats!

Angel Beats!/YMMV


  • Bittersweet Ending: Everybody moves on to either the next world or to be reincarnated, but the tightly-knit group of friends will be gone forever.
    • While much of the show could be interpreted as a post-death slice of life high school, the difference here is that nobody gets to see each other again after graduation, unlike other Slice of Life shows. To be sure, everybody finds closure and is able to move on, just as was intended in the world, but the actual memories of the bonds that they shared will be gone, even if/when they meet again in their next lives.
    • In Otonashi's next life he meets Kanade.
    • If not the whole Girls Dead Monster band, then at least Iwasawa made it into the music industry. In episode 13 Kanade is listening to and humming "My Song".
  • Broken Base: Is Yuri cruel or kind? Is Otonashi The Messiah or a fool rushing into things? Is disappearing the best thing that can happen to people in the afterlife?
  • Complete Monster: The lead robber in Yuri's flashback who threatened to kill to kill her siblings if she doesn't find anything valuable for the robbers to take in 10 minutes. He kills her siblings while she's still searching her home and it's implied it was out of impatience or for the hell of it.
  • Crowning Moment of Awesome: All team members that sacrificed themselves in episode 8 got this but TK and Matsushida are the most notable ones. Hinata even lampshades this, by comparing it to a scene from shonen manga.
    • Angel gets lots. Overlaps Mundane Made Awesome
      • Episode 7, Angel goes fishing.
      • As of Episode 11, Angel now has freaking WINGS. As decoration (see below).
    • Yuri winning a one-on-one fight against one of Angel's clones on episode 8 while resisting one of her techniques.

Yuri: Just give it up. My next knife here's going to take care of your throat.

    • Dying Moment of Awesome: Not necessarily dying, but disappearing to the life beyond, Iwasawa's last concert.
      • When Otonashi died in the real world, he gave a particularly awesome showing of keeping a half dozen people alive despite serous injuries and few resources to work with. He tops it by becoming an organ donor, just to able to help a few more people.
    • Episode 11 has EVERYONE (except Oyama, Fujimaki and Takamatsu) being a badass in the first open battle against the Shadows.
    • And in episode 12, Yuri destroying the computers that are creating the shadows.
      • Special Mention goes to the fight with the shadows near the beginning of the episode which included TK spin fighting down a rail shooting shadows, Oyama sniping shadows, and a skinny Matsushita and Otanashi talking while offhandedly shooting and punching the approaching shadows.
  • Crowning Moment of Funny: Many enough for a page.
  • Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: Somewhat more depressing than usual, but when Otonashi uses the last of his energy to sign a organ donor card, which makes all the other surving passengers of the train follow his lead.
    • Hinata explaining how he'd marry Yui at the end of episode 10.
      • And subsequently the imagined scenes resulting from Hinatas explanation after which Yui disappears.
    • In episode 12, the source of love that that triggered the doomsday in the afterlife was Yuri all along.

Yuri: I came all this way to protect everyone.

    • Also in episode 12, the end credits show everybody, even the ones who ascended. It's a nice touch.
    • Otonashi hugging Naoi at the end of episode 6.

Otonashi: Your life was real too!

    • It was heartwarming when Otonashi recalls his death and wonders what became of his donated organs and Kanade reassures him that the person receiving them would thank him for the rest of their lives. But it becomes a true crowning moment in hindsight when you realise Kanade wasn't just guessing.
    • Yuri hugging Kanade in Episode 13.
      • Yuzuru confessing his love for Kanade.
      • Episode 13 overall.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: The opening, My Soul, Your Beats!
  • Deus Ex Machina: In episode 12 there's Yuri's vision (which she receives out of nowhere) of her brothers and sisters telling her she's done enough and it's okay to end her war with God. She listens and ends her war.
  • Downer Ending: It seemed like a bittersweet ending at first with everyone saying good-bye and disappearing but moving on with something better. Then after Otonashi confesses his love for Kanade, asking to stay with him forever, Kanade reveals that she's only here to thank him for the heart transplant that saved her life for a while, and disappears after Otonashi had to say he loves her again. Otonashi is left all alone and heartbroken for the last of his time before he disappears.
    • It certainly felt more so if you see the epilogue not as an afterlife or reincarnation, but rather Otonashi's own imagining or false memory of meeting Kanade again to help him move on. But,again, an alternative ending has been confirmed.
      • And even if you interpret the ending straightly, there's still the fact that it feels like an Ass Pull just because the creators thought the real ending was too sad; or worse, the result of more Executive Meddling.
  • Dude, Not Funny: Yes, pulling all of those stunts to make Angel fail her tests was hilarious. However, it suddenly stops being so amusing when you realize that: a) Angel is a real human girl named Kanade Tachibana and had to suffer the consequences for getting zeroes on all her tests and b) Naoi, her Ax Crazy vice-president, replaced her. Oh, and just to rub the salt into the wound a bit more they then go and steal her comfort food. Seriously, she's so sad, it makes you want to give her a hug.
    • For this troper, it was the moment that Angel moved from 'that kind of cute girl they keep fighting who probably isn't as bad as they think' to 'oh my word this is probably going to be my favorite character in this show' (a prediction borne out following future episodes). It was also something of a Growing the Beard moment for the show in general; before that, it had been a very good show, but at that moment it became excellent.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Seems to be the entire point of the Afterlife.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: TK is remarkably popular among viewers.
    • On this very wiki, Naoi's section is huge compared to other character's
  • Epileptic Trees: There've been a few here and there, but it wasn't until the appearance of the red-eyed Angel that they started spreading like wildfire.

