I'm a positive person so I'll begin with what I liked.
The art is decent. There are scenes where you can see some weirdness but on the whole, it's quite good. It's animated well with some really good high frame rate scenes in the last few episodes. Most of the cel-shading is also pretty good and the character of Deus ex Machina is really cool to look at.
The music is also quite good though there are many times where they just want to bash you over the head with the "sadness" or the "loneliness" or the "friends-are-so-damn-important-so-even-if-you-die-we-will-remember-you" aspects and the music here just feels cheesy. But it's a decent score but nothing noteworthy.
Now the bad. And there is a LOT of bad.
Firstly, the goddamned story. What. The. FUCK.
The first episode blew me away with the sheer potential this anime possesses and the awesome concept of precognition through something as lowly as a diary. The character of Deus, the stalker Yuno, the meek and reserved Yukki, all were an excellent recipe for a show that could very well turn into and excellent sequence of chases, mind-bending twists and one-upmanship over the other contestants and a true showcase of a potentially epic battle of wits.
Then everything slowly but surely crumbles as meaningless plot twists, useless characters, utterly unbelievable reactions and a pathetic protagonist are mixed and it ends with such an idiotic climax that I was just glad to be over with the whole damn thing. The true twist I really didn't see coming but at that point I was pretty much at my zenith of boredom leading to my reaction being just an "oh, that happened" instead of "OH MY FUCKING GOD WHAAAT".
The diaries are incredibly idiotic and never really used as how we'd imagined. Are they used to achieve the owner's ends and successfully trick the others? Not really. What actually kills them is mostly a combination of incredibly dumb luck, bullets, knives etc. It's not the brains and the combination of will and wit that wins, but the brawn impeded by brainlessness. The formula is usually, somehow get to the opponent using the diary, face off with brawn, some touchy-feely shit and something happens to the opponent. IF it was done the first time to build the dumbass protagonist in the first few matches it would have been fine. BUT... this brings me to my next point which is -
These characters SUCK. Holy crap, they drove me so goddamned MAD.
What the FUCK was with Yukki? I mean, this dude NEVER EVER wants to grow up from his obvious weaknesses, his delusions, his inferiority complex, NOTHING. He's been given one of the most powerful weapons and elevated to a god among men with only a handful more who share the dias. Does he take this as an opportunity to grow as a person, learn to fend for himself and kick-ass? NOPE NOT HAPPENING. Forget kicking ass, this guy can barely defend or even think by himself. He continues to be a child till the very end, repeatedly tricked by Yuno into loving her and almost never makes a conscious decision of his own.
And Yuno? She was as 2D a character as they come with her decidedly one-point agenda upto the very end. You may try and excuse her constant pining as being that of the yandere character she's supposed to be but this only leads to some VERY stupid decisions and some overtly protective/murderous actions. She NEVER thinks for herself or plans for the future. We are shown that she's awesome with bursts of amazing deduction but these are so unbelievable and interspersed with pure stupidity that we just call bullshit on them after the first few episodes.
The other contestants are invariably psychopaths that should never have been selected for this position in the first place, forcing us to somehow hope Yukiteru gets the spot in the end (which was an eventuality from the start) so these psychotic fucks don't get the opportunity. Also one of the contestants being allowed in the game was highly suspect given his role and I'll never believe he would be allowed to participate.
The other characters are equally, if not worse, criminally underdeveloped or utterly useless. I see no point in Kousuke or Mao ever being a "major" characters. Akise Aru was also never really fleshed out. Hinata was purely a fan service character.
But ani, ani, what about romance, fan service, blood and gore and wholesome yandere fun? LOL seriously? If any of these elements were present in decent amounts to tone down the seriousness of the plot the I wouldn't have been this harsh on the anime. Unfortunately, the fan service is sparse, the romance is irritating and the gore is barely there. You get spouts and gushes of blood, a couple of chopped heads, some missing limbs but that's it. Having seen Elfen Lied, this is all very tame and barely stimulating.
A pointless and meandering story, moronic characters and some truly awful pacing with random bits of humour or sentiment suddenly destroying the previous mood wreck a concept with vast potential which let me down considerably. I'm not looking back at this time wasted with any fondness.
