Review of Listeners

Let's start with the good things about Listeners: it has a great OST, its opening and ending are awesome; the art is good, sure sometimes like any anime in the last 10 years have those weird looking moments, but overall good; the animation is alright and sometimes good, when they are not relying in CGI. That's it. The idea behind the story is good, but its execution is a mess, it is pointless and with no closure, there are loose ends and they try to sound deeper than it actually is. One of the things they tried to gather fans was relying on good music andIRL references to great Rock musicians, you can't hold viewers for long if you are relying just on that. Then we get the characters, Echo is the same coward shounen hero you have seen a thousand times, a forgettable character even, Mu on the other hand felt more unique, however don't let this fool you, she is just the brave shounen hero, but as a cute girl - and, yes, I did eat the bait for her.

I usually like to praise or criticise the voice acting, but I was quite indifferent on that matter.

There is no sense of accomplishment in those episodes, they don't achieve nothing, it is a cat and mouse sorta. They tried introducing some deeper elements, but probably due to its age-rating they couldn't fully explore them - which could make the show a bit better -, so some of them felt rushed or one of those moments when we are lead to believe that "remember that thing happened a few episodes? Let's forget that happened, okay?"

Listeners brought a new idea, I can't help but think about the Silmarillion's creation of the Middle-Earth world through music, but this concept was terrible adapted in Listeners. I hope that the public repercussion doesn't affect the future release of original animes, I just think they need to put some more work behind it and not release a good idea with a poor story.