Anonymous: I see what's going on. You are really TK, who is God, but Yurippe beats you and takes you memories, and then she becomes God, but she knew Otonashi in her past life, who was her childhood friend, but she fell in love with him, and when as God she realized he was going to die, so she made his sister who is really Angel who is waiting for Otonashi into the enemy and with her God powers made this world so that when Otonashi got there he would think Angel was the enemy and now she made a new Angel after Otonashi befriended the old one who is really his sister and she wants to tear them apart.

  • Family-Unfriendly Aesop: The Aesop seemed to be: "Any desires you may have or actions you may take are completely useless and you shouldn't have them. Strive instead for nonexistence. All you should want is to be erased, you and your meaningless journey though life."
  • Fan Nickname: The SSS Battlefront's initials are referred to as the "Soul Society of Suzumiya Haruhi".
    • There's also Red Angel and Gold Angel, based on their eye colors, to differentiate between the two.
    • The SSS Brigade!
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment: Yui prevents Hinata from winning his team's baseball game in episode 4. Six episodes later, Hinata helps her move on by promising to marry her in her next life even if she's paralyzed in that life too, meaning if it weren't for him she'd be stuck in Purgatory for a long time!
  • Genre Savvy: EVERYONE. To the extent that can be called dangerous. Some battles are won or lost depending on who is more genre savvy. This even affects the plot: the movie is an action anime, until everyone realizes that they star in a drama.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Overlaps with Dude, Not Funny in regards to Hinata and Yui. Originally their abuse of each other is fairly equal albeit Hinata is prone to attacking Yui more than the other way around and for no apparent reason either. Yui only attacks him out of revenge and even then it doesn't last since he's quick to deal out Disproportionate Retribution on her. It's gets to the Harsher in Hindsight point when we find out that the reason why Yui acts hyper and sort of annoying all the time is because she was paralyzed in an accident at a young age from a car slamming into her back and was bedridden and cared for by her single mother until she died while Hinata's regret was just being unable to catch a baseball during an important match. That was it. Yes it sounds about as funny as as pushing a kid in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs. This revelation made Yui just an Unacceptable Target.
  • Hype Backlash: There are a good deal of /a/ browsers extremely displeased that the abundance of Angel Beats threads that make discussing any other anime rather difficult.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Otonashi saying that God cannot just give people fake happy endings as their lives were real is more funny when you realize that this was made by the same guys who pull happy endings out of their asses whenever a main character's world comes crashing down.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Yuri "Yurippe" Nakamura, the tough and ruthless yet efficient and insanely charismatic leader of the Afterlife Battlefront, seriously goes for this at times, particularly in the special episode Stairway to Heaven, where her diabolical scheme to unnerve Angel to the point of her revealing a big secret is actually successful...just not in the way Yurippe had wanted. And even after this miscalculation, Yuri comes out looking like a winner by ordering all of her subordinates in the SSS Class to starve themselves to a temporary death, with even the end credits having every character vanishing quickly except for Yuri, who remains the last one standing there for the remainder of the credits.
  • Memetic Badass: TK. To enumerate: stops a frigging ceiling falling down, makes the most awesome Heroic Sacrifice speech, goes guns ablazing against shadows with a friggin Dodge This line: I kiss you. * bang*
  • Memetic Mutation: Anything that comes out of TK's mouth.
    • Angel is the cutest Protoss Zealot you'll ever lay eyes on.
      • And with the revelation of her Harmonics skill, there's a possibility that she can become Agent Smith. Zealot Smith, even.
    • Clothespins are quickly becoming objects that are praised to be fragments of God.
    • Itsumo hitori-- is well on its way to be one.
    • That face Yuri makes when the NPC controlling the Shadows offers her godhood.
    • Yuri's Evil Laugh in "Stairway To Heaven."
    • CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!
  • Mood Whiplash: Often during a single scene. This show is notable for being one of the shows for which one can easily find themselves both laughing so hard they cry, and then genuinely crying, in short succession.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Averted in the manga. In order to force God out of hiding, Yuri seriously considers killing every single student in the entire school... Starting with the first graders. Thankfully, Hinata talks her out of it.
