★★☆☆
It’s these cute girls, man. They lure you in with their looks, and keep you watching before you can realize the show is kinda shit. I couldn’t stop because the main character was adorable. Big glasses, fluffy pink hair, oversized grandma sweater—how could I resist?
The other characters were likeable, too. They had enough chemistry to keep the show amusing and from becoming a chore. The animation quality is fantastic. Every episode is just great to look at. The action scenes are dynamic and surprisingly well done. The soundtrack is memorable, especially the opening and ending themes. So far it sounds like Beyond the Boundary should be 7 or 8 or 9, right? But this show proves that even all those great qualities can be suffocated by shit plotting and story.
Let’s start with the story—as in there is none. There was something that resembling one. Something about stopping the demons. Whatever story it had was lost in the bad plotting. Every episode felt disconnected from the bigger picture. They were still enjoyable, though, because of the sheer charm of the characters and animation quality. There was always questions raised but never answered.
Somebody is going to say (and they always do), “You didn’t pay attention.” As if that’s a good defense. As if people watch something and deliberately not pay attention. No one is asking to be spoon-fed a story. That’s boring. But you know what else is boring? Watching an overly-complicated, confusing story, too. It’s your skill as a writer to balance between those two extremes. You need an understandable story, but you also want to keep it complicated enough to be mentally engaging.
The show felt very directionless, and when you don’t have focus you can’t get invested. I even had difficulty coming up with a summary so I didn’t bother. Even if it had a very basic (but clear) plot it would’ve been a much better show. I would’ve given it a 7 on it’s animation quality and characters alone.
I would still recommend it just for the excellent animation and decent characters but only if you can tolerate the incoherent story.
