| | Alternate title : BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad
Studio : Madhouse Studios
Licenced by : FUNimation
Length : 26 Episodes
Year : 2004
Genre : Drama - Music - Romance
Synopsis :
Tanaka Yukio (although everyone calls him Koyuki) is 14 years old, an average student, and a nice guy. While walking home from school, he sees some kids picking on some weird looking dog and chases them away when the dog's owner show up. He meets him again while being out on town with his childhood friend and they slowly become friends.
The guy's name is Ryusuke and he plays in an underground rock band. After seeing one of his shows and listening to a Dying Breed song, Koyuki gets really interested in rock music. One day Ryusuke hands Koyuki a beat up acoustic guitar and that's when his music adventures begin.
Alternative Synopsis:
(By Casey Shanks)
Beck follows the story of a budding guitarist/singer, Koyuki, revolving around a band called Beck.
Koyuki is not much of a guitarist, not much of an athlete, not much of anything, actually. But his life took a huge turnaround when he bumped into Ryusuke, a seasoned guitarist himself.
Later, a funky bassist, a great drummer and a charming singer/frontman was recruited to form Beck and off they go to conquer the heart of the nation with their music.
The series follows the turbulations of Beck, detailing on Koyuki's life, as he deals with love, studies, finance, and his band, Beck.
Added : 2004-10-06
Synopsis by : Idjota
Last update : 2009-01-18
Last update details : Seiyuu modified
Score : 8.67
Number of reviews : 54
Link(s) :
Official #1 : BECKfansite (English)
Official #2 : Kaze's BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad Website (French)
Official #3 : Official BECK Website (Japanese)
Official #4 : TV Tokyo's BECK Website (Japanese)
Song(s) :
Opening #1 : Beat Crusaders - Hit in the USA
Ending #1 : Meister - My World Down
Ending #2 : Sowelu & Beat Crusaders - Moon on the Water
Ending #3 : BECK - Slip Out
Release(s) :
2008-11-24 -- Episode(s) 0 by AniSubs. BT Link
2008-09-30 -- Episode(s) 5 by AniSubs. BT Link
2008-09-04 -- Episode(s) 4 by AniSubs. BT Link
Found 45 releases. Click here to [ Find them! ]
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Posted by : ErwinRommel 
Posted on : 2010-03-14  
I forgot what a good rock band sounds like, and what a great anime is. Beck as an anime is so similar to its characters in that the overall look isn't as polished as the mainstream anime. There is a low quality feel to it. A story that follows a very predictable trend if you've watched anime involving competition (Ex: Naruto). Or those boring characters that do nothing but waste time like those self-anointed rivals that always try but never succeed to the ultimate goal. Yet it's all so trivial, Beck has an excellent soundtrack that resonates, and steals the show. Highly Recommended.
For the project, Madhouse Animation Studio had actually used many songs from an indie rock band Beat Crusaders. This accounts for the unusually high quality music in Beck. Secondly, the anime ensures that it pays homage to the music and doesn't cheapen it. Every conversation is about the music of Dying Breed or some punk rock legend regardless of the current status of the bands. L large majority of the time we see the cast of characters play their respective instruments really well. There is a disregard of techniques, magical instincts that tend to plague anime, and a focus on how much fun it is to be playing music. Beck really make it seem like heaven to accomplish the dream of playing in a band.
The downfall is that Beck has to cover up major blemishes that has to do, mainly, with low quality animation. Some of the earlier episodes located in dark music clubs showed pretty substandard animation that one kid armed with a flash drive can animate. While playing, all the bands have a specific set of animations that gets repeated over and over again. The worse has to be Chiba, where the rapper has animations that seems to involve dragging a still frame of his head up and down...like using a mouse on your PC windows.
Still, even with poor animation, crappy dialogues, and a pretty linear story Beck will blow you away with an excellent soundtrack that makes everything seem to melt away.
