Listeners

This show has great production value and it comes across they the creators are dedicated and proud of their work.

The art is clean and very realistic, especially for the characters. As for the designs of the mechs... eh, they are not the norm and you really need to look at them with an open mind ha ha. The animation is also very good but don't expect highly choreographed mech-on-mech fight scenes because it's not really that type of show. Most of the battles are handled by light beams and expanding energy auras, probably done partly for the story and partly to save cost.

The English voice ... acting is very good and has different accents for characters from different countries, something which is lost in the original Japanese. There is a trio of characters with heavy German (?) accents that that speak in a rhymey way that is pretty hard to understand if you don't have closed captioning and that in itself almost derailed the show for me. The music during the show is not that memorable but the ending credit songs are great! Unlike most anime, each episode ending is unique and has a different vocal song sung by the female Japanese lead. And you can actually purchase albums of the full 13 songs! As for the art and animation of the end credits, it's mainly a stylistic and recolored mix of scenes or sub-elements from the episode but put together in interesting and sometimes unexpected ways... like a music video. I quite enjoyed them.

And now to an important detail: the story. As I said earlier, the art is realistic and they may make you come into the show expecting realism, but that kind of attitude may get in way of you enjoying the show. For example, a show like Kill la Kill has some pretty unrealistic art and so your mind is conditioned expect weirdness from the story. This show is not as silly but the story is kind of meta, almost as if the universe of the show was created by a god based on a single theme. There is no breaking of fourth-walls, so the show is realistic in the perspective of it's own universe and theme. The pacing of the story is a bit rushed as they try to squeeze a potentially grand story into just 12 episodes. That usually happens in the last few episodes as the story becomes more important than the characters. I do wish there were more episodes to flesh out the characters and their relationships.

The dialog can sometimes be annoying because just when you expect them to explain something or say something important, they say something meta. In actuality, the characters may speak parts of song lyrics, most of which are from older rock songs. Likely if you know those lyrics, the dialog may actually have more impact. Perhaps this is another aspect that is weaker or lost if you watch it in Japanese. The lyrics could be thought have as rock-and-roll-related Easter eggs for those in the know, and the same can be said of other elements like character names and the way they look.

It's normal to start watching a show with your mind racing to try to find similarities to other shows or media. The music theme made me think of Heavy Metal and The World Ends With You. The journey of the boy and girl through a post-apocalyptic world made me think of Eureka or Heavenly Delusion. At some point, you have to just relax a bit and enjoy this brief ride.

The story is kind of interesting, but a little too "Go to this place, now go to other place" for me. There are also elements of the plot that are part of one episode and then never really capitalized/built on, but perhaps that's in hopes for a second season? There were some good moments, but it was just kind of eh. 6/10

The art wasn't very good. I strongly dislike the overuse of cg, especially when it's bad. So when I see cg mech with the MCs lifeless unmoving cg models riding it, I want to die. There really isn't any excuse for such poor cg. ... Some positives can be found in the aesthetic design of the mechs, but the chubby cheeked heroine is kind of an eyesore. Another bad thing is that the animation colors are wrong in a couple scenes... I think? I'm not sure, but it seemed to me that a effect was green when the context and previous scene would lead you to believe it should be purple. The outros are actually a lot more to my liking in terms of art style, but have some of the same issues. Next time instead of animating a new outro with a new song every episode, spend that time and money on the MC cg character model instead. It looks terrible and creepy, case in point 20:35 of episode 2. This isn't the only time it happens, and it's unacceptable. 4/10

In terms of voice acting, I watched the dub, the range was awkward to just eh. The voices themselves aren't great, but not necessarily bad. However there were just to many cringe lines that were awkwardly said by the heroine. Also the sound effects are sometimes kind of weird and not what anyone would logically expect, like when a screw is turned in an episode is an example. That being said the music is actually pretty good, the intro is decent, and there is a new outro every episode(or most, not sure). All the outros are pretty good too. The ost is also pretty well done, I enjoyed listening to the music in the background more than I enjoyed the show as a whole. The music would easily be a 9 or 10, but the voice acting and sound effects are not great and that's something I just can't ignore. 6/10

Some of the characters are interesting, but the interesting elements aren't capitalized on much. The MCs are just kind of eh, and the heroine has some interesting character development, but it kind of fell flatter than it should have for me. The side characters were at times more interesting than the man characters, but not enough of time was spent on them. 6/10

I enjoyed the music, and the interesting design mech designs. However, the poor animation, and only kind of alright characters/story caused me to lose interest. Truth be told I started playing Minecraft while watching halfway through. There were parts that held my attention, but overall it was mediocre at best. 5/10

Overall the terrible cg made a 6 or 7 into a 5 out of ten. You might like this if your into mechs and like the mech design style, but I'd imagine there are better things to watch. 5/10

.::The premise::.
The set up is actually pretty neat. A world under the threat of some monsters called earless fought back by some famous dudes called players based on actual musicians fighting on their mechas which are actually their amps. Episode 1 starts with the Echo finding a mysterious girl (Myuu or µ) which is an unknown player and also she doesn't have any memory. Now Echo has to travel the world trying to know who she really else all while they meet up with other players.

Sadly, it just doesn't deliver what you might expect as the music undertone is severely missing almost in every aspect.

.::Characters::.
Echo ... is most of time an interesting character and Myuu is pretty likable girl; their development as a couple is heavily hinted from the start and their dynamic feels great in episode 1 and 2... but then every episode insist in splits them in different ways, to the point where they spent entire episodes on their own. In the end, you feel like you didn't spend enough time with them (together) to be impactful for the obvious climax
Players just share some little homage to their counterparts in their name or design. Most of their designs are pretty unique, but most of them are just bland in personality or just appear as part of the next stepping stone in pointing the MC into the right direction. Jimi which is main figure in the series is the one who suffers the most from this by not living to be the legend the series makes him to be.

.::Sound::.
The soundtrack is just OK which is sad for a music based series, there seems to be a main music theme for the series but it's very underused. The neat part is that every ending video has a new song with an unique video featuring scenes from the same episode in a net way. I saw every ending, but not a single song stuck with me or felt particularly good aside from the opening song and video which is great.

.::Story::.
The story is pretty linear and most episodes have a self-concluding sub-arcs, but only some arcs rise above average. Since the world building is pretty bad, is hard to care, and most of things resolve by shouting harder, by having random stuff happen or just cause. In a nutshell, the story doesn't feel like it has something to tell, nor it makes use of the music thematic.

.::Animation::.
Most of time is above average, the opening and endings animations are a banger, the CG is ok.

.::CONCLUSION::.
Episodes 1 - 8 were pretty serviceable for me, it entertained just enough to keep watching, but episodes 9 to 12 it takes a nosedive with nonsense, focusing on less interesting characters and by doing random BS to keep the story going, making me reflect on why did I even spent time watching this.

It might not be awful, but it'ss not a good mecha series, it's not a good music anime, it's doesn't feel like good shonen material and doesn't deliver a compelling couple dynamic.