The novels, though a little complex, are able to pull off a story that is interesting and much more complicated than the anime, and was able to cover more characters and such, which is rather usual for novel vs anime series, but it still is baffling how the anime could butcher the story the way it did.
The anime takes a very simple look on the story and uses the story's first impression to tell it, scattering in a few details. This could have worked out, but was somehow destroyed by the pacing and overall episode layout. The anime decides to go a route that consists of an episode in the present, then an episode in the past, then another episode in the present, rinse and repeat, which left you scratching your head and very confused as to what in the absolute hell was happening. The ending was also rushed and very... strange. It was absolutely nothing like the source material, albeit the novels aren't finished which could explain a weak ending.
The art style isn't very special, but it wasn't bad. It would have been nice to have art that reflects on the series and adds to it, but the art definitely wasn't too big of a weak-point.
The OST is the one thing that even gives the series a chance. The source material is a song series, so it was only natural that the OST for it's anime would be heavenly. Almost every episode has the song that is the episode's namesake somewhere in the episode which definitely added some sort of uniqueness to this anime. The opening and ending songs I would recommend to everyone, even if you don't watch the anime or get into the series they're worth a listen.
The characters had very much potential, but it's not surprising that only a choice few characters got the spotlight. Nine main characters in a twelve episode anime isn't the easiest to pull off. So many characters got disregarded that it went from a slight annoyance to breaking the story. Some main characters are given maybe a few minutes of screen time and some characters (....Seto) may as well just have not been there.
I was really disappointed in this anime especially because the source material was and is so enjoyable to me, and the story was interesting and fun in what was translated of the novels then. It's incredibly sad seeing a great series get ruined by an anime when it has so much to offer.
This anime serves as a nice stepping stone into the series if you can handle poor story execution, poor handling of characters, and an overall mediocre anime. If you're somehow still interested in the series after this, just check out the novels. They're being officially translated and the first two have been released.
