Angel Beats! Watch Order: Another Epilogue and the Two Specials

Watch the 13 television episodes in order. Everything else in Angel Beats! came out on home video afterward: two bonus episodes, Stairway to Heaven and Hell's Kitchen, and a short alternate ending segment called Another Epilogue. None of them is needed to follow the story, and each has a sensible place in the order. One point first: Another Epilogue is not a fourteenth episode.

The 13 episodes

Anime News Network's encyclopedia lists the series at 13 episodes broadcast from April to June 2010, directed by Seiji Kishi at P.A. Works, with every script by Jun Maeda. It is a single run with no seasons. Episode 13, "Graduation," is the finale.

Another Epilogue: an alternate last scene, not an episode

The official page for the seventh Blu-ray and DVD volume, released December 22, 2010, lists an Another Epilogue for episode 13 (第13話アナザーエピローグ) as bonus footage, and describes it as a newly produced version of episode 13's epilogue segment, different from the one broadcast on TV. Anime News Network's report from September 2010 says the same thing in English: it "will serve as an alternate last segment for the final episode of the anime."

So it belongs straight after episode 13, as a second take on the same closing minutes, not as a continuation. Theron Martin's ANN review of Sentai Filmworks' DVD release put its length at two and a half minutes and noted that the alternate epilogue was "Sadly absent" from that set, so if you watched the show on that release, you may never have seen it. The episode list in ANN's encyclopedia, which ANN's users edit, numbers it 13.5. What happens in it is covered in our Angel Beats! ending explainer, which has spoilers.

Stairway to Heaven (2010)

Stairway to Heaven is the first bonus episode. ANN reported in June 2010 that the seventh volume would include "an unaired special" alongside episode 13, and the official volume page lists it as a TV-unaired special episode.

It is set early in the story. In Martin's review, it is "set roughly around episode 5," and ANN's episode list places it "Chronologically episode 4.5." His summary of the premise: Yuri orders the Battlefront to "maintain a high level of tension and energy in whatever they do for an entire day in the hopes of confusing Angel enough that she will report to God and they can follow her." The synopsis in Martin's review of Sentai's DVD set describes this episode, so that set did include it.

Hell's Kitchen (2015)

Hell's Kitchen arrived five years later. ANN reported in December 2014 that the Japanese Blu-ray box would include "an all-new episode titled 'Hell's Kitchen'" with a scenario by Jun Maeda, described as the second special after Stairway to Heaven. The official Blu-ray box page gives the release date as June 24, 2015, and lists its contents as the 13 TV episodes, Stairway to Heaven and Hell's Kitchen. ANN's episode list places Hell's Kitchen "Chronologically episode 2.5."

Where to put the extras

There are two reasonable orders. The release order is the safe one for a first viewing:

• Episodes 1 to 13
• Another Epilogue, immediately after episode 13
• Stairway to Heaven
• Hell's Kitchen

The chronological order slots the two bonus episodes into the run where ANN's user-edited list places them: Hell's Kitchen between episodes 2 and 3, and Stairway to Heaven between episodes 4 and 5. Those placements come from the encyclopedia's contributors, not from the producers; Martin's "roughly around episode 5" is the only reviewer placement we found for Stairway to Heaven. That works on a rewatch. On a first watch it has a cost. Neither special aired on TV; both reached viewers only on disc, after the series had finished, and the TV episodes are what introduce the Battlefront and its members. Our reading is that the specials play better once you know those characters, which is an editorial judgment rather than anything the producers have said. Another Epilogue should stay after episode 13 in either order, because it is an alternate version of that episode's last segment.

The prequel stories that ANN lists, the Heaven's Door manga and the Track Zero light novel, are print, not animation, and are not part of the watch order.

For lines from the series, see our Angel Beats! quote collection, the best Angel Beats! quotes, and the pages for Yuri and Kanade.

Release listings and episode numbering were checked October 7, 2026.