エンジェルビーツ Episode 12
Angel Beats! – 12

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

As Kanade battles the Shadows alone, the remaining members of Girls Dead Monster have decided that they are ready to move on, as do all of the unnamed members of SSS. After finishing their work, Otonashi, Hinata, and Naoi head outside where there are tons of Shadows they have to battle. They are soon joined by Noda, TK, and other named members of SSS, including a slimmed down Matsushita. Ooyama covers them from a window as they battle countless Shadows. However, they can make no progress until Shiina arrives to allow the others to go to Yuri.

Yuri encounters heavy Shadow resistance and finds Chaa, who has a special weapon ready for her. Since the fighting is almost over, they say their goodbyes and he vanishes. Yuri fights her way to the main part of the old guild but after taking a break, finds herself surrounded and caught. Kanade senses what happened to Yuri immediately as Yuri finds herself in the ideal school setting. For a time she goes with it but her heart is elsewhere even if she doesn’t remember events nor the SSS. Finally, she decides that she can’t take this ideal world and she’s “pulled” to safety by Otonashi, accompanied by Hinata, Naoi, and Kanade.

Making their way further in, a massive number of Shadows block their path, which Kanade immediately dispatches. However, more arrive so Otonashi sends Yuri on while they take care of the Shadows. Yuri finds a second computer lab with all of the stolen computers and a teen male waiting. He is a simple program that was constructed by the original creator of this world, who fell in love here, lost that love when that person disappeared, then the creator turned themselves into an NPC with the program running to cause Shadows to be created with the Angel Player program whenever love appeared.

The construct senses great love and Yuri understands that despite it all, she’s come to love the members of SSS like a family. The construct states that sometimes people who do not have issues to deal with get caught in this world which is usually when the love bug occurs. Since this world is supposed to be purgatory and not paradise, the Shadows form to deal with the “bug” that is love by transforming them into NPC’s. Given the option to change the world and in effect become “God,” Yuri decides to destroy the lab to save the others. She sees her young siblings who give her permission to move on. Crying, Yuri wakes up in one of the beds at the school infirmary with the smiling Otonashi, Naoi, Hinata, and Kanade looking at her.

Thoughts/Review:

In most ways, there’s almost no point in speculating about this anime series ’cause chances are we are going to be very wrong. I had felt strongly that Yuri may have created this world and other souls like hers came here, some moving on and some staying to fight the power. This episode seems to have flushed that since someone else created the world and Yuri was just an unhappy soul who got caught here. Others have said that the world was filled with suicide people and that doesn’t appear to be true. Still others have stated that maybe this is a VR world or maybe it really is what they say it is — purgatory. What will end up being true?

This episode did feel like it pulled from the Matrix when Yuri encountered the nameless construct program. I couldn’t help but think of when Neo met the Architect in the Matrix. That said, I don’t subscribe to the theory that this world is a VR world where all these unconscious people are hooked up to. I could be wrong, but I think it is what the anime has said it is — an in between place for these kids to lose their regrets after death and move on.

I’ve long thought that there was something different about Kanade. As “Tenshi,” she was always in reactive mode, not prevention mode. Further, she seems to respond to orders, especially those of Otonashi. Yuri mistakes her as an angel of God but Kanade denies this and Yuri comes to believe her to be human. Despite this, she has some sort of extraordinary abilities beyond what Yuri and company can do.

Taking into consideration what was revealed in the info dump, I’d say that Kanade is in fact the original creator of this world turned NPC. Why? Well for starters, she uses the same Angel Player software that the construct in Lab 2 used to create Shadows. Second, she is human, yet displays certain NPC characteristics. The episode implies the creator of the world would be male when his girlfriend moved on to the next world. So what if the creator turned his NPC self into the form of his girlfriend Kanade? That would make sense to me.

Of course, this could all be wrong since as I said from the top, it has been very difficult speculating on things.

As to the info dump, it is a shame we didn’t get more episodes to avoid that. Kajishima-sensei (Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki) is notorious for doing them in his anime titles, but that’s mainly because he loves the “day in the life” stuff and spends too much time on that instead of plot. However, I have to say that the info dump in this episode has to be the worst one I’ve ever witnessed and certainly the most confusing (had to go back and rewatch that part twice). Had there been more time, the information could have been doled out over time and that would have lead to a nice buildup. Instead, we got what we got and it comes off as a lot left-field. I wonder if the book(s) and manga will fill in the gaps.

Finally, the ending. Are they still in the world or what? Kanade is smiling, which is so odd. Also, Kanade seemed to be linked to Yuri earlier which also seems odd. I wonder if that means that Yuri is the reincarnation of the programmer’s love in this world. Wait! I’m speculating again and I gotta stop that.

One more episode to go. We’ll see how things pan out and I look forward to seeing that.