I found SPK to be a very enjoyable anime that explores themes that much of the audience will be familiar with, especially if you're an adult. The characters in this story undergo trials and suffer depressing setbacks. Through these trials, characters achieve progression. Anyone who has been disappointed in life - whether it be rejection from a college or from someone you loved will relate to the story very well and begin to sympathize with them.
Like many anime (unfortunately), there are elements of ecchi and fan-service that can detract the story from its course. However, I found the story and characters to be COMPELLING - which in my opinion, makes it the best.
The production value of this anime is incredibly high. Big kudos to JC.Staff for delivering such a polished product. The soundtrack for SPK contains appropriate music for variety of situation the characters face in the anime. My personal favorite was Days of Dash piano arrangement. I believe this particular piece embodies the emotion of the story. The artwork also deserve high praises. The one particular scene with sakura tree was... indescribable. Oh my gosh. It's just pure beauty. It just captures your emotion.
There are many criticism directed at this anime - some of them fair, some of them undeserving. The biggest criticism of this anime (actually, the whole series) is that, it fails to deliver an appropriate resolution. This is in part due to fact that anime finished around vol. 7 of the light novel. There are 12 light novels (2 side stories), so it's understandable that they could not give a happy ending many of us are familiar with. My biggest pet peeve is talent vs hard-work theme that receives a dead-horse beating and sends a wrong message to the audience.
I still however, wholeheartedly recommend this anime; if the author of the series had better writing abilities, this series could have been the best slice of life since Toradora!
(Warning: DO NOT READ THE LIGHT NOVELS, and second season is in doubt due to poor merchandise sales and the fact that there are not enough materials in the new light novels to deliver a second season. OVA may be a possibility and second season could be a possibility if JC.Staff decides to diverge from the light novels)
