So, the first episode of Charlotte aired a few hours ago. Surprisingly enough, the pilot episode turned out really, really good. A couple things really stood out for me. First, there's the comedy. Jun Maeda's attempts at humour, at least for me, tends to fall flat a lot of the time. But the comedy in Charlotte worked really well - partly because of how surreal it is (it is an anime based on supernatural powers, after all). My guesses are, however, that Charlotte will soon turn on its drama mode. Maeda has done that with just about everything he's ever written. So expect Charlotte to be a lot less funny, very very soon.
The MC also has a lot of character to him. A lot of the 'old' Key MCs (Yukito, Yuuichi, and to an extent Tomoya) are very flat characters that act more like proxies for self-inserting fans. But since Little Busters, Key MCs have gotten much more interesting. So far, Maeda has done an admirable job letting Yuu drive the story, instead of letting the heroines do the job for him. Everyone else also feels very likeable - especially Yuu's little sister. I remember watching the stream last night and was almost about to fall asleep when I heard that high-pitched 'Onii-chan!'. Truly music to my ears. Adding an under-aged, cute, high-pitched imouto to any cast seems to work nowadays. Or at least it works for me.
Being P.A.Works, the background art is absolutely superb as always. They've never failed to disappoint with pretty pictures and hopefully, they can keep up the quality for the next twelve episodes. My only concern, at this point, is that Maeda keeps his story tight and coherent. A problem with Angel Beats (as acknowledged by the man himself) is that it featured too large a cast and there was impossible to squeeze so many stories into 13 episodes. As long as Maeda focuses on what he already has, Charlotte will probably turn out really good (like, 'anime-of-the-year' good). Knowing that this show will eventually turn into a soap opera makes me very happy. In all, episode one is great. Hopefully it stays that way.
