The story takes place in an alternate reality where a small percentage of children manifest superhuman abilities upon reaching puberty.

The main character, Yuu Otosaka, is a high school boy who awakens the ability to temporarily possess others.

This brings him to the attention of Nao Tomori, the student council president of a school founded as a haven for children with such abilities.

Maeda had thought up the concept for Charlotte long before he was approached in early 2012 to work on a new anime series.

In Japan, the story follows the protagonist Yuu Otosaka, a boy who awakens the ability to temporarily possess another person for five seconds.

Although hoping to use his ability to fraudulently live a carefree high school life, he is unexpectedly exposed by Nao Tomori, a girl who can make herself invisible to a specific target.

The student council's main objective is to ensure the safety of ability users from organizations who seek to exploit their powers.

This leads the student council to Yusa Nishimori, a pop singer who has the ability to channel the spirits of the dead as a medium.

Yuu's younger sister Ayumi unexpectedly awakens an ability to cause anything around her to suddenly collapse, which results in her death.

While attending a concert of the post-rock band Zhiend with Nao, Yuu recollects previously suppressed memories of his older brother Shunsuke, who has the ability to time travel.

A terrorist group manages to abduct Nao and Kumagami, one of Shunsuke's closest friends and aides, and holds them hostage in exchange for Yuu, who attempts to rescue them.

Maeda did not think he would ever be involved in the planning of another anime series, but he said he had no choice but to accept Horikawa's offer after discussing it with him.

[9] Long before working on Charlotte, Maeda had thought up a concept for a story with characters who have imperfect superpowers and must cooperate with each other to resolve any incidents when it arises.

[13] Toba felt Maeda was influenced by his work on Angel Beats!, which changed his thought process and what he wanted to depict in Charlotte.

[12] Maeda thought issues had arisen with the large cast of characters in Angel Beats!, such as overlapping personality traits and not being able to remember everyone, and he used those considerations when writing Charlotte.

Maeda decided fairly early on to make Yuu Otosaka a low-life cheater at the start of Charlotte because he had never created a character like this before.

Toba took into consideration the storyboarding Asai had done for two episodes of Angel Beats!, and he thought Charlotte would be a good opportunity to have a first-time series director.

[16] When Horikawa first looked at Charlotte's incomplete script, he told Maeda it did not feel like it had the same kind of zeal as Angel Beats!

[14] In this way, Toba felt Charlotte was Maeda's effort to write a story in its purest form could not be made into a video game, unlike Angel Beats!.

Toba explained this is a result of Maeda's effort to remove the restrictions came from writing the scenario for a video game.

Similarly, Satoki Iida was brought back to work on Charlotte again as the sound and music director, and he also helped with the proofreading of the script as he had done for Angel Beats!.

Iida was largely chosen for his good communication with Maeda, and so he could make the best use of his experience working on Angel Beats!.

[13] A four-panel comic strip manga, illustrated by Haruka Komowata and titled Charlotte The 4-koma: Seishun o Kakenukero!

Ekens criticized the pacing and structure of the show, calling it an "inefficient...collection of sprawling narrative ideas" and comparing it to "Anohana suddenly turn[ing] into Darker than Black."

Ekens also notes its thematic purpose "seems to be Jun Maeda's opportunity for melodramatic elaboration on the emotional dilemmas posed by Madoka Magica."

"[44] Chris Beveridge of The Fandom Post found Charlotte's unpredictability "engaging" and its animation "beautiful".

"[43] In a column on Mainichi Shimbun's Mantanweb portal, Charlotte was praised for the balance it strikes to reach a wide audience, from "core fans" of anime to casual viewers, in regards to its creative use of peculiar characters coupled with a scenario focused on resolving problems.

[46] Columnist Ryō Koarai commended Charlotte for pulling in the viewer from the first episode due to Yuu's surprising, unorthodox personality in contrast with how he uses his superhuman ability in his everyday life.

[47] Writer Seiji Nakazawa lauded Charlotte for defying the "moe anime" stereotype at first glance and for instead being what he describes as a "human drama".

[48] He notes Charlotte is written in much the same way as Maeda's previous works by inserting jokes between serious moments to offer some relief to the viewer.