deven64 - 2014-11-10 20:04:50

Beck is a anime about the life of a young teenager by the name of Yukio Tanaka(But often called by his nickname Koyuki) as he, and his friends, go through the hardships of becoming a famous rock band.

The story of Beck does not start of that well, some could say it has a very bad start, but the anime quickly grows on you. Although there are a few plot holes here and the story is quite satisfying with the movement of the plot being mostly realistic.

The animation is not one of the anime's strong points for sure. Becks has a creative and fitting character design but falls flat in making those characters move, with characters that are far away seem to repeat the same frame over and over. The animation clearly is at its strongest when it is in extreme close ups or zoomed out looking at a crowd but seems to struggle in between. Although it struggles most of the time, keeping in mind that this was made in 2004 the anime does succeed in creating a beautifull atmosphere and the budget for the animation was clearly mostly pumped into when music is being played.

The characters are a mix of fantastic and terrible. The main cast are very unique and very identifiable, ranging from the shy but level headed Koyuki to the lovable yet idiotic Chiba. Although most of the main cast are unforgettable the supporting cast seems to often be the opposite, I saw myself more than once, on my second viewing of the anime, asking myself how I forgot the character I am currently looking at even existed. Sadly the anime also deals with the trope of having a main antagonist that is an asshole for no other reason but that he needs to be for the main character to be motivated, which was a real shame. Although there are bad characters they are rarely shown and you are free to enjoy most of the show without them.

Finally the sound. The OST for the anime is simply outstanding, subjectively speaking. The voice actors do great jobs in bringing the characters to life and Kazuya Hirabayashi making the entire anime all that more enjoyable by being the main vocals.

Overall the anime, by no means perfect, is still a great anime for not just it's genre but an all around great viewing that you should really check out.

minnie06 - 2014-10-25 21:08:52

"A musician's or artist's responsibility is a simple one, and that is, through your music to tell the truth." - Tom Morello

Story

  The story pursuits the events of the main protagonist Yukio Tanaka (Koyuki to his friends) as he moves on through his teenage life becoming a guitarist, singer and member of the band Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad. Through the episodes he learns to become a better musician from his band mates as well as from an older man, Mr. Saito. On the side he also does swimming, school, and jobs to help pay for his fees that he needs for the band’s albums and instruments. Over the time he goes through many conflicts, such a romantic issues, bullying, and personal feelings of being unworthy. The writing for the show is really well done. It really show the development of a teenagers life. The story has many good ideas as well as some interesting humor, dialogue, and plot twists that work very nicely. Overall it is a very enjoyable story.

    Pacing is something that you would either love or hate in the show. Personally I think the pacing is actually well done to suit the tone of the show. There are plenty of moments that are just awesome, and these moments are packed together into one or two episodes and then there would be about three or four episodes before anything meaningful happened again. I know some people would find this as bad pacing for a show, which I somewhat agree with, but its actually realistic. Life, and to another extent teenage life, isn't always paced well because we are supratik beings.

   One issue I have is simply with how the ending feels pretty rushed although satisfying overall story-wise. It was the only time while watching the show that it took me out of the realism the show had before.

Animation

The dark tones and colors really put you in the mood for what is happening. You can see the cold and somewhat dampness to the streets and alleyways. the darkened clubs and bright school atmosphere perfectly give the feel of the true life.

Characters' visual design shares the nature of the characters themselves, the main cast simple and real, and the supporting cast is fantastic, from black record executives who encapsulate a good percentage of relevant stereotypes to shop assistants resembling Swedish guitar virtuosos. At times this difference is striking, at other times simply odd, but undeniably the fantastic designs of the supporting cast make the main characters seem even more human by comparison.

Foremost among these are the often jarring uses of three dimensional models, particularly during some of the performance scenes. These performance scenes represent both the best and worst of the animation in Beck, usually incredible but occasionally clunky and amateur. It is good to note, however, that all of the major performances are almost universally on the better end, leaving only the minor scenes to suffer this fate. The way fingers move while picking a guitar is so convincing, you might believe that it was rotoscoped.

Sound

The use of sound in the series is great. They only play music when the characters can also hear it. The strum of every chord and every drumbeat sounds great which makes the song sound amazing.

