Action. Drama. Gore. Intensity. They're all there in Akuma no Riddle, and certainly is a feast for the eyes and the mind for those who enjoy strong plot development. With so many unique assassins targeting a single individual, there is an incredible amount of potential for many exciting scenes, something AnR delivers with ease. The characters truly make the show, as the animation and voice acting harmonize well and make the premise believable and enjoyable to watch. Especially for some of the characters, the voice acting is simply superb, blending in with the atmosphere and the unease. One can simply feel the pure insanity and unbridled desire to kill radiating from some of the more "unstable" characters. The combat scenes are smooth and lack no amount of quality, even to the very end. Dialogue remains consistently thought-provoking. Motive remains unclear. All of these things build on the tension and anticipation of the finality, preparing the viewer for what just may be an incredible ending. A chance to wrap everything up in one delicious burrito.
But the ending is paramount, especially for a show such as AnR that introduces such a brave method of plot progression. I detest using the analogy of the roller coaster, but it describes this case, most unfortunately, perfectly. This roller coaster is like a ride that goes up and up and up, and then stops at a station on the very top, and the people who rode it take the stairs to get back down to ground level.
The reason for my great disappointment is the lack of courage by the author. Because, profound things do happen to the characters. Profound things, and some of them VERY much irreversible. But the final two episodes did not, in my opinion, do any justice to all of the time spent developing the characters and the situation. It is an ending where everyone is alright, feels alright, and are better people for going through adversity. An open ending. An ending where everyone lives, and everyone wins!
Here, it is a negation of the struggles that every single character went through. Here we find that death and defeat are no longer realistic factors, and everything is at a null. Back to square zero. The only thing that has changed is the relationship between the two main heroines (which didn't even develop as fully as I would have liked, due to one of them being a kuudere).
