Beatless pretty much stands as a test of my belief that directors are important. Because if you take Mizushima Seiji out of this equation I don’t think you have a peg to hang your hat on, to be honest – there were more cringe-worthy moments in the premiere than I can shake a stick at, and not all that much to make one believe there’s something worth wading through them to get to.

Beatless does have a very nice look to it, but its eerie resemblance to Guilty Crown (due to the fact that the characters for both series were designed  by redjuice) is certainly unnerving, given what a debacle that show turned out to be.  There’s the nut of an interesting premise here, as played 0ut as the exploration of A.I. having souls is.  But there’s a lot of formula and really offensive anime cliche, including one (and there may be more) of the most unspeakably awful imouto characters I’ve ever seen (and that’s really saying something).  Mizushima-sensei is for all his talent a man of legendarily otaku bent, so this could be a real problem.

Yuko may be a deal-breaker, that’s how bad she is – but the other problem is that the two leads, Arato and Lacia, could not possibly be more of a trope than they are.  Doormat schoolboys and Rei Ayanami clones again, seriously?  If I’m going to put up with the really egregious otaku nonsense there has to be a reward (yes, I’m picturing Taichi and Harada-sensei on the train platform here), and right now I don’t see anything in Beatless with the potential to deliver it.  But I’ll give it one more episode to change my mind.