Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto

Basically this anime had a lot going for it at the beginning, but had to balance that with what it had going against it in the same timeframe. The scenes about the theater troupe and the writing involving Ibaragi and his plays was actually very engaging and made me want to see more. The very accurate portrayal of Japanese Kabuki theater was great and made me want to watch the show. I really liked the way they jammed a lot of plot into each episode and just expected you to keep up. But at the same time the anime was trying ... way too hard to push the "OP Shounen" angle with Akizuki and would have been much better off just focusing on the theater aspect than including the need for supernatural powers and deus ex machina appeals to "destiny".

The second leg of the anime descends into utter supernatural garbage without any real historical underwriting, losing all the value the first half had built up to push a supernatural Romeo and Juliet story. Gone were the accurate representations of urban Japanese life, the intrigue, and any real sense of enjoyment from the anime. I mainly finished it so that I would not have to say I dropped it. Altogether this anime was a trainwreck and sets up a lot of false expectations about the nature of the story in the first half, which it can't live up to at all.