Beck's soundtrack represents both the strongest and weakest point of the series. Because of the nature of the story in Beck, a great deal rides on the audience's impression of the soundtrack, particularly the tracks performed by the bands within the series. Unfortunately, this is a dangerous position, as disliking the music gives much of the series a false feel, in part nullifying the humanity of the story and the interactions within it. The soundtrack does, however, perform its task admirably throughout the series, and I personally love almost every song from the series a great deal. But while the series stands on its strong points well even should you dislike any song, it becomes nearly impossible to view the series the same way, particularly towards the conclusion, if you find the music to not be your thing.

The music is not the usual JPop fare, but a refreshing mix of punk rock and hip-hop, if you like Rage Against the Machine, Beck and to a lesser extent Death Grips and Nirvana then you're well on the way of liking Becks music.  

What is most intriguing is that the music actually improves over the course of the series. The last four episodes have a wide variety and display polished songs that have developed over the course of the series. Without a doubt this is the strongest point of the series. The other bands in the show are also quite good and quite realistic in how they sound as well. I like how they show some of the differences in genres and it’s nice that they had someone knowledgeable enough about music to show that. It’s nice how they didn't just play punk rock the whole show and delve into different types of rock as well as rap and blues.

The English dub is quite fantastic. The English voice actors for the main characters are amazing especially for Ryusuke the lead guitar player, his sister Maho, Koyuki. Taira the bassist and Saku the drummer are also consistently good throughout the show when it comes to voice acting. Honestly almost every single voice actor for the English dubs does a great job including most of the side characters as well. I thought the voice actor for Chiba was a great and still is but I found that while he is singing I prefer the japanese voice actors voice more because of how serious he sounds while he sings. Justin cook while singing as Chiba seems like he mocking Zack de la Rocha's voice.

Characters

The Main characters in Beck's cast all retain an honest, human feel to them. This is juxtaposed against the fantastical nature of most of the series' supporting cast, and solidifies the sense of close-knit family which develops within the band and the people close to them. This down to earth feel persists even as the characters gain wider and wider success, making what might have been a completely unbelievable and unsympathetic story decidedly the opposite. The band members being different from one another especially, the way each band member is influenced by different genres of music is an interesting way to show how each character is unique to the band. You have Chiba the Punk and Rap influenced singer, Koyuki the Classic Rock Guitarist, Saku the Hard Rock Drummer, Tyra the New Wave bassist, and Ryuuske the Blues and Grunge lead Guitarist. Each one brings their own sound and feel and they combine them all for the bands sound.

Enjoyment/Experiences

Personally Beck has to be not only the most influential anime in my life, but in all of fiction. I have watched this show in it entirety three times, when I was 13,16,and 19 and each time it influenced me in one way or another. The first time I watched it I actually didn't like music. I thought music was boring and didn't have a lot of redeeming qualities. But after watching Beck for the first time I got really into music. I started listening to Rock mostly then got into Rap, Country, Jazz and Punk music afterwards. A year after watching the show I got a guitar and started teaching myself how to play. The second time I watched it, it influenced me to create a band.We broke up a year later but I can't think of anime that made me want to pursue the same desires as the main character's.

Epilogue

   This anime wont be enjoyed by everyone, not even every music fan. It's one of my favorites and its ranked that high because of how I felt while watching it, as if I was seeing my life in his eyes. I doubt anyone will make the connection I made to this anime, but its worth a shot to try and see. You don't have to know anything about music in order to enjoy the drama that unfolds in this show. Also If you were wondering how did Beck influence my the last time. It made me want to review it.

Another Thing

If you're still on the fence whether to watch the series or not, or if you didn't read all of my review. I would recommend watching the opening for the series. There is only one and it perfectly represents what the personality of the show. All the characters act their part, the song is something the band would either play or listen to, and the animation goes from realistic to somewhat lazy.

vicente45 - 2014-10-08 19:30:18

juvenal.mayer - 2013-12-09 00:47:43

One of the few stories i really feel related to. the story of a boy who thinks that he only can have a normal life until someday he stars learning guitar and discovers the magic of music. the pain of the first times you play it, the times that you want to give up but you keep doing it because you love it, the ups and downs of making a band, the feeling of playing live, the friendship you form with the band members, everything is perfectly capture in this series. The power of music, doing what you love and get into people with it. a really good series that shows you that your life can change in the flip of coin. One of the best slice of life i have ever see. Is really something that you should you watch.

