Okay, sorry, everybody already heard that pun but I just had to use it here. Now that this is out of the way, I think that I should start with my real review.
First of all, I think that I should mention that I'm quite interested in trains, so I actually had high hopes after I heard the title and the premise of this series. Sadly, all my hopes were crushed after the third episode.
Story: 2/10
If I'm really honest, this show is nothing for people who are interested in good stories. It's not even really good for people who are solely interested in “plot”, given that even the “plot” was ridiculously bad. Obviously the story consists mostly (at least 90%) of “cabooses”, which is why my rating has become so low, since I've obviously been expecting something different. If you read the synopsis of this show here on MAL, you can read something about an extremist group called “RJ” plotting to privatize the railways. My sole question is: where are the extremists?? Throughout the show there were some people who tried to attack the railways, or an idol who promoted the Japanese Railways, but the extremists were never mentioned as such. This is the first out of a lot of disappointments.
Besides, even the little elements of story in this series (which had basically the length of one episode), were quite unrealistic as well. As a railway fan, I really must emphasize on the lack of realism in quite a few episodes. Given that all the characters were 17 years old and had neither a license for guns nor a train driver license... Why in the name of hell were they allowed to carry guns with them?
As well some of the characters acted in a quite imbecile way. By all means of respect... Who on earth would be paranoid enough in order to believe in assassinating cats?
Art: 2/10
Ah, the animation of Rail Wars!... That's where the true trainwreck starts.
First of all – I really do feel sorry for the animation studio (Passione), given that this was their first bigger project. Still, it is really mentionable that the amount of animation errors is so high that it's almost ridiculous. I won't point out all the errors one by one, you should check for yourself how inconstant the animation of the series is.
And even the size of the cabooses (which were probably important for the producers) changed during(!) all episodes.
There's nothing more to comment here, let's just say that the animation is one of the worse parts of this show.
Sound: 4/10
To be honest, the OP and the ED were fairly nice, in particular the rather funky ED somehow fit the show. Still, they're not outstanding in any particular way. As well the voice actors were in general acceptable, even though all the other sound effects were rather dull.
Character: 2/10
I'm pretty sure that I've never seen as many cliches used in an anime as here.
First of all, we've got Takayama, our stereotypical, dull and boring MC. Maybe it's because he is as dull and stupid as I used to be, but according to me he is one of the most boring and hateful harem leads ever. His sheer denseness is outstanding even in comparison to other harem leads.
Then we have Aoi. Your generic redhead-tsundere. My opinion about Aoi probably isn't really neutral (because of my rather negative stance against that character type), but I still consider her one of the worse tsunderes, given how bluntly she tries to ruin a lot of things, in particular during the earlier episodes of this series.
The next mentionable character is Haruka, who is at least a little more interesting because of the little yandere-side of her character. Still, she can be also seen as a quite dull character.
And the last (but definitely not the least) character of the “Fourth Vigilance Squad” is Iwaizumi, the only character I liked at least a bit, simply because he usually tries to do something productive. Still, his appearances are way too seldom throughout the whole series.
All the other characters of Takayama's harem aren't outstanding as well, so there's nothing special to brag about either.
Enjoyment: 1.5/10
As a railway fan, I really had my hopes high for this show. Perhaps that's why my rating is so harsh, but I just cannot ignore the sheer amount of logical errors throughout the whole series (as mentioned above): Simply because of this very fact I wasn't able to enjoy this show at all. Seriously though, 17 year-olds carrying guns (and trying to kill each other with them because of a misunderstanding), running away from cats and being officially allowed to drive a train without a license? That's surely not what I did expect from this show.
Overall: 3/10
Obviously my expectations for this show were far too high. But even when I try to look on this show from a different angle, I can only see a dull, boring ecchi harem show with nothing particular to remember.
tl;dr this show is good for you if you are interested into cabooses whose size changes minutely, otherwise you should turn away.
