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EP. REVIEW: Charlotte

Charlotte suffers due to a lack of exposition (never thought I would write this line about anything because usually its the other way around). We miss explanations about so many things that it just becomes a mishmash of concepts and ideas from which you have to infer that things happened.

The lack of foreshadowing really hurt the show as well, just having things fly out of left field as much as they did made it feel like the show was running by the seat of its pants and barely being held together.

Hell as an example, Ayumi's death felt extremely forced and frankly never needed to happen. They used her death as a method of allowing Yu descend into darkness and then come out good, be introduced to his brother and the time leap ability; all of these events would have worked better in their own context. That is to say, that many of the time travel problems came from Yu traveling back in time, but this event never needed to happen. All we needed to see was a flash back of his brother using it until he goes blind for it to have emotional weight.

The time travel element had so many problems that they simply removed it 2-3 episodes later. (time travel rarely works in stories that aren't about time travel and even then, there are only a select few that work with out creating major plot holes.) Only to have it potentially show up in the last episode with Yu finding an ability to heal himself. (it bugged me that even if he never planned to use the time leap ability, he never healed his eye regardless.)

Ultimately, Charlotte succeeds as a work of entertainment but disappoints as a work of art. As pure entertainment, it doesn't have a dull second.

sorry for the long rant and I hope I didn't say anything stupid or out of place, but crap, how should I feel about this series?!

Okay, finally caught up with this show and I'd like to throw my hat into the ring as well by replying to some comments.

abeltensor wrote:

Charlotte suffers due to a lack of exposition (never thought I would write this line about anything because usually its the other way around). We miss explanations about so many things that it just becomes a mishmash of concepts and ideas from which you have to infer that things happened.

Hm... I personally didn't mind that we didn't get that much exposition because the point of view was from the uninformed protagonists.

abeltensor wrote:

The lack of foreshadowing really hurt the show as well, just having things fly out of left field as much as they did made it feel like the show was running by the seat of its pants and barely being held together.

That's why I feel that the "fly out of left field" is justified/can be forgiven. Events do happen without reason and just like how the main characters were thrown for a loop, so were we.

abeltensor wrote:

Hell as an example, Ayumi's death felt extremely forced and frankly never needed to happen. They used her death as a method of allowing Yu descend into darkness and then come out good, be introduced to his brother and the time leap ability; all of these events would have worked better in their own context. That is to say, that many of the time travel problems came from Yu traveling back in time, but this event never needed to happen. All we needed to see was a flash back of his brother using it until he goes blind for it to have emotional weight.

I... actually agree with this. Though I wouldn't say that Ayumi's death was actually wasted. Instead of it being for the sold purpose of introducing the idea of time travel, I saw it as pure character development for Yuu, etc... In terms of evoking an emotional response from the viewer, it did its job and the experience was great.

abeltensor wrote:

The time travel element had so many problems that they simply removed it 2-3 episodes later. (time travel rarely works in stories that aren't about time travel and even then, there are only a select few that work with out creating major plot holes.) Only to have it potentially show up in the last episode with Yu finding an ability to heal himself. (it bugged me that even if he never planned to use the time leap ability, he never healed his eye regardless.)

You hit the nail on the head with regard to the time travel thing too. Time travel is one of my favorite genres of fiction and not many writers actually bother to go deep into the specific mechanics of it. That's one of the reasons I didn't enjoy the recent film, Almanac, and enjoyed Back to the Future and Steins;Gate.

In the end though, I think the reviewer summed it up best:

Gabriella Ekens wrote:

Ultimately, Charlotte succeeds as a work of entertainment but disappoints as a work of art. As pure entertainment, it doesn't have a dull second.

In terms of individual moments and vignettes of the lives of teenagers with special powers, it succeeds. But of course, if you break everything down to its core components and try to see how everything fits together, the pieces don't really line up and you do get somewhat of an uneven experience. There is a lack of exposition, there is a lack of foreshadowing, there is a tonal shift... But looking at it from another perspective, I'd posit that the lack of information and uncertainty is what made the show so visceral and engaging.

Though... The one thing that I do find unforgivable are the plot holes. I can forgive stupid decisions that characters make (hey, people are fallible) but what I can't get is stuff like

- Misa being able to use her flame ability through Yusa.
- Shunsuke moving and acting perfectly fine despite being blind.

Where things don't add up within the logic of the universe they established.