エンジェルビーツ Episode 04
Angel Beats! – 04

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Yui lobbies to take over for Iwasawa as lead singer for Girls Dead Monster but is met with reluctance on the part of SSS so Yuri leaves it up to the other members of the band to decide. In the meantime, Yuri decides that their next operation will be to illegally participate in the baseball tournament on campus and to that end, she tells them to form teams but they can’t do worse than a regular team lest they face a punishment worse than death. Hinata gets Otonashi to agree to help him form a team. Unfortunately, all the good players Hinata wants are already taken.

Yui offers her services which Hinata accepts, but for the wrong reasons which irritates her. Next stop is Shiina, who has been stressing over losing out to Otonashi in the Guild trip. So she’s been training by constantly balancing a broom on her finger and agrees to join the baseball team to further her concentration abilities. Next stop is Noda, who wants to fight Otonashi but Hinata manages to convince him to channel that energy into the baseball team for Yuri’s sake. Since they can’t get anyone else, Yui offers to get some of her fans to join from the normal students. Three girls join and Hinata decides they’ll just go with an eight-person team and have two people cover the outfield.

The games start with the SSS teams all advancing to the next round and Hinata’s being the last team to play in the first round. Despite massive idiocy, playing cold, and being a man short, Hinata’s team wins. That brings Tenshi, vice student president Naoi, and their team to the field. Tenshi goes along with playing the game even though Hinata’s team is illegal. Having a man short puts Hinata’s team at a disadvantage, but Matsushita joins at the last second and covers the entire outfield. Hinata keeps having visions of screwing up a big game when he was alive and when a pop fly heads his way, Otonashi thinks he’s going to disappear, having been told Hinata’s story. However, Yui, who’d been picked on by Hinata all along, uses that moment to get her revenge. Thus Tenshi’s team wins and it isn’t Hinata’s fault, though Yuri still wants Hinata and Yui to just disappear for losing.

Thoughts/Review:

A comedy episode that doesn’t appear to push forward the plot at all, there was very little Yuri, but does give us a glimpse at Hinata. I can live with that.

As I thought, Yui attempts to move into the lead singer’s role in Girls Dead Monster and while this episode doesn’t clear her to that role, I still think she’ll get it based on the new OP. I liked how the episode used the OP to display Yui’s audition. I really don’t have any thoughts one way or the other about the change in OP. I keep thinking that the OP will change frequently now to promote new songs but we’ll see.

Still, after Yui’s introduction last week, her rise to a more spotlight role made for some decent “little sister” humor. Hinata’s and Yui’s constant fighting reminded me of siblings aggravating each other and fighting as a result, though with less anger. Yui comes off as a type of idiot, but then that makes her remarks on the other idiots more funny. I wonder if Maeda-sensei will continue this aspect of their relationship, at least until one of them goes.

Speaking of going, Maeda-sensei led us right to the idea of Hinata disappearing so hard that it actually made me think, “Hinata won’t disappear.” However, I will admit that I didn’t expect Yui to come in and cause Hinata to miss the catch.

So, we learn a bit about Hinata’s past and how his miss of a fly ball during an important game was devastating. It seemed odd that someone would then offer him (apparently illegal) drugs to forget the pain. We don’t learn how Hinata dies, but we are left with the implication of drug overdose somehow. I know suicide is still a popular theory but at this point, all deaths seen could be the result of something other than suicide.

Anyway, Otonashi feared that Hinata would disappear and Hinata appeared ready to go to the other side if the catch was made. So, why would Otonashi be so keen on not letting Hinata disappear? Regardless, Hinata didn’t disappear thanks to Yui getting her revenge at the cost of the game AND a return to punishment by Hinata. *lol*

Having Shiina do everything this episode while balancing a broom on her finger made me chuckle. Matsushita (who looks very similar to Izumi from Lord of Lords Ryu Knight) made me laugh for a similar reason by eating his ramen/soba/whatever in the outfield and still making the catches to cover the entire outfield. However, the best laughs came from Noda and Otonashi’s rivalry. I didn’t expect Noda to reject Otonashi’s single up the middle by whacking it back to Otonashi, who hits it back, who hits it back, etc. By the time Otonashi was pitcher and Noda was catcher, I already knew what would happen but it was still amusing.

Tenshi’s role in this episode is somewhat different. I think this is the first time she hasn’t gone into battle mode to slaughter her opponents and allows the illegal baseball team. This continues to show how she’s really not the villain Yuri thinks she is, at least in my opinion. Still, as coach of her baseball team, she did slaughter her opponents in another way, thanks to Yui. *lol*

I wonder if there is anything more to Naoi since he’s Tenshi’s #1.

Finally, if thirteen episodes isn’t enough to tell the entire story, could this episode, fun though it was, not be seen as a complete and utter waste of precious broadcast seconds? That remains to be seen.

So, I’ve warmed up to this series well enough through four episodes. Bring on the next one!