In a Nutshell
Set in a post-apocalyptic world that has been terrorized by shadowy creatures known as Earless for far too long, the humanity is now to battle their inhuman enemies. The series focuses on a boy called Echo, who wants to join the fight against the Earless.
FLCL on 8rugs
It is quite obvious that something like ‘a boy finds a mystery girl and together they save the world’ sounds way too overused. Here, however, the show at least gives the girl with amnesia a personality. Let us see if this show even tries to be ‘somewhat’ unique. The boy is your Takkun (FLCL), or Simon (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann), in other words, weak, nerdy boy, who want to escape and change something in his life. The problem, however, that he shows even less development than Takkun and Simon, he is just your average Joe that you have seen 100000 times already. The girl, μ, has an amnesia (I am not going to stress the fact how many times it has been used in other series). She looks like a big human amplifier, do not ask me why, Japan is weird, yes. While she does have 0 recollection of what she is, she does not care about it and keeps fighting. People like her are called players, and they are known for bringing music into the world. Unfortunately, players have been banned from the town Echo lives in, because earless monsters might destroy Echo’s town, if they were to cooperate with any players.
It Is Just Way Too Generic
The show does focus on music, which is something you will rarely see, ehem Macross, ehem and it does manage to be somewhat unique, but it just fails to be anywhere entertaining. A series that focuses on music, has such a weak OST, please. Listeners does use mecha fights and does it quite often, I must say. But these action scenes are just way too boring. I mean, mecha fights must be epic, mecha means epic and here they are just anything but epic.
Too Many Things Going On
Listeners is a great example of a show that tries to be everything, but fails to be good. You are introduced to the world of Listeners, however, you do not get a normal explanation about where the Earless came from, what the mechs are exactly, where Players came from, who are the Earless, what they want and so on. It is perfectly fine, if you do not want to focus on the actions scenes, no problem. But do pay enough time to the world-building and characters. Already the main protagonists, let us be honest, are nothing special, but the show introduces more and more characters that do not receive enough development, as well as the screen time for the viewer to like them, to understand what they are and what they are trying to achieve and many many more.
Not Recommended (6/10)
But it does not mean that you should not watch this series. It is not bad, it is just average. I will not try to deny the fact that it did try to be unique and it could have become quite successful show of this season, if more attention has been paid from the side of the staff members of the series. However, this show is just way too generic, it shows way too many things I have seen too many times already, so seeing it one more time was not quite what I was looking forward.
