This is essentially what I thought about this anime. It starts off really strong in the first four episodes with really cool ideas and even some thought provoking themes that could potentially be explored. I was really interested to see where it was all going to go... and it ended up being really disappointing. But oddly, it was never really bad or terrible.
Story: 4/10 (below average)
It starts off great, putting the main character Yuji in a shocking realization: he found out that he died a long time ago and has a limited amount of time before he is wiped out of existence. I loved seeing his denial, I enjoyed seeing Shana initially looking upon Yuji as some object, but realizing through Yuji and his situation that not all people were selfish. Unfortunately, something very convenient ends up happening and from that point on, the story descends to mediocrity at best. The story goes from being unique with cool ideas to incredibly cheesy: protagonist is clueless and is part of an annoying love triangle, girl with superpowers finds boy who holds the key for the bad guys great evil plan, main villains want to obtain ultimate power. It also really fails to balance comedy/slice of life with action/adventure, resulting in a really inconsistent experience. Sometimes they spend way too much time on pointless swimming episodes we have seen a million times or pointless love triangle crap. Other times when you have an interesting arc they don't explore it as much as I would like, and the arcs that are really boring feel like they go on forever!
Characters: 5/10 (average)
Shana's character is what kept the weak flame alive for me, even though she is your typical tsundere. I think the reason I like her is because conceptually her character is very interesting and despite her cliche archetype is the only one that gets any meaningful character development. Yuji's classmates aren't too bad either.
On the other hand...
Yuji is a typical clueless, dense, dull protagonist
Villains are almost all one dimensional and are as dull as dishwater.
Big-Breasts-Blond booze drinker and talking book were both incredibly annoying, with just as painful sidekicks to boot.
Art: 7/10 (good)
It does its job well. I particularly like the flame haze look.
Sound: 7/10 (good)
The ost is actually pretty good albeit repetitive. Serieux was an ost I really liked in particular. A really fitting track for a bad ass red haired chick kicking ass with a sword.
Enjoyment: 5/10 (meh)
This is a very popular series and I am pretty sure a lot of people really like it. I did see the potential and I do see some of the appeal for this show, but I just couldn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to.
How much you can enjoy this, I think, depends on how much you can tolerate the high school melodrama, cliche shounen action stuff, and some cookie cutter character archetypes. If you can get past all of this: it does have decent animation, good music, some interesting concepts, and some surprisingly charming moments with Shana.
Overall: 5/10 (average)
