I honestly found this anime to be a bit overrated. The fact that this anime is typically given a 10 or 9 out of 10 is completely beyond me. I had dropped this anime once in the past, and I was ready to drop it again but the only reason I sat through this anime was because of the outstanding ratings it had gotten and the fact that I was told twice to "hand in there" because it was apparently going to get so good. After 45 episodes I unfortunately came to the conclusion that I would've been just fine dropping it again. The reasons why I say this are as follows:
I found the anime over all to be quite mediocre at best. It didn't really leave any kind of impression on me; not like a REAL masterpiece anime typically would. The story was pretty basic/linear. Nothing outstanding about it. It's morals weren't very unique or unexpected. Based on it's ratings and reviews I just expected so much more from this anime, and it's a shame in that this made it hard to enjoy the show.
Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a god-awful bad anime, but it certainly did not live up to it’s over hyped ratings. It had a good moral here and there and I found a majority of the major characters likable. I would give this anime a “Good” rating (7/10). Maybe “Very Good” (8/10), and that might even be pushing it. But 10 out of 10 stars or even 9/10 stars, is absolutely ludicrous. I find it shameful that this anime is placed in the same category as Naoki Urasawa's Monster, Code Geass, Gurren Lagann, SAO, and Attack on Titan.