Reviews

For myself, I see this anime as being broken up into two diverse series. The first series (first half of the anime), I found it to be incredibly disappointing. I had high expectations for it with the seemingly high emphasis on scenery and the inclusion of Yuki Kajiura whom I had hoped would make an amazing track for the series. Unfortunately, the music was few and lacking throughout the series. I cannot remember a single track from the entire anime (which is quite sad). What baffled me most is the lack of fight scenes with quality in the anime (first part of anime). The anime seemingly had a relatively good budget and yet the music was not in rhythm of the fights or the fights themselves were just bland. Prior to watching the second half of the anime, I was scoring the anime just 3 since it was such a letdown.

After finally I convinced myself to watch the rest and surprisingly it was an improvement. The music was still lacking but the fight scenes improved quite a bit. The characters were less annoying and I felt interested in finishing it. Which is why I was able to raise my score after finishing the anime. With that said, the anime still has a number of problems.

The characters had zero depth to them. It was as if the series was designed for those with ADD because after being introduced to a character, we would see them again at most, one more time. I had forgotten most of the characters by the end of the anime, no substance to them at all.

The whole "game" aspect of the anime felt forced and unnecessary. The whole point of items being somewhat important were thrown out the window. Throughout the series, it felt like there was a quota for mmorpg references and they had to reach it during each episode. Oh, let us mention something about the flying timer and make it seem important... it ends up being pretty much completely ignored afterwards and to some degree, seems like the idea was actually removed.

In the second part of the anime, it turned quite dark. Now, I am all for dark and troubling moments. But there were moments that were pretty much "rape rape rape" which detracted from any enjoyment that I was originally having. There was no rhyme or reason for it, just felt forced (like the game genre).

All-in-all, the anime felt rushed. Be it the fault of the developers or the manga, I do not know. Whomever is to blame really dropped the ball. At no point did I feel invested in any of the characters beyond that of the main ones. The anime's story for the most part felt like it was moving along slowly but everything as a whole felt rushed. And in the end, the whole point of it being in in a game just pointless.