rodriguez.emmie - 2013-09-10 13:34:23

The story of Beck can really happen in the real life from an ordinary dream to what you call reality. I enjoy the misic session in beck its really amazing it actually move my feeling somehow that i cant explain whats going on

For those who haven't watch Beck don't be the last one to watch it its an awesome anime

xdaugherty - 2013-07-31 14:06:22

At first glance, Beck seemed a lot like a typical music anime where a group of people create a band and make it big after a lot of work. It does touch in on some of those aspects but it also adds quite a bit to make it more then your typical music anime.

As you can probably tell, the anime is about a group of people coming together and forming a band called Beck. Starts off with your typical assembly of the band in which one of the main characters named Ryusuke goes around trying to find the right members to form the ultimate band in the hopes of making it big. The show then plays out and you get to see the highs and lows of trying to reach the top. I really liked the realism and I can somewhat connect to the hardships these guys had to go through.

The animation at first was very odd. It took me some time to get over it but as the episodes went by I ended up liking it quite a bit. The characters all look normal and it is a nice change of pace if coming from a series like K-On. Apart from how bizarre the dog looked, I have to say the animation was definitely good.

The sound in this show is stellar. I had a great time listening to the soundtrack during and after the show and can't find any faults in regards to the music given. If I were to give any negatives on it. It would have to be that in some scenes when the band is listening to music, and the the songs change from one to another. They all sound the same even though a different song is playing. I found it off but it wasn't something to pull me out of the show.

Overall, Beck a great show to watch on my free time and I recommend it to anyone interested in any sort of music. If you don't like music, well watch it anyways because I'm sure you'll be surprised.

isidro.okon - 2013-07-30 21:44:04

Welcome to Greatful Sound and the brilliant sound of BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad.

Most music anime follow a stricked formula, characters come together, sound amazing right off the bat, are set for a big concert, something happens, will they make it or won't they? They succed and thats it. No Character development, no engaging side stories and music wise you have nothing but J-Pop (not that theres anything wrong with that, if this is your cup of tea I point you towards Love Live! and K-On!). Music anime nowadays has started branching out (for example see AKB0048), but if you want a realistic Slice of Life, Music anime with interesting characters, abrilliant story and music in the style of 1970's Rock, Punk, Rap and a touch of the Beatles. Then I highly recommend this Show.

The Story centers around Koyuki, whos outlook on life is after 14 years of living, his life is going nowhere. while walking home oneday he ends up rescuing a strange frankinstein like dog from a group of kids. The dog, Beck, belongs to Ryusuke, a half Japanese half American 16 year old guitar player. Through Ryusuke he discovers the joy of music, meets Ryusuke's 14 year old sister Miho and eventually decides that this is the life he wants. Learning how to play the guitar from the school swim coach, Saitou in return for cleaning his house. After establishing himself as an Average guitar player, Miho discovers that Koyuki is an increadible singer with untaped potential. After all the twists and turns, establishing the band, the ups and downs, releasing there first album, mafia ties and the greatest opertunity of ther lives. Will they be able to make it through?

Characters are all fairly injoyable with every one having there own personality and growth. Plenty of colourful characters rangeing from the students, teachers, bullies, music producers etc. Voice acting in both English and Japaese are top notch and worthy of prase. Greg Ayres and Brina Palencia are absolutly brilliant, both seasoned professionals with brilliant singing voices. If you want an example look up 'Moon on the water' (Koyuki and Miho version) and 'Slip Out a little more than before'. Japanese wise Daisuke Namikawa does a great job as Koyuki's everyday Voice but the real stand out is Kazuya Hirabayashi as Koyuki's singing voice, having to sing a mixture of english and japanese with a great care not to trip over words. The only fault I had with the acting was with a few episodes early on in the japanese dub were Ryusuke and Miho attempt to speach to each other in what is esentually engrish, other than that, good all round.

The animation is a bit jarring at first especially with the character design but does't ruin the experirience. backgrounds and crowds have a fair amount of detail but the art really shines during concerts and especially the instraments. Guitar players will know straight away that Koyuki's guitar is definatly a Fender Telecaster and Ryusuke certainly plays a Gibson Les Paul (certainly looks cooler than mine).

