Review By Kamal K
I've dropped it
To summarize it: it is an anime with nice visuals, that is ruined by a very badly written story. It is possible to figure out the rough idea of what is going on in the first 5 minutes of the first episode, and slightly adjust information in the second.
Detailed breakdown below:
Story: 2/10
The story writing is exceptionally poor, and the main issue is that the story writer did not have a good idea about presenting new events. So, when the story needs to introduce you to some sort of idea, characters sit down in a circle and talk for 15 minutes. Sometimes they invent "theories" out of the blue, and everybody instantly believes those and treats them as granted. Everything between fights is incredibly dull, and characters - all of them - act almost in the same fashion. Once again, we have "spineless male protagonist in glasses", and even though this is not a harem, this kind of character is incredibly annoying. There's ONE surprisingly well done character of a magical girl, but she doesn't get enough screen time.
Also, dramatic and tragic scenes are handled in surprisingly poor and tasteless fashion.
In general - huge number of dull scenes, or scenes where somebody explains something for a very long time, plus interactions between characters are incredibly awkward.
Art: 6/10:
The art is actually fairly good and characters have decent design. There some noticeable instances of CG use, and characters could use a bit more detail, but overall it is decent.
Sound: 5/10:
Thoroughly mediocre soundtrack, that sometimes gets annoying. The anime features annoying "jester-type" villain and when that one was talking on several occasions I've felt disconnect between words and character. This doesn't happen often in anime, but happened in this case.
Characters: 3/10:
There's amazingly well done a character of a naive magical girl in the series, who looks genuine in every scene she arrives, and is incredibly sympathetic. However, everybody else is pretty much a carton cutout, and either act in completely stupid way, or follows some sort of cliched role. Interactions between characters are neither believable nor interesting most of the time. "Protagonist" is unlikeable, and is a classic "shy spineless otaku school boy in glasses" (I hoped this stereotype has died, but guess not).
Enjoyment: 3/10:
This is a disappointment. The potential of the main idea was high, but poor execution and bad storywriting ultimately ruined it.
Overall: 3/10:
The best idea is to skip it. Aside from one well done character, there's little reason to watch it. If you're bored out of your mind, perhaps you you'll enjoy fights (plenty of those), but the dull character interactions and very long talking sequences are very likely to kill the fun.