9/10
Posted by : Stonewolf
Posted on : 2009-11-11
I am a musician, and as such two things really stuck out to me while watching BECK, the first was that the music was of great quality and the second was that the animations actually resembled the proper way to play those instruments, right down to the fretting of notes on the guitar. Sure its not perfect, but hey, I haven't seen any other series reflect such an understanding of how music is really made and how the underground scene is. Having played in a few bands myself it was extremely entertaining to see the interactions between the members and a few of the scenarios were all too familiar (ie members quitting for no apparent reason).
Animation - 8
Exceptionally well done animation and characters designs. The CG guitar shots were very refreshing and dynamic, they really saved the stage performances from getting monotonous. I'd like to give a 9 or 10 but occasionally there was a choppy scene or some face angle that didn't quite make sense.
Music - 10
Music is what this show is about after all, and the quality of recording and instrumentals shows it. Even though the post-punk-hardcore thing isn't my first choice I was glad that the production quality was there in full force. The song that really stood out to me in both the english and japanese versions was the ballad that koyuki sings (Full Moon Sway), I honestly couldn't tell which version I liked better as they both were done extroardinarily well, and I applaud both voice actors for their work.
Story - 9
The only thing that detracts from the story for me is that Koyuki is so damn young. It's extremely out of the ordinary to find a kid that young with so much talent, but thats really no surprise coming out of an anime. His development in guitar playing was pretty accurate, he sucked at first and worked hard to gain success. As I mentioned before, the interactions between band members were very believable, as was his school life, which is rather odd for an anime.
Overall - 9
All in all BECK turned out to be one of my favorite series. Watching Koyuki's rise to fame was very enjoyable, and the wide array of music styles that get thrown in throughout kept each episode fresh and interesting. I've recommended this series to just about everyone I know regardless of how much music means to them. That being said, this series's appeal skyrockets when I show it to all of my guitar playing or singing buddies. Despite seeming very innocent, it has a deceptive amount of depth and brushes some more mature content in a few situations.
Posted by : yuuhhh
Posted on : 2009-03-19 
First off, I'd like to say that for all the people that are posting reviews for this particular anime (but not limited to) but haven't watched the entire series, SHOULDN'T be entitled to make reviews. Not only that, if you're posting, english should be a language that is native to you. Far too often do I find ignorant people that discriminate against the beauty of a show when they can't speak proper english nor understand the significance of the show itself. It baffles me to see shows worthy of praise being taken away from its grace because of 12 year olds that think they know what the world is about. Please, do yourself a favor, when you decide to post a review, check your credentials first.
That means you miestersean, you have posted far too many disgusting reviews. A 7 for Cowboy Bebop, 6 for FLCL, a THREE? 3? for BECK. You destroy the image of what people glorify.
BECK 10/10.
Just as the synopsis explains, a young man named Koyuki embarks on his adventure to one day becoming a great member of what was once a garage-band. The story is vivid and quite realistic, and is by no means amateurish. This show had a very high production value and the voice-over work was done very professionally. The story rotates around the band members and how music gravely affected their everyday lives through their natural encounters. Even if you are not the biggest fan of music, do yourself a favor and atleast watch this anime for its graceful slice-of-life like plot (Preferably in ENGLISH DUB). All throughout the show you will find many references and correlations to real-life legendary bands and rock groups such as The Beatles and The Who as well as more modern groups such as Red Hot Chili Peppers and more. When you watch the show there will be certain times where you'll catch yourself lost in the lyrics of the music with chills sent down your spine because of the heartfelt genuineness. Do yourself a favor, and watch this show. There is much to be told but is limited because of the lack of colorful words that can be used to describe this piece of art. I've waited far too long for BECK to one day be the banner of anime-source because it is sincerely deserved of its popularity and discovery.
Bravo FUNIMATION, you've outdone yourselves with this one.
Posted by : Himitsu
Posted on : 2009-03-16
Such top quality work! Funimation have truly outdone themselves. They redubbed, absolutely everything, put in some extras to liven the scenes, they resang songs! Holy bananas. Beck is an anime that centralizes on music, it's an awe inspiring story about making a band.
