This is a spoiler free review.
*Story and Characters*
The story is very simple, it's about a girl going to an all girls' school who ends up joining a sorority, a group for only the elite girls in the school (some girly crap, I don't know)... And that's pretty much all there is to it. How interesting could that be?
Despite the simple slice of life set up, there's a lot of conflict in this series and it deals with a lot of heavy subjects, everything from drug abuse to suicide, to misandry. The story is told through the narration of the main character through her letters to her pen pal "Oniisama" who she so admires.
The story is structured in a way that make some interesting chains of events that transpire when one dispute leads to another or one decision a character makes would lead to a dispute with another and so on. It does rely partially on circumstance and convenience, but it's nothing to throw a fit about (I just tend to over think things). It's generally paced in a slow manner, but does fill the episode count fairly well and it ends in a satisfying way. It might be a little hard to get in to though, because of how dead serious it is.
A few significant aspects in the story seem to parallel the French Revolution in a way. You have the sorority that seem to parallel the royalty and a few characters that are against its very existence paralleling the rebels. One character is even named after a French rebel and other characters acknowledge it directly. If you pay attention you'll notice that the conflict between the characters almost always revolves around the sorority, whether directly or indirectly. This is no surprise since Rose of Versailles was an anime that centered on the French revolution. So I'm pretty that was the author's intention.
The main character is a bit of a Mary Sue. She does nothing wrong, always has the best of intentions and yet somehow she's always able to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and many girls in her school end up either hating her or taking advantage of her for seemingly petty reasons.
And before you ask, yes, this show is overly dramatic at first glance and it feels very mean spirited from time to time. Normally I can't stand shows like this but this is an exception to the rule because the show itself is trying to convey that these people are out of their minds (some of them anyway). It doesn't frame these overly dramatic people as normal and that basically what makes the drama unavoidable and separates this show from other melodramas. And when you discover what their life is like and what their backgrounds are, you start to understand why they're all crazy and their behavior starts to add up. You can easily mistake this all girls school for a mental ward.
Another great thing about them is that even the mentally challenged ones develop a great deal over time and keep learning lessons to the point where they become more self aware.
Even many of the girls' parents get fleshed out to the point you get to know exactly what kind of family some characters are coming from. Unlike in many anime, the parents here actually exist (heaven forbid) and do play a significant role in their children's upbringing and behavior at school. In other words, the show goes out of its way to excuse its own melodramatic nature.
Okay, It's not terribly realistic, since there are one too many suicide attempts and the teachers are useless, but hey, it has no magic nonsense either.
*Art and Sound*
Visually, It's fairly minimalistic. Since the manga came out in the 70s it has the same artstyle from that time period that was updated quite well to the 90s, particularly the skinny looking character designs with big eyelashes. But the production values are quite low and the animation itself is pretty stiff and contains somewhere between 3-7 static images in nearly every episode. Granted, some of those are well placed, but it does get a bit distracting at points. On the plus side, the backgrounds look very nice and there is a greater attention to detail in that area even if there isn't as much variety and the artwork in general is great. It's just filled stunning imagery and great cinematography.
The entirety of the ost is rather quiet and might be boring for some people, but it never felt like it was out of place. Even some of the tracks are the exact same ones that were used in Rose of Versailles which is pretty cool. The sound effects are kinda lacking though and sometimes there isn't a sound effect at all where there should be one. The voice acting is a little over the top, but it blends very well with the dramatic nature of the series.
*Enjoyment/Overall* 8/10
It might feel a little tedious at times, but compared to other slice of life and melodramas, it's a great hidden gem for its characterization and themes.
