Let me start by saying I did enjoy this, most of the characters were deep and interesting, and the storytelling was so good that I felt like I bonded and cared about them. The musical score was probably the best part though, they really hit it out of the park with the soundtrack.
There are plenty of positive reviews on MAL highlighting everything the series did well, but there are some things this show missed on, and they didn't miss by an inch but a mile.
The first is the story, not to be confused with the storytelling, it was disjointed, the basic premise didn't really make sense. But that is clearly forgivable, otherwise almost no japanese anime could be watched. The inconsistencies were not only legion but constant. Holding captive 2 of their best killers by only erasing their pasts? The fear of death you say? You should be able to see how and why that doesn't sit well given the context.
The other major aspect, skipping the bundle of minor irritations, was clearly the hamfisted execution on key parts. The notorious episode 10 just didn't make any sense. I almost dropped it. The relationship between Ein and Master was portrayed as Puppet and Puppetmaster, and yet that rang oh so hollow given the bizarre actions of those characters. further, their relationship was never expounded, it was left up to the viewers imaginiation. By doing so, my imagination took it at face value and it read shallow and contrived; even convenient.
And that leads me to the final point on the story which is that most of it felt contrived as to be convenient to push the plot along its predestined track. With the plot jumping around so much and characters like Cal introduced seemingly to add a surfaced dramatic feel, i couldn't help but think that the trajectory was flying so wild, damned be the details.
Finally, while it did do a good job of putting us into the seats of the underbelly crime world, it felt like the goal was merely a dramatization. Everything centered around a certain feeling, and it went to that well so many times, by the end i considered it bone dry. Drama for the sake of drama is good if you like drama, but not good if you don't like being flung all over the place to achieve that end. I would have preferred consistency.
