Listeners

Episode 12

Here we have it, the big finale of Listeners, and like any sci-fi action series made after 2000, it's got to go out on a big emotional confrontation where the fate of the world hinges on magical robot powers that let enemies and allies alike understand eachother for the first time. At least this time the robot magic is also tied to music, which is actually a pretty good vehicle for facilitating empathy and one of the few times the show has managed to harmonize its musical aesthetic with its broader themes. Still, at this point it definitely feels like the story going through the motions of what's expected for it. There are still some buried gems in the dialogue – Roz gets probably the best line of the whole show when Denka starts to call Echo the second-coming of Jimi: “It's nothing so grand. All he did was express what was in his heart, and the world chose all by itself to be moved by it.” It's a perfect encapsulation about the act of making music, how it can be at once personal and powerfully external, and I came out of the climax really wishing those feelings had really been at the center of this story and conflict.

As is, Listeners' conclusion mostly serves as an object lesson in spoiled potential. There are multiple monologues and speeches during Mu and Echo's big confrontation that try to tie a bow on the questions of understanding, hope, and love that have been thrown around across the show's runtime, but through most of them I kept asking “wait, is that what you were trying to be about?” as the show seemed to self-assuredly wrap up on the sentiment of not labeling others and reaching out to learn who they really are. It's certainly not a bad moral to build your show around, but through the sprawling, cluttered stories Listeners has told that only ever felt like one of its many philosophical toys it would bring out when it wanted to add weight to its rock'n'roll robot dystopia.

And then there's Track 13, which makes up the back-half of this finale so we can double up on Beatles references, and tries to be a happy epilogue where Humans and Earless now live in harmony and everyone gets a new beginning, but also serves to throw in two very random twists that I cannot wrap my head around. The first is easily the dumbest, with the reveal that LYDE and Richie were alive the whole time and just off camera some where. It's a bizarre joke to end Nir's arc with, and pulls the rug out of what was one of the more emotionally effecting beats in the whole story. I get they didn't want to leave Nir alone and mourning when everyone else gets a happy ending, but there had to be a better way to go about it.

The other twist comes in the form of that elf looking kid in the review image, who looks so much like a fusion of Echo and Mu I initially thought that what they were. But the final post-credits scene assures us that our protagonists are alive and distinct, going on yet another adventure together, and they certainly haven't aged enough to have a kid either. Going by a blink-and-you'll-miss-it bit in the climax I've got to assume that's the new form of Listeners, now that Mu's own personality has split off entirely, and I guess they get to start a new life coexisting with humans just like the other Earless. If that is the case, that's a real baffling way to conclude an already underdeveloped storyline, and making the delivery so vague just leaves me scratching my head rather than soaking in the good vibes of your happy ending. In all, these final scenes are just a strange, discordant note to go out on for the series.

So that's where I stand on the finale, but what about Listeners as a whole? Well...ok. I have made my fair share of musical puns and metaphors throughout Listeners' run, and I'm proud of every last terrible one of them, but there's a particular comparison I've been trying to hold off on until the show could play out its tracklist. It's not a damning comparison, nor a particularly kind one altogether, but having finished the show I think it's entirely fitting. Plus the show starts with an Oasis reference and ends on TWO Beatles name drops, so really it's inviting this:

Listeners is the Be Here Now of anime.

If you've watched this show for this long I assume that comparison makes sense to you, but for those who only know Oasis from the Eden of the East OP, Be Here Now is the band's 3rd full-length album and widely considered the bomb that took them from the biggest name in rock music to a faded memory of the mid-90's. While on the whole it's not a terrible album, it's a work defined by pretentious of grandiosity being undercut by a vapid, vacuous lack of real sentiment; an LP that intends to be profound but in the end feels too soupy and disjointed to achieve it. It's also littered with an embarrassing amount of Beatles references that only serve to remind you of much better songs you could be listening to instead of “Magic Pie.” And I don't even like The Beatles that much.

In much the same way, Listeners feels like a show too smothered by its influences and inspirations to ever say anything of its own. For all that it's slathered in broad and deep cuts of rock history, it ends up feeling like a cover version of its obvious sci-fi anime forebears, and only rarely manages to pull something unique from its mix of mech and music. As much as seeing anime-tastic versions of iconic musicians tickled my brain, it also left me wanting in a big way when it came down to what the show wanted to say. What made so many of the musical acts that Listeners name-drops so memorable was that their art had a sharp, personal, often intentionally counterculture sentiment behind it, and that never really shows up here. In the end it's not a bad show – the stories are mostly entertaining, and if you get a kick out of rock history in-jokes there's plenty to be found to amuse you – but I left wanting something, anything more.

The soundtrack still slaps, though.

Rating:

Listeners is currently streaming on Funimation.