エンジェルビーツ Episode 03
Angel Beats! – 03

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Iwasawa plays a new ballad she wrote for her band but Yuri rejects it as she wants something flashy for their next operation. She brings out the hacker Takeyama-kun, who wants to be known as “Christ.” The plan is to invade Tenshi’s living area and see what they can find, having failed in their previous mission. After the meeting, Iwasawa goes away a bit depressed and Otonashi grabs a canned coffee before running into Yui, a younger member of SSS. She’s putting up Girls Dead Monster posters and excitedly talking about the dangers of it all with the NPC teachers and Tenshi. She also rapidly talks of her love of “Girls-De-Mo,” the short name for Girls Dead Monster.

Otonashi grabs another canned coffee and encounters Iwasawa and the other three members of Girls-De-Mo rehearsing in an empty classroom. Rehearsing comes to a halt when one of the band members needs to restring their guitar. Iwasawa and Otonashi have a chat during the break where she tells him of how she came to love music and the messed up childhood she had. Her death came when her father accidentally busted a bottle over her head while fighting with her mother. Iwasawa later had a stroke and eventually died.

Tenshi takes down one of the posters for Girls-De-Mo’s concert to the irritation of the NPC’s who think she’s trying to kill the concert. That night, Girls-De-Mo start their illegal concert as SSS breaks into Tenshi’s dorm room, which isn’t anything like Yuri described. Takeyama-kun begins hacking Tenshi’s PC as Iwasawa realizes they need to escalate things to get more people to come. Tenshi arrives as do the NPC teachers, who immediately break up the concert. Tenshi leaves but when one of the teachers threatens Iwasawa’s precious acoustic guitar, she gets angry and snatches it. She ends up starting her ballad and the teachers let her play. One of the other band members makes sure the song is played throughout campus over the intercom.

Despite hearing that Tenshi is returning, Yuri has Takeyama-kun show her what he feels is the most suspicious stuff. He finds a spreadsheet containing all their names as well as NPC’s. However, what troubles Yuri the most is finding files showing Tenshi’s “Guard Skills.” Meanwhile, Iwasawa finishes her song and comes to terms with her life, at which point she disappears. This is observed by Tenshi before she leaves the auditorium for good.

SSS makes their retreat and holds a meeting to discuss what they’ve learned. Tenshi is making her Guard Skill abilities in much the same way SSS has been constructing weapons. Yuri won’t tell the others what she suspects, but privately is troubled that Tenshi would do this and not get her powers from God, suggesting there may not be a God. The others are also concerned over the disappearance of Iwasawa. Yuri tells them that Iwasawa did it herself by accepting things. Now, Otonashi knows that to disappear from this world, you obey Tenshi and follow the rules, but there are other ways to disappear.

Thoughts/Review:

Again, Tenshi proves to be the most interesting element of this anime series. Her simple remark in an almost regretful way (or as much as possible considering her lack of emotions) about being perceived as the villain struck me because as I’ve mentioned, her actions have always been 100% reactionary. She hasn’t acted evil or even villain like. She’s careful, deliberate, and methodical in her actions in addition to not being given to emotions. Further, she’s the student body president, which traditionally is an elected post for schools. Those types of characters have usually been played to have a great concern over the well being of the students.

So, assuming that is correct, what is Tenshi’s secret? Why would she have to develop her “Guard Skill” abilities? Certainly, this took Yuri by surprise because she felt for sure that Tenshi, the Japanese word for “angel,” was in fact an angel of God and thus someone to fight against in order to get at God. Now that Yuri knows that Tenshi is really no different from them, what now? Does she continue the fight or does she attempt to learn something new from Tenshi? If weapons have to be built from memory, what the heck does Tenshi remember in order to develop the Guard Skills? Why did Tenshi return to see Iwasawa disappear at the end of her ballad?

Iwasawa wasn’t long for the anime. Thankfully, her backstory wasn’t as jacked up as Yuri’s. Granted, we still don’t know how Yuri died, though a part of me almost suspects that Yuri died in the aggravated burglary of her home along with her siblings, just after the police arrived. Anyway, Iwasawa’s situation is jacked up enough, but it makes me wonder if everyone else has some jacked up story or not. At the same time, it makes me wonder why Otonashi doesn’t have any memories. Wouldn’t it be ironic if he’s the actual “bad guy?” *lol*

Still, Iwasawa went to the next life I guess, having gotten to play the song she wanted to sing. Good thing the NPC teachers all stopped and let her ballad away, eh? ^_~ I suppose that’s the difference between “evil” rock music and an acoustical guitar ballad.

I bet Yui ends up getting a slot on Girls-De-Mo. The episode now seems to have set her up for such but we’ll see. Also, I noticed she has manacles on her wrists and a bit of chain. ^_^;;;;

I could not stand the little hacker punk who kept wanting to be called “Christ.” *_* Ugh.

I don’t know if it is supposed to mean anything or not, but Otonashi certainly drank a lot this episode.

Finally, I’d like to mention that while I got my chops busted for not understanding things in the first episode, I laughed my butt off when the whole purpose of Girls Dead Monster and the concert in the first episode was explained in full in this episode.

So, there is certainly interest for me in the series and we’ll see if things pay off in the end.