Story: 9
Ef's story is composed of three groups of characters that, initially, are unrelated, but intertwine as time progresses. This makes it a little hard to follow in the beginning, because no explanation is given as to what's going on, and there's identical twins involved, which doesn't help. That only lasts until about halfway through the second episode though, and then things clear up. Each individual story by itself is excellent, but the real power here is how the stories connect to form an overall theme. It's hard to explain without spoilers, but the story is great, and while I didn't exactly like how some of the relationships developed(muh ships), the ending more than makes up for it. I did find the pacing a bit weird though, with the romance really focused in the last 3-4 episodes. It felt a bit rushed. Overall, you won't find it as emotional as say, Clannad or Angel Beats! (manly tears), but it definitely is chalk full of feels towards the end.
Art:10
I loved the art style here. Not only does the art style look current enough that you can't tell it's from 2007, but there's also all sorts of effects used as well. Some scenes will be entirely done through character silhouettes, some will be in red or blue, and sometimes you get just a few frames of black and white. It reminds me of Bakemonogatari, but nowhere near as extreme. These effects are beautiful, keep things refreshing, and help set the mood throughout the anime.
Sound: 7
Usually I care more about the sound over the art in anime, but not in this one. While I do remember there were several piano pieces that I liked quite a bit, nothing in my mind sticks out as being exceptional or memorable. It's good, but not great. The opening and ending are really catchy though, so there's that.
Character: 8
With the three separate stories, this anime features a lot of different characters. Also a benefit of the individual stories, they all get a large amount of screen time and a lot of back story. Because of this, the character development is great, and the characters themselves are very human like. None of them are perfect or over idealized, but they're also not overly flawed. With a little imagination, this story could easily play out in real life. I also like that what I consider to be the main character in each story specializes in a specific artistic medium(writing, drawing, and photography). It's a minor detail, but I found it interesting considering how important the art is to the story.
Enjoyment: 8
Definitely very enjoyable, I found that I could watch around 3-4 episodes in a row without trouble. I wouldn't recommend watching it this way though, because I think you miss a lot of the smaller details. I powered through it in about 5 days, and then ended up watching again because I wasn't completely satisfied with the ending the first time around. So, I think to fully enjoy this one you need to space it out and let each individual episode sink in, as opposed to watching 3-episode blocks. If you do power through it though, try watching it again, especially if you felt like something was missing. I didn't find it unbearable re watching it, and I think you'd be surprised how many things you missed the first go round.
Overall: 8(Very Good)
Ef is a great anime, and one I highly recommend watching if you like the romance/slice of life genre. As I said in my intro though, even if those aren't your genres of choice, I'd still watch it, because there's so much more going on. You can't just fit this one into a genre like that, you just can't. It doesn't do it justice. I'm not sure if it was obvious from my review, but it was really challenging to try and break this anime down into categories, because, using a cliche, this anime is more than just the sum of its parts(also, if it was obvious, terribly sorry if it was a struggle to read in some areas). TL;DR Watch it, and if you like it, know that there's also a great visual novel that goes along with it if you like those.
