Kyoukai no Kanata was by no means a very ambitious project (or a very pretentious subject). It had very linear and straight forward story line which actually very easy to understand and very comfy to follow, delivered with excellent animation and a proper adolescence romance development ... is probably an understatement. But, saying it was the best foreshadowing is also an exaggeration.
For starters, the anime was built upon a very basic concept: human with supernatural power, hunting monster. Well, I can get the hunch of where all this 'generic' spouting comes from. But the foundation itself was built upon several layers, in which each layer redefine the rough concept and premise into its own unique traits. So, on the surface, it does looks like any supernatural anime which comes from before 2005. But, if we take a closer look, the show didn't follow the usual formula for a show which tagged: "teen, supernatural, fantasy, anime" in which I'll call it 'chuuni anime' for shorts. So, that was also explain very polar opposite receptions by fans.
The main idea behind the story is about seeking a new light at the other side of tunnel/boundary. Which is basically, what Mirai was trying to do. But of course its ot so easy as to flip the other side of a coin. There are also Akihito who has the same (more or less) state as Mirai. Yes, the story revolves between these two characters, starting from where their first encounter, their conflict, acceptance and longingness. This is one of very few shows which shows a proper teenage romantic development mostly due because they have a rather similar condition which makes them able relate to each other. That was the basic story concept.
The world was built upon nowadays era and civilization but with a little tweak, that there are monsters which lurking in the darkness, waiting to infect humans with its poisonous nature... or killed them, whatever bad effects they brought. All of this 'youmu' concept-building is shallow, weak, generic and so does the 'ikaishi' part. There are almost not enough explicit exposition in exploring both concepts, because its not your usual 'nerdy' chuuni shows which spouting something like 5 new vocabularies every 3 new episodes or so. The mixture of slice of life and supernatural in a sense is very pleasant, but in another sense was frightfully almost doesn't mix. The reason is maybe has something to do with this studio specialty, which is Slice of Life (SoL), and cute girls. The SoL part has more depth even when compared to any other SoL anime (let alone another chuuni anime). Their technique in mastering this particular aspect was just so excellently done. You could feel the atmosphere surrounding this show. Heck it does feels like watching someone bringing a mini-DV into 2D world. But this depth of exploring SoL side was a bit backfired. Every supernatural elements looks out of place. The youmu form for example, just looks like derived from a pok*mon game or something.
The storyline was very linear as I said earlier, but it doesn't follow the regular formula which says "beginning, middle, end". Rather, it straight forward jump into a start-middle scene which left some people confused and screaming "plot hole" out loud. Well, this is to be expected, since that was how it was... in the beginning. I even have this tingling funny sensation when watching first 3 episodes. Why did they leave plot hole so open, and heck even pointed it out. Then, I understand it was a foreshadowing... which was revealed after episode 8. Here's the problem: This show tried to bring forth a whole huge concept story on to the table, which is actually very rare thing to see since all we've got were per-arc episode(s) which doesn't entangled to each other. So, we're used to a scheme where: 1st episode doing foreshadowing, then following episode (or two) does the revelation... which you can see in every single chuuni anime... ever..., also don't forget the explicit spoonfeeding. This show does none of those thing. which is why for some people, watching this show was kinda tiring. It could be understandable since this show requires huge amount of observation span and very long patience... which not many people have. As a proof, a lot of people doesn't recognize 'Sakura Inami' in her first confrontation with Mirai despite all the clues being littered throughout the show. (sorry, no further spoiler).
The execution is a bit flocky sometimes, but in general still pretty decent. But of course you still need to be observant and use a bit of deduction thinking in figuring how the world moves. Since there are barely any explicit long-ass chuuni dialogue in this show (I didn't say none). In directional stand-point is still also very flocky. There are some good-standout episode (like Takemoto ones), but there are also very bad ones. The reason why the difference in directional execution was so glaring might because there are almost no clean-up from the general director. The reson is..., well I don't know.
The animation..., is the core of this show. I could talk for hours regarding this topic, but lets just make it simple. The production quality of this product is simply..., outstanding. Kyoukai no Kanata looks like a saint compared to any other action anime. Well, you could say I was exaggerating, but as far as TV anime are concerned, there are very few other action anime which have this kind of production quality, not even SnK (sorry titan fans). There are no reused scene (except that single one from ep 6), no still images (except it was used in succession to create a sense of complex movement (e.g. ep 2, when Mirai slashed zombie youmu form the sand), it has sense of impact and sense of weight (like several scene in EoE), It doesn't have black screen followed by flashing effect, It doesn't have badly produced CG sequence(s), it has terrific inbetweening, but it does however has some share of bad cuts. For example in ep 2 where Mirai swinging her blood without sense of direction and ep 3..., you know that infamous 'timber'. Also, I don't know why, it has several 'copycat' key frames (not reused, but done in similar style). You might felt that the action scenes were a bit short compared to any other action shows. That was because 3 minutes action in this anime = 8 ~ 15 minutes in any other anime. Action flow were so packed and almost gives no room for chanting or engaging in conversation. Even if it does, it still managed to perfectly fit into the timing between action cuts. It doesn't sacrifice the loss of quality for sake of having flowing animation, which is actually a big plus into the animation department. And, lastly of course the shiny Kigami episode. (inb4 idol dancing episode)
The lightning and several effects were movie-tier. And small quirk and gestures from characters were delicious seasoning in this already well-produced show. The music (BGM) were a bit hit & miss, but in general was good, the sound directions were flawless. There are several effect of sound where people talk outside the door is different from inside the door. It also have distinct variation, where people talk up-close or faraway, left or right direction. The voice act for each characters were also very good. Several hiccups sure, but it does gets better once you used to. Some people might not overcome them, but of course different people = different taste buds. The opening and ending song were also very catchy. More over this is also one of very few anime which are using Op/ED sequence in layering one of episode, which is actually very neat works.
And the ending..., THE ENDING, never forget the ending. By no means a satisfactory ending since it leaves so many questions and makes people a bit impatient. But as far as the main story concept was concerned, it was a...., well to be honest I'm not too satisfied with the ending too. Or maybe it was intentionally letting the viewer to interpret the ending as their imagination or their deduction just like Hyo*ka was.
Kyoukai no Kanata stands at the basis of simplicity and displayed as it is without sounding so deep or pretentious or dramatic. But because it started at that very simple idea, because of great directing, multilayer subtlety, and very long foreshadowing, it entices the viewer to at least pay attention to a bit of exposition without feeding needless explicit argument for the sake of understanding. At the end of the day, if you're someone who don't satisfied with action sequence in anime, if you don't want to exhaust yourself in complicated chuuni dialogue, if you're tired watching too many harem anime, or were just seeking for a nice, comfy action anime to spend on weekend or when you're tired from work/school. Kyoukai no Kanata does just that. I might advise to marathon it, at least it will eliminates the patience/impatience factor. But the observation will still there.