Funimation did AMAZING production work here. To be able to get into character and express such realism in each sound and voice was masterful work. I watched this in English (please don't watch the original Japanese work) and the voice overs did outstanding work. I especially enjoyed Chiba's expressions and synced exclamations. I wasn't as impressed first few episodes with the voice work, but I think they significantly improve several episodes in. You don't even feel that there was separate animation and sound sequences, I saw the characters come alive, each person speaking as their own.
I wasn't as addicted as the next person, but my intrigue was heightened as I went further into the story. I realize that I'm no hardcore music junky, and I probably would have enjoyed Beck even more than I do now. For one, my mp3 player isn't saturated with rock, and I'm only familiar with the popular artists of that genre. Note the word: "familiar". A true muscian and rocker would swoon at the British Invasion references, get chills from the awesome music, and be completely drowned in the instrumentals. There were only a few clips, but the animated sequences when playing instruments was superb!
Wow, and that's just the sound aspect of it. Now to talk about the actual anime... well, the characters were all really believeable. They were unique and all charismatic. Try to look around, and you will likely find no one else like the cast of characters in Beck (hah, except the indifferent Ryuuji). The ending was very well rounded and executed. It didn't give you everything, but it did leave you imagining something good. The events that occur are quite dramatic, but real. The thing about this anime is that it doesn't try to be anything other than, well, Beck. It's genuine. No cookie cutters, superfluous fanservice, excessive violence... just inspiration, and music :) Enjoy!
Posted by : Scamp
Posted on : 2008-12-16
Not being all that musically inclined, I went into Beck cautiously and yes, it took a while to grow on me. Beck never pretended to ever be anything other than what it was, an anime about a schoolboy band. If you are someone like this, then you will love this anime because its portrayal is so realistic. But don’t worry if you aren’t that type of person- Beck is still a good anime. There is just a limit to how much you will enjoy it.
Beck is very realistic. It doesn’t gloss over anything, which can be both a good thing and a bad one. While one anime may be dramatic, using fitting music to convey the right feeling and using all sorts of tricks to get you to enjoy the show even more, Beck does nothing of the sort. In fact, there is practically no BGM in this anime at all. While some of you reading this might think ‘oh, that sounds great!’, let me point out that what it is leaving out are cinematic techniques that have been designed over the years to heighten your experience of whatever you are watching. Without this, there is less drama, less excitement, less overall ‘oomph’ to Beck.
But this lack of cinematic drama means you can really get into all the characters. You not watching another otaku-centric, fan-pandering anime. You are watching the life of Koyuki, Maho, and the rest. You’ll be hard pressed to watch another anime with characters as well-developed and as realistic as this, although some of the things Ryusuke has done by the age of 16 are a bit unbelievable. My favorite character, by a long shot, was the foul-mouthed Chiba. And even he had worries and doubts about himself: no character is one-dimensional in this.
If you are in a band, then you will absolutely love this. If not, then wait until you’re feeling a bit critical of all those cookie-cutter anime out there and watch Beck. I don’t suppose it was until the fantastic ending where you had the photo gallery and commentary did I realise how much I was going to miss watching Chiba and the rest of the band.
Oh, a final note: watch this dubbed. Even if you normally watch only subbed, watch this in english, unless you want to listen to horrible engrish rock. Really, I can’t stress this point enough-watch this DUBBED!
Posted by : seefutbow
Posted on : 2008-08-29
Having rewatched Beck. I felt I had a better grasp of the series, so I decided to revise my review for the series. I originally found Beck to be a pretty amazing series, and while I still think the series is very well done, Beck does not score higher than an 8 for me now.
Highlights:
-The journey the band takes had realistic feel because of the hardships and mishaps the Beck and its members experience throughout the series. The band endured many hardships throughout the series that bands in real life have to endure such as bad gigs, lack of fan support, lack of funds, and working hard to perform at better venues.
-The music was more fun to listen to when I originally watched the series, but the Engrish really started to grate on my nerves this time. I liked the music, but the lyrics really bugged me.
-I really liked the Beck's use of famous bands and artists. I don't remember recognizing where Erika Blige came from last time I watched Beck.
