Grisaia No Kajitsu is an anime based off of a visual novel but you can't really say that it was an exact retelling of the events of the visual novel.
If you have read a visual novel in the past you would know that it is divided in to routes for each of the heroines after a common route in which you make decisions to determine which route you will follow, the visual novel version of Grisaia is no different, but as you are watching this series you will notice that it develops differently to the visual novel.
*SPOILERS*
The main part of the story begins in episode four when the first of the heroine routes (Michiru) starts which lasts two episodes followed by Yumiko's route which is greatly shortened to just one episode, next is Sachi who again only gets one episode, (disappointing because Sachi's route is very emotional) next is Makina who gets two episodes and finally is Amane's route which is four episodes long.
I thought that Amane's route was possibly the best in the visual novel and has been shown well in the anime it was obviously shortened but I don't think it really loses all that much.
But Yumiko's route in the anime is shortened so much that it loses a lot of the emotion and the depth of story it had in the visual novel, they also cut a lot of the plot out, this was possibly the worst route in the anime even thought it was one of the best in the visual novel.
There was something that i noticed just over halfway through the season which made me view this anime differently as i watched the rest of the season, it was that the anime had combined all of the routes together to make it a progressive story with the protagonist Kazami Yuuji helping each of the heroine thought their problems separately but on the same timeline, unlike the visual novel. After I noticed this I understood why the story-lines were shortened and changed as you couldn't let some events that occurred in the visual novel happen and keep a linear story-line.
Overall this an excellent anime, although if you have already read the visual novel you may not enjoy this as much as if you didn't know the story. The art in this is really good, it is very similar to the visual novel and it just looks good. To some the characters in the anime may seem a little one sided but that is because for some characters there really isn't enough of their back story told in the anime.
I really enjoyed this retelling of the visual novel but i'm not sure that everyone who has read the visual novel will enjoy it as much as me.
Overall score:9/10
EDIT: I just realized that this wasn't directly based off of the visual novel but based off a manga series called 'Grisaia no Kajitsu: Sanctuary Fellows' i haven't read the manga but i assume the changes to the story come from the manga and not the director butchering the visual novel.
