**WARNING! There are some slight SPOILERS from this point onwards. I'll try not to reveal anything hugely important, but to express my viewpoint on some issues, giving away tiny details is necessary.**
~Story~
Okay, as has been pointed out by two of the other reviewers, the story is incredibly confusing and convoluted. There are so many plot holes in it and unanswered questions that it's like falling down a trapdoor, hitting twenty some odd tree branches, and then proceeding into a large, black abyss of death and despair... Okay, so that might be a bit of an overreaction, but seriously, the story almost seems more like an afterthought than the purpose.
Here's an example of one of the many problems: Right from the get go we know that the main character Kakkou has destroyed the Mushi of one of the other main characters, Shiika. We see this within the first five minutes of the first episode. This acts as an interesting lead into the series, and does get the viewers hooked as the setting is uncertain and the context is unclear. Who are Shiika and Kakkou? And why did Kakkou destroy Shiika's Mushi? Unfortunately, the entire story is revealed in its entirety to the viewer... in, I believe, episode three. So all the mystery surrounding the story setup is gone very early on.
Also, we see that the two know each other, yet, when Kakkou and Shiika meet later in episode one or two, they somehow have no idea who the other person is. What? How does that make sense? We know that Kakkou remembers the girl from the opening, who looks EXACTLY the same as Shiika, yet, he has no clue the two are one and the same? Yes, Kakkou suffers from what I like to refer to as "Sailor Moon Syndrome." Oh, no! She's wearing a different outfit! I can't tell who this strange person I've surely never met before is! Even though she's the only person in the whole anime and probably all of Japan who has that hair color and style! At least Shiika has an excuse as she suffers largely from amnesia... which is something we aren't told until practically the end of the series. Would have been nice to have know that sooner. Also, her amnesia seems to be highly selective as she can still remember her family and goes home in an attempt to find them. Sadly, they are gone. Where? No one knows and the subject is never revisited. Maybe they all moved to Tahiti.
It just gets worse from there. Kakkou goes to school under the name Daisuke Kusuriya, allegedly to track down the head of the resistance, Ladybird. I could have sworn with the way that this was presented that they already knew who Ladybird was, otherwise, why else have Kakkou enroll in a specific school in a specific class? Yet, later on, it seems like they had no idea who Ladybird was.. or they just decided not to attack her. Why? Who the heck knows? Maybe they just knew that she was high school age and pulled the name of a high school out of a hat in the hopes that it would be the one she attends and happened to get lucky. Or they asked their magic eight ball for guidance. Yeah. That must be it.
Also, the resistance in and of itself doesn't make sense. It's only made up of four people, two of which are small children. Now, they imply that it was marginally bigger at some point, but I'm left thinking, "If this is the biggest threat to the SEPB (Kakkou's organization), how sad are they?" Further, Shiika manages to rescue everyone from a very dramatic situation, but we never actually get to see how. They're all stuck, with seemingly no hope, then bam! Next episode. Everyone's safe and happy thanks to Shiika. But do they show us how or even explain it? Nooooo. Really, it's just a huge tangle of a bunch of very vague ideas that are presented poorly and hastily.
To be fair, the series starts off with interesting story elements, like the Mushi, but its lack of proper explanation overshadows any enjoyment to be had from them. I personally wanted to know more about Keji's past and situation, as its briefly touched upon (oddly inappropriately as he just starts blathering on about his past to Kakkou at one point for no apparent reason), but that is never fully explored either.
~Art~
The art was fine. Some shots during the action were a bit shoddy and they make Keji's chin oddly elongated at points, but it was pretty nice for the most part.
~Sound~
Eh, the opening theme was okay. It was a bit slower and dreamy with the stereotypical "hope and love conquers all" theme. I watched it once or twice, then skipped it for the rest of the series. The ending I suffered through once. It was also slow and meh. Better than the opening but without the intriguing animation to warrant me watching it. The sound effects were okay and the voice acting was pretty good. The screaming was especially well done, I'll grant that.
~Conclusion~
So, overall, I really didn't much care for the series. It really bored the heck outta me, to be honest, which is why I rated it so low. Even with all the story issues, it would have gotten a 5 out of me had the pacing not been so terrible. Even the action scenes were aggravating because they were constantly broken up with dramatic introspections and overly dramatic dialogue. I will give the ending some credit as it did some things that were unexpected, but for a series that placed so much emphasis on the ending, it failed to deliver. I found myself not caring about any of the characters aside from Keji and his assistant, and even then, I didn't grow too attached as they remained largely underdeveloped. If the show had been limited to 6 episodes and they'd focused more on the plot and ironing out the story, it would have been decent, possibly even really good. Alas, it was not so. With how many great anime there are out there, I recommend not wasting your life and time on this one.