Lows:
-The Engrish was fairly annoying. At least it's better than some other series, but if you're going to try to speak English well, go the extra mile and get some native speakers or speakers who sound native.
-The animation wasn't anything special by any stretch of the imagination. The animation quality seemed to be pretty bad throughout the series. Granted the series was more about story and plot driven, but I am watching anime, therefore I do hope for good animation.
Er...:
-Koyuki, the main character, somehow became some sort of stud who magically attracted beautiful and cute women to him without moving a single finger. Beck has an underlying romance story going on, but you never see Koyuki have to exert himself at all to get attention from any girls. All he has to do is sit on his bed and wait for his mom to tell him a girl is on the phone for him.
-Beck ends at around manga volume 11. The manga continues on with the band and their journey, for those who want to find out what happens to Koyuki and the gang.
Beck wasn't as amazing as I originally scored the series to be. Beck still does capture you with it's story and keeps you wanting to know more about what happens with the band. I really did enjoy the series, though it doesn't score as high. I would still recommend it to anyone just because it's just fun to watch.
Posted by : miestersean
Posted on : 2008-08-04
Note: I stopped watching after 8 episodes.
Plot/story: The pace is slow, with short, choppy, directionless scenes filling episodes while nothing in the story progresses story other than the main character getting better at playing basic guitar chords. Scenes end far too quickly for anything substantial to happen, and episodes end randomly. The premise of watching a new band is promising, but the execution -- there is little to no character development and there is no meaningful exploration of songwriting, rehearsing, or performing -- is miserable.
Dialogue: The conversations are awkwardly scripted with characters blurting out blunt, unrealistic lines at each other. Also, the timing of the lines is off, with long silent gaps between them. The heavily accented English that half of the characters use makes the dialogue even worse -- it is painful to listen to characters needlessly throw in curse words (the f-word is overused and grating) and butcher their grammar.
Characters: The main character is a crying wimp that gets on your nerves quickly as he continually refuses to stand up for himself. The supporting cast is one-dimensional and undeveloped, floating around in shallow relationships (e.g., getting overly mad at one another for petty reasons). Some of the characters, such as the perverted guitar teacher and the main character's classmate, are nothing but creepy.
Voice acting: The Japanese voice acting is bland with little emotion or versatility in delivery. Even worse is said English voice acting, which is constantly inflected incorrectly. Moreover, the singing/rapping is painful: none of the performers has musical talent.
Music/sound: There is no BGM to be found and so much silence in the scenes that the show feels like it is in pre-production. The in-show band performances are mostly derivative nu-metal -- each time, a crappy riff repeats about eight times before the scene cuts. The OP is the best song in the show but it has lame singing and mediocre musicianship. The ED is utterly forgettable, a tepid carbon copy of an Oasis hard rock song.
Animation/Art: The backgrounds are undetailed, overly dark, and reused too many times (the same shot of a pool is used at least a dozen times). The character designs are fairly ugly and are vaguely derivative; character body movements are choppy and awkward. While the guitars are drawn accurately and have good coloration, the animation of them being played is laggy and jumpy. Similarly, the drumming is unrealistic and rough.
Enjoyment: There is initial excitement in anticipating the first song to play, but after that every song that follows is a disappointment. The rest of the show is dull and eventually becomes unbearable, obvious flaws discouraging the viewer constantly.
Overall: Not recommended for anyone who wants a developed, enjoyable anime. If you are interested in seeing how a band-oriented anime turned out, the first few episodes should be more than enough to satisfy you.
Score: 3/10
Posted by : nickofsatan
Posted on : 2007-12-19
Beck was... cool. There are a lot of things to like, including its laid back attitude, rockin' music, and interesting cast of characters. Everything was well organized, but what I liked most was how all the details and events were centered around the current theme or setting. Everything fit perfectly together, and nothing felt out of place.
Animation- The animation is very urban, quite apart from the typical flashy colors and two dimensional appearances. I really liked the work on depicting the instruments. It seemed that wherever there were instruments on the screen, they would really be at the center of the picture. The drawing of people and backgrounds was quite excellent as well, glamorous isn't quite the right word, but the style definitely attracts attention. However, the quality was so-so, a bit inconsistent at times.
