I very much enjoyed this anime, I feel the need to preface this review with that fact, as I will be critical of aspects of it. I really enjoyed the storytelling, and how each episode felt like a different story, but was still building up the narrative of "who is Myu, and where did she come from?" as posed in the first episode (that is literally the closest thing to a spoiler this entire review will have, and is brought up in the premier episode of the anime). I wish this story could have been told throughout more than twelve episodes, though, as the climax of the story seems to come out of nowhere, and attempt to answer a lot of questions. I feel that if it had been given 18-20 episodes, Sato could have taken much more time setting up the climax to answer these questions more succinctly. He could have taken more time to set up major domino pieces that could make the climax that much more impactful and memorable.
(I'm doing my best to give a fair criticism to a series I absolutely loved, but also not spoil anything story related. Going forward, I will be discussing certain aspects of the story that are not directly related to the story itself, and are more related to the lore and the world the story takes place in.)
There are some aspects of the series that seem inconsistent at first, specifically the origins of the 'Players' being very special individuals, but then in one episode, Echo and Myu wind up going to a school campus where they are training people to become Players (It is a part of the story, their reasoning for doing so is omitted in this review) . In my eyes, this seemed inconsistent at first, but could have been easily explained by one of the teachers there having a conversation with Myu, Echo, or the both of them and explaining that "this is one of only two or three schools like this in the entire world, and we have 'scouts' travel the world finding Players to bring here and teach/train." Instead it feels like a plot hole.
Something that I absolutely LOVED about the climax (again, no spoilers on what happens will be told here) is the way in which it was told. You are given an episode about one of the characters that ends with an absolutely unbelievable twist, you'll know exactly what I'm referencing when you see it, and in that episode, the character involved in the twist is completely absent. The following two episodes are that character's side of the story and how they got put into that position, and why they made that decision. I think this was an absolutely genius way to have the climax happen, and was what set this anime at the top of my favorites list.
THAT BEING SAID, I do have some issues with the climax of this series. Throughout the entire series, the name Jimi Stonefree is brought up, and each episode seems to hint that he will show up eventually. I will stick to the no spoilers promise by saying that I didn't like how Sato went about handling Jimi. I thought it was a bad choice to hype him up the entire season only for him to not play as big a part as he seemed to have been meant to play. I would have liked for him to have appeared in a different way, and play a much more important role than he was given, especially after what some of the other Players such as Denka, Bilin, and the Neubauten sisters had said about him.
Moving on, I think I can say the following idea in a single sentence, but I will try to explain why I believe that afterwards. The music was absolutely amazing. Every single piece felt perfect with the emotion and energy of the scene. As a lover of rock and roll, I may be a little biased, but every single episode felt like an incredible experience. I say this because when the scene was meant to portray action packed fighting, the music was upbeat, and impactful, but not overly so. It didn't feel like the music was overhyping what was happening, it was just the right balance. When the scene was supposed to be suspenseful or sorrowful, the music matched the dialogue both in pacing and in energy. When you were supposed to be worried for someone's life, the music reflected that, and got more serious the longer time went on. Simply put, the music was perfect in every situation.
To try to condense everything I have said so far down to a single idea, I love this series, but I think some mistakes were made in both the production, and worldbuilding that prevented this series from being a 10/10 from mostly everyone. Like I said, the music, in both selection and application, was absolutely phenomenal, and I couldn't imagine how to improve on it. In my eyes it should have been a longer series, say 18 episodes instead of the 12 it was given, and some story beats should have been fleshed out more, but the climax was handled incredibly well from a storytelling perspective, save for the fact that the one character mentioned in every episode and is hyped up the entire time should have been given a more impactful role than they were.
Finally, I know the series ended on a rather final note, but I would love to see another season or three that more deeply dives into the world, as only one location got more than one episode where characters where actively searching for the means to achieve their goal (again, no spoilers). I wouldn't force the issue, though, as the way the story was told felt incredibly well done.
I don't know what else to say, but please do yourself a favor and watch this series, and enjoy it for what it is.