Most of the music is by a japanese band named the Beat Crusader, some of there original tracks can be heard throughout the show, including the opening theme "Hit in the USA" and during an early episode "50c Wisdom" (allthough stated to be by the fictional band Dying Breed). A number of other tracks of theres include, "Love Discord", "Moon on the Water" and "Gymnasium". The Ending theme "My World Down" is by Meister. This Anime got me in to Beat Crusaders so I gotta say even if you don't watch this show, check them out. It's Worth it.

All an all this is highly recommended, and while it may appear slow to start, it is well worth the watch and if your a music fan you should find your moneys worth. ^_^

deron07 - 2013-07-09 00:24:51

The first time I heard about BECK I thought I would fall asleep in the first 10 minutes but since I’m a really big music fan I decided to give it a try so let’s see how it turned out :

Story:

The story follows our main bored protagonist Yukio Tanaka (Koyuki) in his adventure to become a rock star. What I like about the beginning of the story is that Koyuki never thought about playing an instrument before, he just liked listening to music, he was pretty average which makes it easier to relate to him, but when he stumbled across Ryusuke, he started to consider actually creating music, not just listening. The storytelling is so true to life it’s almost incredible, people change, your friends may disappear, you meet new people but not all of them are nice, it’s just like real life. The anime could have been a live action series and it would have been the same. The narrative is almost perfect, almost. What I didn’t like was the inclusion of the subplot which kind of got in the way of everything near the ending.

Characters:

Just like I said earlier the characters were very realistic, they weren’t over exaggerated or clichéd or cardboard cutouts, they act like real people. Koyuki is your average high schooler, Maho is your normal nice girl who has a lot of bad friends. All of the characters look, feel and sound like real people which really helps the show.

Music:

There is no background music in this show, none, as long as someone doesn’t sing it or listens to it there’s no music, which again helps the realistic feeling of the show. I can’t praise the songs enough, for a music show this one does an amazing job. In my opinion you should watch this anime in English dub, even for sub fans I recommend the English dub. I know a lot of people prefer the original Japanese dub, the English one is way better in my opinion. Greg Ayres does a great job as Koyuki and everything sounds more natural. There are moments when the characters will speak in “engrish” and it sounds kind of bad since some of them are supposed to be Americans and some songs in english also sound kind of bad, I'm not bashing on the Japanese cast because they also did an amazing job but overall the English dub sounds better and more realistic in my opinion.

Animation:

Some people get turned off by the animation calling it bad, but I must disagree, the animation fits perfect with what the show is trying to portray, reality. Madhouse chose the perfect art style for the show, but still it had some bad portions since they invested all the money in the concert scenes which look amazing: sweat dripping off the moving bodies, the epic guitar picking, everything in the concert scenes look amazing.

Ending remarks:

Overall Beck is one of my favorite anime, I can understand why a lot of people find this boring but I never felt that way, I was glued to the screen all the time, if you enjoy slice of life or music anime this is a must watch.

waters.lorna - 2013-06-16 15:49:53

Being someone who hardly ever watches a show twice, Beck is just one of those shows that left me so impressed and emotional that I did actually watch it twice. That may not sound that impressive, but this series in itself doesn't have any one thing that just reads off the chart in awesomeness. That being said: this show combines so many parts of life and mixes these with some of the bitter sweet things that just happen to people. It shows how someone who's "normal" with all his issues and maybe some baggage can grow after finding his passion and throwing himself all the way in to the deep end. I've never seen any anime as moving and with such a sense of "reality" as this. For people who like slice of life with a bit of drama mixed in; this is just the perfect show to go and marathon on a rainy Saturday.