I guess I can't really grade the characters, plot, or music separately, because they are all integrated together. In short terms, the anime is all about music and how it changes people. Every single minute of the series is pushing toward that single greater theme, which is definitely something rare to see. Most series want to attract viewers, but Beck is really anime for the sake of anime. As the characters matured, the bond between them and their music strengthened, and the story helps show us exactly that in a realistic manner.
Of course, keeping true to the idea may guarantee perfection, but not excellence. I do not give Beck a ten because it does not pack that extra punch that makes it without equal. Just following the basic theme, there are some very beautiful moments, but there are also moments that are equally unexciting. After watching Beck, I was very content, whereas after watching a masterpeice, I would still be absorbed with the work. Nonetheless, Beck deserves a solid nine of ten for great execution, worthwhile entertainment, and solid artwork.
Posted by : nejineverdies
Posted on : 2007-04-18
Remember what Hikaru no Go did for the board game of its namesake? To be sure, guitar enthusiasts are popping out after seeing this anime. That is perhaps the greatest indication of how popular and well-respected it is. There aren't any giant breasts, flashy monsters or mega-super-awesome-laser-eye-beams; just a band and their music.
While the music itself doesn't quite compare to the mental image given by the manga (which gave us all too high of an expectation), the show's producers did well to find music talent that was at least suited to the genre. I didn't find any high-pitched bellowing of some Jpop song to its credit.
I think there's a lot to be said for an anime that captures musical life so well, and while I admit, I'm partial to the Beck manga as well. There aren't many musical anime being spread around by word of mouth. In that case, I'm sold. But if you like long shiny hair, the whirling sword attacks, and the screaming of ten-word long attacks, please stay away, or you will be way disappointed in this anime and give it a low rating because it didn't turn you on.
Posted by : kyuven
Posted on : 2007-04-07
I love BECK, I admit it. The Engrish can be very difficult to get used to, but honestly there is worse out there.
The art is impeccable: the attention to detail on the guitars, and the character designs possessing attractive, but not "gorgeous" appearances is a welcome reprieve.
You really begin to feel for Koyuki, from his first gig alongside Maho at a geezer gathering, to the show's finale, you actually begin to like some of the songs. Except the one he writes himself, that one is pretty terrible.
The final performance of a single Beatles song for about thirty minutes had me harkening back to the episode of Futurama where the American Beck sings the same song for three hours.
Posted by : Ethil
Posted on : 2007-01-22
This one of the real good Top 10 animes i would like to recomend. I've actually watched it 5 times now, and I've watched the ending episodes even more xD I like the ending in this one. Anyway.
For a musical anime I'd say this is the best. The music is really good, something that's nice for a change when you watch a lot of other "musical anime's" where the music sucks.
The story is also real good, and it feels like something like this actually could really happend, for real. At least a bit of it xD The characters are all originals who you really learn to love as the anime goes on.
The only downpart is the graphics i'd say but... still they'er ok, and fits kinda good to this kind of anime too, so...
I'd give this 10 stars out of 10 xD
Posted by : HinataBoyZ
Posted on : 2006-09-24
For those of you who love music!!
Story 9/10
The story begins when Koyuki saves a weird dog and meet its owner, Ryusuke. His life changes when he starts to being friends with Ryusuke and meet his sister, Maho, who is interested in Koyuki's Talent in Vocal... This part of story is why I'm continuing watch this Anime/Manga. It's a lot more interesting actually watching it!
Music 7/10
I like "Moon on The Water" and "Hit in USA" soundtrack. It's So Creative the way they make the music. But they sing the same way in every episode...
Graphic 8/10
It wasn't bad at all, the girls looks so pretty and the character are simple but great. I like they sense of clothing not like another Anime/Manga, they wear the same thing everyday, So so creative. Good job there !
