I didn't really expect much going into this, and I have to say that was a good thing.
Don't take me wrong, there were a few times where this show actually shined, but aside from those times, it felt mostly boring.
Many characters felt somewhat predictable (with the exception of Amanda, but that's mostly because after a bit of development she remains the same for the entirety of the show...).
As a positive note, they did focus on many characters (which is nice if you like a diverse cast).
While watching the episodes, you'll soon notice something quite annoying, which may be a minor point to some of you, but it may also make you *sigh* because there's no point to it.
There are some intervals during each half of an episode, it's just a splash scene with some of the characters and some sound, however, the music played here is bad (specially during the 2nd half of the series), and this also servers no point. It's just a useless gimmick.
Something I thought I should say - I usually have a very high tolerance to the shows I pick to watch, even if they are bad, and I usually marathon them. However, with Blassreiter, I found myself wanting to do other things and simply not come back to it.
One last thing before I continue, there is gore on this anime, and the general theme is grim.
Now that I got that out of the way, let me go over some specific points (art, sound etc).
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Sound: 4/10
The music is mediocre IMO. The OP and ED are forgettable, and I found myself skipping over them after the very first episode. This is not to mention the 2nd OP/ED, which are even worse. Sound effects are okaysih, nothing to praise or hate. I have to mention yet again the cringey splash screen which you'll be seeing every episode (not too bad during the first 12 episodes, but gets ridiculous later on).
Art: 5/10
This is the first thing you'll notice, and if you're like me, this will bother you a lot -
BAD CGI. Now, when I say bad, it's really bad. The art assets animated through CGI seem like something you'd see in a 1998's movie or so, it's glaring and annoying. Of course, art isn't the end all be all of anime, many more seasoned anime viewers know this, but for a show that doesn't really deliver anything special on many fronts, this is a big problem. I'd much have preferred traditional animation here but ah well... The only good thing I can say about the art is what I already said earlier, there's very diverse set of characters, so you'll most likely find one you can identify with.
Story: 7/10
I'm giving this a 7/10 for creativity, the premise is something I hadn't seen before, even though you'll find some cliches here and there. The problem is, there isn't anything new in the way it was executed, in fact it was quite predictable who would turn out to be a bad/good guy, when someone would sacrifice him/herself etc.
Also - the ending felt rushed in some ways, but I don't want to go into much detail because I'm not really sure how to convey what I mean with this without spoiling it, so I'll leave it at that.
Enjoyment: 5/10
I didn't enjoy this that much. It was so-so, but there were times when I wasn't really sure I could endure it for much longer, and I just wanted to play games/study do something else instead of watching it.
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Overall, this wasn't horrible, but it also wasn't good. Which is why I'm giving it an overall score of 5/10.
If you have nothing else to watch, then maybe you should pick this up, given that you are willing to deal with bad soundtracks/CGI/gore, if not, then don't even come close to this one.
I hope this review was helpful to you, thanks for reading, and sorry about any grammar mistakes!
