 Listeners, the latest anime from Studio Mapa, created by Gene, written by Dai Sato and directed by Hiroaki Ando. Set in a post-apocalypse, humanity is defending itself from the earless, mysterious creatures that are attacking the world. To combat the threat, players have risen, earning fame and fortune by destroying the earless. In this world, we follow Echo, a young man dreaming of adventure, joining players with a mecha of his own, as well as finding the mysterious Jimmy Stonefree. This all changes when he meets the mysterious Mew, a girl who's lost her memory and is a player herself. Together, the two characters will embark on a journey to find answers and possibly save the world in the process. In all honesty, the main reason I tuned in for Listeners was the art. I am a big fan of Dai Sato and his work on one of my all-time favorite anime, Eureka 7. I saw a lot of similarities between Listeners and Eureka. Echo is clearly a more confident Renton, Mew, a spunkier version of Eureka. There are vague hints of resistant forces, and like in Eureka 7, there's the tragedy of the scub coral. Now we have the earless, who are the misunderstood creatures. Years before the start of the series, Project Freedom Festival occurred, a last ditched effort by the world government to get rid of the earless. In it, multiple players gathered along with the character of Jimmy, whose exploits made him a legend worldwide, but his mysterious disappearance left a large gap in said world. When we're introduced to the character of Echo, he is living with his sister in a scrap town known as Liberchester, her main character dreams of grand adventures, meeting his idol and experiencing a life different than a mountain of scrap. Change comes with his discovery of an amnesiac girl who is a player with an input jack. You see, I should probably mention that Listeners is riddled with references, homages, and Easter eggs to music culture, from punk to rock, country, famous bands like The Beatles, Nirvana, The Who, iconic singers like Prince, Pink Floyd, Robert Johnson, so much more. If you love music, this show will be a pleasant reminder of its power to connect the world, and I guess that is one of the themes of the show. Players have auxiliary ports, if you will, which they plug their amps and sort of unveil large mecha to combat the ghostly earless. In a lot of ways, Listeners is the blended smoothie of Eureka 7 and Kingdom Hearts, or at least to me. The characters are varied and diverse, with a plot that is both a journey of self-discovery and an examination of human prejudice, as well as the effects of war and false idols. Like any good story, Listeners relies on its lead characters to carry the plot forward. At 12 episodes, the series doesn't have a lot of time to set everything properly, and instead we get our information in real time as Echo and Mew begin their journey, exploring the concept of earless, players, love, and war through their inexperienced eyes. Echo is a hopeful dreamer who glorifies players. Mew, on the other hand, she doesn't remember much, but she's fearless, a bit confused, but fearless nonetheless. And it's this sort of interesting dynamic between the two characters that makes you want to root for them and keep the story going forward, the way they stumble and grow as characters, maybe as friends, or maybe something else. Unfortunately, Listeners should have been longer, like way longer. At 12 episodes, we get constant exposition dumps on themes that would normally take seasons to explore and understand. We never quite get the true nature of our enemies, instead the show opts for a traveling adventure with quick glances at world building. This world is quite big and rich with history. Unfortunately, it isn't explored all that well, leaving the viewer with thoughts as to what exactly is happening and why should we care about secondary characters that don't really contribute to the overall plot. The big question of Jimmy Stonefree, his origins and disappearance are crucial to the story, and even then it doesn't get fully fleshed out until the final episodes. Normally this would be standard story procedure, but in Listeners, there are more questions than answers and the viewer is left filling in the blanks. A lot of episodes are dedicated to the physical journey that the main characters are going through instead of them learning, you know, lessons or evolving as characters. Another problematic element for me was the actual lore. It may have been me, but I never really felt like I understood everything 100%. A lot of concepts are thrown around, but are sort of muddied, carelessly thrown in between echo and muse development. The true nature of the earless, the motivations of the government, how players first began, the actual process of them fighting and their abilities. It's all kind of rapidly explained in quick succession to each other. The story beats and pacing aren't as smooth as Sato's previous works. In Odeca 7 for example, we had 50 episodes to develop a protagonist and fully realize his journey. Here in Listeners, we get an abridged version, along with a brushed sequence of events that lead to a world being transformed by the final confrontation. The villains in the story come in two different sizes. You got the earless, who depending on the human factions can either be atrocious or misunderstood creatures. The human antagonist border between predictable megalomaniacs or clueless do-gooders. Yes, they are extremely well designed, but if the motivations aren't fully fleshed out, you kind of risk a disconnect with the audience. Like I'm probably hating on the series more than I should, but I'm simply bothered by an interesting story being resolved in the way that it did. Listeners has a ton of great concepts and truly unique visuals, rich character designs and wonderful set pieces. Fantastic artwork, wonderful voice acting. The usage of music as a theme that connects humanity and how the villains are devoid of sound is genuinely great. Echo and Mew both have charming personalities and a naive nature that will appeal to viewers. The nature of players themselves and the mechas are great. I'd love the blend of CG and traditional animation. The robot designs themselves are all pretty unique and different from what you expect when you talk mecha. Some of the secondary characters are pretty interesting and they do a good job at fleshing out the world, but unfortunately, Listeners suffers from being too short of a series. At 12 episodes, this definitely felt like it was supposed to be a longer series, but had all these plot elements just crammed in at the last second, if given more time to explore its setting, developing our villains and motivations a little bit more, as well as detailing the show's lore, Listeners could have been one of the modern greats in my honest opinion.