Angel Beats

I found interesting parallels between Angel Beats and Evangelion, Haruhi, and Clannad.

It's incredibly interesting to lookup seiyuu for the characters in Angel Beats. It is hilarious to find that Otonashi's sister and Nagisa from Clannad share the same voice. It is made more awesome by the fact that the scene with Otonashi's sister in it is awfully similar to a certain scene in Clannad. Even the most minor characters in Angel Beats are voiced by extremely influential seiyuu, and it feels like a amalgam of everything that makes anime great. Have you ever seen the love that fans have for Evangelion? Imagine watching Angel Beats and being excited when you see a stellar performance by Naoi's seiyuu (also Shinji). Naoi's appearance in itself is interesting enough already, being the first real danger, who [may] have the power to send people to the next life. You're engrossed in the story, you get to the climax in Computer Room 2, and you see what appears to be the final villain. Then you hear his voice, and how cathartic is the realization that it's Kaworu.

The similarities between Haruhi and Yuri is also interesting, especially when Yuri has the chance to become a god. It's almost completing an idea laid out by Haruhi.

About the scene where Yui disappears: my reading is Hinata and Yui didn't necessarily have romantic feelings for each other yet, but they were amicable and liked each other as friends. Hinata was basically saying that he could fall in love with her despite her condition and Yui disappeared because she then chose to believe that there is a person like that who could exist.

The main point is: what does it mean to live?