Episode 1, first 3 minutes prior to the OP theme. We have animation of a train, then random people wandering around, we then flash cut through the cast, with their names posted by them. Whoever decided this scene should exist, realised in retrospect that the characters and story was so anomalous that it was required to make sure their names were printed on screen for a matter of seconds before they were rendered irrelevant.
This was the absolute worst opening to any anime I've seen for a long, long time. Nothing was established, we have no idea who these people are and they showed no intention of progressing past that point.
As someone who's studied film, worked on indie projects and a couple of uni projects, (storyboarding, scripting, re-writes) it was embarrassing to witness and turned me off the show instantly. It set a tone that nothing was important or of interest from the get go and stayed there. It's almost literally anti-direction 101; The initial establishing shot for the show establishes literally nothing.
How the direction and composition of the series can be so bad, I have no idea. The director for it is not bad by any means (Nishimura, Junji), but he has done a number of 'non-event' romance comedies; the second half of Ranma 1/2 (episodes 70 onwards) is what I knew him best for, but he also did some pretty good shows as well; True Tears, Simoun, You're Under Arrest! and more. So, while I could see the show not being the greatest, it should have at least been good, as the director is collaborating with Horikawa, Kenji, the producer of anime such as Jin-Roh, Evangellion and Angel Beats and helps explain why the show looks so good, despite the way it goes nowhere.
So here is the problem I noticed: Rika SATOU (佐藤 梨香) is listed specifically as the series compositor. This is a woman who's mostly known for key animation and in-between animations on shows and has no record of doing more. However, the shows she's worked on in-between and key animation with have had very good levels of animation. If that is so, why is she working on series composition? I have no idea.
How important is series composition you ask? Series composition works as such:
The Series Compositor writes the overarching story for an anime show. They are the one that the director and script writers turn to for their plots, stories and how it will all link together. They decide where a story will start, how it will flow, what episodes will occur where and how it will tie together. It's then down to the directorial staff/episode script writers to fill in the episodes as requested, while the series compositor decides what will or will not work from episode to episode. The compositor often writes a number of episodes, or at least outlines for them, but they rarely write the entire thing themselves. Think of them basically as the director of the directors; they are the first and last word in all story and plotting decisions and it is the job of those below them to put it all together.
TLDR/Conclusion: Given that the director and producer of the show are veterans, who also collaborated on True Tears together (PA Work's first independent show), Rika Satou has probably been handed this job as a way to get into a more important position within the anime creation procedure (she worked with the producer on Angel Beats and she's worked with PA Works a few times before) and has probably been given too much free-reign over what happens.
The series showed some potential with the ideas it has failed to touch on, but goes no where story-wise or development-wise. The pacing is bad and the entire show feels discombobulated as a result. It feels as though it's been put together by a rookie, or someone with no experience in overarching plot work. Thus explaining my conclusion.