vshields - 2013-05-18 10:39:36

It still puzzles me how "Beck" managed to get me hooked, lined, and sunk (especially considering how I thought it was crap after the first couple of episodes), but it did. And for the life of me, I just can't work out how a run of the mill underdog story can be so good, but it just IS.It's not hard to dismiss "Beck" in the opening few episodes. The animation style is quirky, inconsistent. With the face of the main character's friend looking like a horrible child's doodle and the dog looking like a weird stuffed animal, it gave off a distinct impression of amateur-ness (yeah I know that's not a real word). Just about the only thing that can impress is the detailed guitar playing scenes. The horrible Engrish spoken by some of the characters who are supposed to have grown up in America is also rather off putting. Content wise.... nope, nothing looks special here either. Here's the main character Koyuki - from his design, you can already tell he's one of those boring loser of a main character. And is he? Yep, he ticks all the boxes alright, including the telling getting-bullied-at-school one. And yeah, he also fancies this trendy, pretty, outgoing girl... no doubt she'll fall for him too, even though there are less loser-ish, more likely candidates for her affection. Even though the first few episodes failed to impress, I continued to watch as I had trouble sleeping and had nothing better to do at the time. I don't know exactly how it happened (the anime didn't really make any drastic changes, like for example "Kimi ga Nozomu Eien"), or when, but before I knew it I was addicted. The number of episodes I watched per night suddenly skyrocketted. I continued to sleep late, but now "Beck" became the reason for it rather than insomnia."Beck" revolves around the story of a amateur rock band named... well, Beck, trying to make it big. It pushes many of the right buttons when it comes to band matters - a good friend of mine who is in a similar situation found it very easy to connect to the stories in "Beck". He said a lot of the difficulties Beck faced such as hunting for the right members, song writing etc are the same ones he often comes across with his own band. The music in "Beck", with the exception of a few tracks, was kinda crap. The opening theme's quite addictive, but isn't that appropriate given that Beck's association with alternative rock. The ending theme is a much more pleasing offering (in fact it was probably best song in the show), sounding so polished that I wondered if it was an Oasis song, due to the rasping vocals that resembled Liam Gallagher's. Turned out it wasn't... but it was convincing enough that I had to go and check."Beck" does a good job immersing itself in the rock culture, with tons of references to music greats - the ending credits even featured hand drawn impressions of the likes of Freddie Mercury, Kurt Cobaine and Bob Marley. Not all the artists they reference are real though, for example the Rocket Boys are made up - I checked! "Beck" accurately represents many aspects of rock scene, from the passion and counter cultural mindset to the often arrogant, pretentious rock attitudes such as dismissing pop as music that "can't save anyone" (yeah... I'm sure rock can... as shown by the huge number of famous rockstar deaths *rolleyes*) and that only rock music can be meaningful. The latter was often done unwittingly, for example one time through some lyrics which were hilariously misinterpreted. The whole incident was supposed to be a big joke, but accidently served to highlight the tendencies for rock enthusiasts to take themselves too seriously and reading too deeply into meanings that just aren't there. This isn't a criticism on "Beck" itself though, as it's a natural by-product of capturing the vibes of the rock scene so perfectly. You can tell that the makers must be totally into it themselves.Although the cultural aspect of "Beck" is probably the only part of it that isn't obviously flawed, that's not really what makes this anime tick. It's difficult to say exactly what does. The story hasn't got any great surprises in store, with most of my early predictions hitting the mark, but is very addictive once it gets off the ground. And to its credit, it remained more grounded in reality than fantasy throughout, as the band doesn't suffer the miraculous success syndrome that most other underdog stories have. The character development is often inconsistent, I can't help but feel they changed their minds a couple of times about what they wanted to do with them. The romance isn't very well done, and is prone to being suspended for long periods of time as the storyline suddenly veers off in a different direction. But despite all these flaws, "Beck" somehow manages to connect strongly at a personal level. Even though main character has a bit of a losers trait, I couldn't help but like him, and his moments of courage often made me sooo want to egg him on. During key moments, "Beck" always comes up with the goods. For example, at the memorable climax of the series when the band was winging it at a concert, despite the music not really being to my taste, and despite Koyuki's voice sounding, as usual, less amazing than what the other characters make it out to be, I found myself bobbing my head to the music, totally caught up in the amazing atmosphere. Not only that, I somehow felt proud of Koyuki... as though he was a personal friend of mine. Perhaps that's secret of "Beck" - the down to earth characters that you can easily empathise with.Whatever it is, this far from flawless anime is an immensely enjoyable experience that's worth sticking with even if you don't like it at first. Even now I'm still not sure why I like it so much. Perhaps it just has, as the Queen song goes, "A Kind of Magic" (sorry ... I couldn't resist! :P).