    • Also averted in Stairway to Heaven due to a Foregone Conclusion from watching the entire anime. Yuri makes everyone starve over a simple miscalculation she had made; however, the anime had already established her as redeemable by the time Stairway to Heaven rolled along, and she even lampshades that it's not like everyone who starves "to death" are actually going to really die (since everyone's already dead anyway), though the credits has everyone fade away as a joke.
  • Never Trust a Trailer: The next episode previews just consist of a white screen with random lines from the next episode flying by. The lines are quite out of context so deducting any clues about the plot of the next episode from this is next to impossible.
    • On top of that, every Monday the online preview adds short, half-second clips from the next episode. This can answer some questions, but often raises many more.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Episode 6 features the SSS getting their internal organs handed to them in an epic Curb Stomp Battle at Naoi's hands... while we see Otonashi and Angel trying to bust down a door. Naoi only has a couple of Mooks left by the time they show up, so feel free to pretend TK beat the crap out of the rest of them.
    • Possibly Yuri's battle with the "other" angel. thankfully remedied in the next episode.
    • The original Angel battling the 100 evil Angels after they all merged into her consciousness. Angel even describes the battle as epic.
  • Reverse Funny Aneurysm: Some of Otonashi's wild imagination regarding SSS operations became this, especially the giant monster fish and SSS fighting multiple Angels.
    • Both of which turn out to actually happen, albeit slightly differently from what he imagined.
  • Rousseau Was Right: After episode 9, were it not for the Poor Communication Kills, the war should never have happened in the first place. See entry above.
  • Ship Tease: Hinata, due to being Mistaken for Gay with Otonashi. Otonashi's embrace to Naoi could be considered as this, too.
    • This could apply to when Otonashi was climbing Yuri. He hugged her, and then was right in front of her face. He even comments on how she smells good.
    • Naoi's... passionate way of reassuring Otonashi before he regains his memories in Episode 7.
    • Otonashi wanting to call Kanade by her first name in Episode 7.
      • There are also close-ups whenever Otonashi takes Kanade's hand.
      • She smooths his face with her hand in episode 9.
      • He in return pats her head in 11.
      • They are confirmed to be the Official Couple by the series' end.
    • In the manga, there's quite noticeable teasing with Hinata and Yuri. Considering that the events of the manga came before the anime though, things didn't seem to go anyway.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: This show loves to abuse its ending song.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Since the anime is only 13 episodes long, there isn't a lot of time to focus on any of the interesting side characters, so they come and go without us knowing anything about their pasts, nor do they get a decent sendoff onscreen.
  • What an Idiot!: Even after all the time they've been fighting Angel, nobody in SSS has ever bothered trying to figure out Angel's real name.
    • Well, Yuri had apparently heard it before. She just didn't bother trying to remember it.
    • Also, in episode 8, Yuri attempts to reprogram Angel's Harmonics technique, but has trouble because she doesn't quite understand the programming language. Remember that SSS has Christ Takeyama, who is a master hacker and computer expert, and he doesn't even show up in the episode at all! Although Takeyama became A Twinkle in the Sky in the last episode, he was seen again during the fish barbeque, so his absence from episode 8 is even more jarring.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: See Dude, Not Funny. At the time, only Otonashi seems to even consider that they may have crossed the line from La Résistance to Jerkass here.
  • The Woobie: Angel
    • Most of the cast also qualify but varies from character to character. Yuri, Masami, Naoi and Yui have significantly worse pasts consisting of murder of loved ones, guilt and death, parental abuse and death, death of loved ones and long term paralysis respectively than say Hinata whose only regret was not being able to catch a baseball costing his team an important match. That's it. Other characters don't even have that much development.
  • You Can't Go Home Again: Because you're dead!
    • Arguably subverted in the epilogue where Kanade and Otonashi are reincarnated and presumably themselves.
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