>tfw you replay Angel Beats! 1st Beat and realize it was always peak fiction
Seriously, how did people sleep on this?
Maeda-sensei poured his heart into this thing. The way he expanded the characters past the anime? MASTERCLASS. Yui’s route alone mogs half of WA2’s cast, and that’s saying something. The balance between goofy SoL and absolute emotional devastation is classic Key magic.
And Otonashi actually feels like a real character here. The anime hinted at it, but the VN fleshes him out into a fully realized protagonist. You get why he's so fixated on helping people, you feel his connection to the others.
Maeda-sensei doesn’t miss when he’s allowed to breathe. You can tell he wanted this to be the definitive version of Angel Beats, and honestly? It is.
It is so obvious that this was meant to be the true story, not the rushed anime.
The Iwasawa route? GOAT tier. The final scenes had me crying like a bword. I had to alt-tab and stare at the wall for 15 minutes.
And don’t even get me started on the soundtrack.
The way "Ichiban no Takaramono" is used here should be illegal.
Maeda-sensei, you absolute madman. You’ve done it again.
Angel Beats bros... we won.