Story: 4/10
The story here is very average. Over the course of the first four episodes, the writing is really poor, and it does a genuinely bad job of introducing the viewer to anything that is going on. All they really have for the first four episodes are random action scenes that all focus on introducing new characters. In-between all of that, they simply have a bunch of nonsense mumbo jumbo being spouted about magical powers and transformations. Now, I'm not a fan of the maho shoujo genre to begin with, but even if I was the introduction to this show ends up feeling like an unfocused mess. However, by the time we get to episode 5, it starts to focus more on an actual plotline, and everything becomes a bit easier to follow. The story that they tell between episodes 5-8 isn't new or surprising, and there's a handful of cheap plot twists that add nothing to it whatsoever; however, it still ends up being mildly interesting, and kept me pretty entertained throughout the final moments.
Art: 6/10 (Art Style 3/10, Animation 8/10)
The art in the show isn't the best. I didn't very much like any of the characters' visual designs, and the backgrounds, while fine, failed to impress very much. That being said, I really liked the monster designs. Some of them looked like they were inspired by Evangelion, while others looked wholly original and had some macabre elements to them.
I thought the animation worked wonderfully. While it wasn't the most breathtaking thing I've ever seen, it looked good, especially during the action scenes.
Sound: 9/10 (Music: 9/10, SFX: 10/10, Voice: 7/10)
The soundtrack of the show was absolutely fantastic! Reminiscent of classic mecha shows from the 80's and 90's, it has some exciting, heart-pumping, trumpet-filled songs in it. One of these tracks was super catchy and fun to whistle along to. The ending theme is also pretty fun, and I found myself drumming on my desk whenever it came on. The major fault of the soundtrack is how small it is, though. All of the songs repeat throughout every episode, and it would have been nice to have a bit more variety. Still, for an 8-episode series, it doesn't get too repetitive.
The sound effects are also very heavily inspired by classic 80's mecha anime. lots of loud, crisp sounding plasma-cutting sounds, and things that sound like they could have been ripped directly out of Gundam or Eva. This was one of the high points of the show for me, and it makes the action scenes just that much better than they otherwise would be.
The voice acting, while passable, also doesn't deviate very much from your standard shonen fare. For the record, I watched it in Japanese, and the voices are exaggerated, and kind of silly, but they tend to fit the characters.
Characters: 2/10
Speaking of the characters, they're not very good at all. They are all pretty standard, boring archetypes without any major differing traits. None of them stood out to me, and their motivations within the story tend to drag the whole thing down a bit. If you're looking for solid characters, I'd look elsewhere.
Overall, I'm quite surprised at how much I actually enjoyed this show. Despite all of it's weak elements, it still came together in a pretty impressive way. The sad part is, if just a few things were different, this could have been something kind of special. However, as it is, it ends up being a flawed, middling show... yet still an enjoyable one.
I would recommend it to fans of the genre, as well as those who don't care about a solid story or characters and just want to see some decent action.
