The first downside to this anime is the art and animation. The method they used is rotoscoping. It felt like a lagging video game. The options available for animation are far and wide it is beyond why they used this method. I don't know if this was a purposeful decision to be more artistic and the such, but it came off as a little pretentious. It's a shame because the art aspect of environmental drawings looked really good and very detailed. If there is a second season I hope they improve on this by using a different method.
I liked the story overall, but at times it came off as trying a little too hard. I understand this anime was going to be slow paced but not this slow paced. There was basically one half an episode of two characters walking through the town with no talking. The manga version of this Anime presented the story in a much better way. A person who never read the manga and ended up watching this show would probably find it confusing as to why characters did what they did.
The sound in this anime pretty good. Opening and ending themes were fitting of this sort of anime genre, as well as the voice actors portraying their characters.
The characters were all pretty melodramatic. If you like that sort of thing good for you, but I don't. Lets start off with the main character Takao Kasuga. Kasuga is a half-wit for lack of better words. He has no mind or will of his own. Then we have Sawa Nakamura who is clearly certifiable. I guess that is part of her appeal. Finally, we have Nanako Saeki who is in my opinion is the most well-rounded character. She is the girl that is smart, athletic, and good looking. Basically every guy in the class wants to be with her. She spends a lot of time crying. Throughout the series the characters deteriorate instead of progress forward. Maybe in the second season we'll see more character development. The characters reactions overall were unrealistic. This is the kind of anime that aims to be realistic but instead comes off as extremely exaggerated. I feel like you can enjoy the show more when you have a character in it that you can personally relate to, but that was missing here for me. I find Yamada to be the most entertaining character even though his part is small. At least he is the comedic relief in an otherwise dull anime.
