Beatless

This is about artificial intelligence and its applications, or rather how such intelligent androids should be properly handled, and how to find the right ways for humanity and its machines to co-exist. Now we are going to do a little sociological experiment... We are going to unleash a few autonomous and intelligent next-generation androids into a world where robots already exist, with each one having its own secret mission written into its code. Then we are going to put some of them with owners perfect for them, which means people who are going to help them achieve their objectives. Which direction is society headed in, what results will it bring, and what will ultimately be the most ideal way, and the purpose of living with artificial intelligence? You are going to find out in the four-part conclusion this winter because the anime’s screenwriters are a bunch of total fucking amateurs who absolutely do not know how to create and sustain a decent atmosphere! For example, they managed to dampen any suspense by cramming four recaps into a twenty-four-episode series, making me feel like they thought I was a complete moron who could not remember what the previous five episodes were about, while at the same time permanently ruining any interest in what was going to happen. So, the conclusion? As I have already written - you are going to have to wait until winter for that. However, in the meantime, instead of a cliffhanger, something that would have left me open-mouthed and as wound up as a bowstring, all I got was a stupid load of blathering on about nothing. This means that I already know that when the "grand finale" comes out, nobody is going to care two hoots about this anime series, and I am not even going to even remember watching something called Beatless. Not even the narrative can save it, that is a narrative which might have been quite interesting under different circumstances. This show’s narrative, however, is just soulless, emotionless, and without any suspense. This is also “helped” by the main two protagonists, the main female protagonist is clearly in the foreground, doing something, and behind her, the main male protagonist is simply just flapping around behind her doing bugger all. Even though he admittedly has rock-solid convictions, still all he can do is blindly trust his robot, despite the fact he is supposed to be the master of it. It is also marred by the quality and frequency of the dialogues because they only minimally move the story along, and often just feature characters chattering on and on about what has already been discussed a hundred times (Arato x Ryo). Plus, there are the occasional fight scenes, which also did not grab me in any significant way and could not redeem this show. Personally speaking, the final impression of Beatless is very poor, and if it had been called Soulless, that would have been more accurate. 2.7/10. (06/30/2018)