Overall 8/10
I recommended this Anime/Manga because they were very interesting and they are so creative. I like the Bassist most- he looked Cool and funky and It's Taira !! The soundtrack are great and the story is good, so watch it by yourself and score.
Posted by : gatsbi
Posted on : 2006-04-25
This is one of the top 10 animes I would recommend.
I've actually bought a Fender Stratocaster to learn elec guitar...
(But then I've tried many other things inspired by other animes such as Go board game, boxing, car racing, etc.)
Oh well, I've never really got into any of those activities seriously...
Maybe it's just me, but these anime shows make what seems to be boring and mundane look interesting.
Whenever you try to start on a new anime series, you end up quitting after the first episode, or you heard it's good so you try to watch a couple and find it not worth the time.
However, sometimes you get a lucky find that's very interesting and suites to your taste.
I guess it could be a bit of let down if you are expecting too good of rock music from the show, though it is about the music band.
Do a side by side comparison with popular main stream music, and you can see right away how the production quality suffers...
However, IMHO, the musics in this show are certainly more catchy than many of the grage band or indi musics you could find...
I've try to duplicate the musics from this show, though I'm a tone deaf, but couldn't. Not sure if having more complicated strokes and cord progression determines a good music, but they sure are harder to duplicate than most of punk rocks you hear it on the radio...
Anywayz, interesting charcters, good story, and on top of that, nice musics...Definately in my top 10 list.
Posted by : MothMan
Posted on : 2006-04-14
I was truly terrified of watching this series before my brother forced me to watch it promising how it was amazing. I should have trusted my instincts and not have watched this rather poorly made series.
My strongest concerns of watching an anime based on a Manga which is about music is of course what that wildly amazing and indescribable music which the author conveys without letting the reader actually hear it. This is lost because the show just has to let us hear what they think Koyuki's singing is like. All the music once left entirely up the readers imagination is plastic j-pop engrish. It's actually offensive to some degree that they couldn't do better.
Talking about engrish that's all the so called english in the series is. Now I've seen some anime with bilingual characters and they have sounded decent before. The so-called english voice acting in this particular series is terrible, attrocious even. Just plain laughable.
My reccomendation to all fans of Anime is to steer clear of this particular series and instead try picking up the amazing manga which the show is based off of.
Posted by : Tevesh
Posted on : 2006-04-03
The anime makes a very good case that Beck is a terrible name. Not much else can be said about any other statements that characters within Beck make are true because Beck has quite a lot of faults.
Characters in Beck are supposedly fluent in English, yet every English accent was terrible! Two Japanese kids can understandably have poor accent, but they supposedly grew up in America. Various Americans in the series also sound like punch drunk Engrish users, rather than people. Hell, John Lennon makes an apperance without an English accent.
Beck is about a band playing, and the music they produce is supposedly mind blowing. In fact, one of the made up bands in Beck supposedly sold millions of copies of records, but the music doesn't sound revolutionary like Nirvana or Rage Against the Machine. The music sounds very generic but catchy. It's sad that the tale of the small band versus the large industry uses fabricated music rather than true tunes.
Another small aspect that bothered me about Beck is that all the characters were teenagers, except for the 'bad guy', the package man, and a teacher. There is no other adult to be seem in Beck, it's as if they don't exist. With the main character being fourteen, I am surprised that his parents have so little influence on his life that it is like they don't exist. Not once do you see a mother or father, which is odd as teenagers quite keenly feel restrictions placed on them, so this bothers me.
The final major flaw would the ending, because it just doesn't give you a satisfactory conclusion. They use some water colour pictures as slides, and had characters just talk about what they're doing. The last episode wraps up all of Beck's problems and leaves us with a supposed happy ending. It is almost mocking the drama that the characters went through during the manga, and simply uses the rest of the manga as some material to talk about, instead of show.
Beck still manages to have a respectful score of seven out of ten, even with wars n' all. Previously I had given Beck four out of five stars but I realized that it has simply too many flaws. Beck is still a good anime to watch and I still wish that all anime had these many troubles were as good as Beck. Watch Beck for the drama because that delivers, expecting good music from this anime will leave you sorely disappointed.
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