Angel Beats

Not only does Angel Beats serve to entertain its fanbase with beautiful animation and amazing soundtrack, it also provides insight to human nature by carefully presenting its viewer with subtle hidden meanings.

If you take a closer look at Angel Beats, you will discover that the entire show is actually an allegory of existentialism: production of the human mind that results from fear and uncertainty. The very idea of mortal beings placed in charge, as opposed to events being driven by a divine will, is clearly illustrated by Yuri's desire to question the decisions of god himself. The SSS group, led by an a figure who wishes to challenge an omnipotent figure, is made up of members that chooses to follow the extremist out of ignorant fear. Blind faith resulting from ignorant fear, which derives from a complete separate ideology, serves to provide irony to the concept of existentialism in order to question the motives behind rejecting a concept that happens to be undeniably similar: The concept of fate and destiny that they all seem to reject.

Furthermore, in episode 2, we discover that even Yuri herself didn't have enough faith in her own motives, as she laments that her incompetence led to the disaster. Her shaking faith in her own being, which serves as the representation of existentialist beliefs, along with the blind and ignorant faith that clings so closely to the idea, serves as a brief commentary and an insight to the idea of having definite beliefs and outlooks in general. The very fact that one can easily adapt to the wills of an omnipotent figure, and the fact that one can also easily deny the existence of such will, is more or less the prime example of the weaknesses of the human mind. The SSS members try to justify their pseudo-cartesian dualism with a separate religious concept, and this phenomenon further confirms the weakness of the human will as they desperately hang onto a concept that one can easily dismiss as nothing more than a fairy tale.