Charlotte 04 – 05
It’s rare, but sometimes Nao can be genuinely happy
Two more episodes of Charlotte, two more episodes of ‘random power of the week’.
You’re Out!
Wiggly Hands!
Episode 4 has the student council, now up to four people with the addition of Yusa. But really it’s not Yusa they added, it’s Misa, and Yusa kinda just comes along as a mascot. I have to say that I was kind of hoping that it wouldn’t be that way, but the show seems pretty adamant that Yusa’s just like the little sister they have to drag along just to get Misa to come. Maybe at some point in the future, Yusa will show some independence or provide some of her own value, but I’m not seeing it. The only value she’s provided so far are hokey magic ‘spells’ to smooth over other people’s feelings. This time she uses it to help calm down the pitcher for her own team to keep him from storming off after being insulted, but that’s pretty much the sole contribution. And given that she turns Joujirou into a creepy fanboy again and again makes her total net value pretty close to zero.
Baseball kid was boring, so let’s look at Joujirou’s bod
But as for the Troubled Kid Of The Week, this time it’s the star pitcher for a local team, who can control the flight of the ball after he throws it. It’s a plausible thing, and the real key is the boy who is the catcher, the friend of the pitcher who he’s trying to help get noticed. The game goes down as you’d expect, with the Hoshinoumi team winning after some use of their powers, but to me the “buck up” speech by Nao was a little overly optimistic. Yeah, there are scouts that look for guys playing, but the pitcher is right: If there’s nothing to get them to a particular school’s games, they’re not going to be looking. And if they’re not looking in high school, they’re probably not going to find him. But either way, it’s another kid who’s been ‘convinced’ to not use his powers.
And Nao gets beat up for unspecified reasons
No, Not THAT SkyHigh
Hey look, the guy appeared just as he was supposed to
Episode 5 may be the Charlotte version of the summer trip, as Nao has them camping out in the woods up in the mountains to ‘smoke out’ a boy who’s been flying around. This gives us an episode of the group hanging around for a few days waiting for this kid to show up, and they don’t really go into how utterly boring this trip would be. What they do go into is Joujirou’s hot body, as there’s some bathing in the stream for the boys. As predicted by Nao, eventually the boy shows up, and is convinced by Yuu’s takeover of his body that what he’s doing is a bad idea, but that’s about it. The real plot interest shows up after Yuu returns home to Ayumi, who has been upset that he couldn’t come home, but she actually makes him some good food without pizza sauce. But she’s picked up a cold or something instead, and I’m still thinking that it’s related to the overly sweet food that she eats, as she started coughing when the pizza sauce ran out. Not that that’s that hard to conjecture, given the way the show has made things obvious.
Sick imoutos always need some love
“Obvious” might be my biggest problem with the show so far. I think if I was going to say what the drawback to a Jun Maeda story was, it wouldn’t be the melodrama or tears, it’s the lack of depth to the story. Even when it’s a story with multiple layers, it’s almost like they don’t overlap. And everything just happens the way it should, always. Nao gets the pitcher to agree to never use his power again through the power of baseball. She traps the kid who can fly in the well, because of course this guy would fall in the well even though he is supposed to have been flying around this mountain. Everything works out just right, but it’s not that Nao is some tactical genius like Inaho or L-Elf. It’s just that the story is really basic. Things happen because they have to happen to move the story along. I had hoped that PA Works having a hand in this would help give it some depth or guile, but it looks like that’s not going to happen. Even Nao getting beaten up by the other girls doesn’t give me much hope that there’s a story there, just “Nao’s not liked, see, the other girls beat her up.” Make it be about “You brought Yusa to the school, and now the boys that we all like are ignoring us.” At least that’s at a different angle. But everything’s pretty much on rails: If the writer wants it to happen, it’s going to happen. And that’s just poor writing.
About Highway
Proving that you don't have to be young to love anime, I enjoy all genres and styles of shows. If it's not hurting anyone else, you should never be ashamed of what you like!
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Baseball kid was boring, so let’s look at Joujirou’s bod.
Technically more of a necessity for him given his powers. On the plus side, his body’ll always be ready for the beach, pool or any job that requires shirtlessness. ;D
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
The thing that kinda annoys me, tho, is that as haphazardly as he moves with his power, they don’t say anything about the parts of him that would actually get broken: arms, legs, head, neck, knees, feet. It’s much more likely that he’d lop off an arm or foot on a traffic sign, or crush his knee or his head into a wall than he’d take a big hit on his body. But nah, never mind that. That stuff would be inconvenient.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
It seems they are squandering some elements they should be celebrating. That does show with the “just so” plot points.
Would it have been too much a challenge to the writing/story for them to fail in one of these missions? Or for there to be a different way for them to approach the material. Baseball dude could gone back on his promise; and they would have to think of a different way to convince him. Heck, they could have had it a B story for a few more episodes, with Yuu showing up to his games, “possessing” him and screwing with his pitches.
And how about not finding the Levitating Guy. At the extreme they could have found him as “side of building pizza surprise”
Speaking of pizza! WTH! If they play kill the LOLi….grrrrr….
The trick is hiding the rails. I think Maeda’s style is to celebrate the rails…
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
If the story was going to be about keeping other people in line, I think your suggestions would have been great. If the story is going to be about Yuu and Ayumi and Nao and the people we know, I think they’re just blowing it by continuing to focus on these “Teen of the week” one-and-done episodes. They could have wrapped a couple of them into one episode, or done something else to show “Yeah, these kids are still going out and doing this” but after showing Yusa and Archery Kid, we see the two ways this goes, we don’t really need to see more.
Now, maybe we’re not giving the writer enough credit, and all these guys are going to come back and play a role later. But man, I really doubt it. For another particular gripe, we don’t even know how much time is passing. Has Yuu been at Hoshinoumi for a week? A month? 6 months? How long has Ayumi been sick? Tell us more about the guards not letting her out. Do they know something we don’t know?
Just a bit (a lot) disappointing.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
Yeah, we can’t say everything about the show only five in…
POWUH: iLurker with 1 comments
You just took the words out of my mouth regarding this series.