Punch Line is an interesting case. It starts out with a ridiculous premise that's enough to make you not want to bother with the show. It leads you to believe it's going to be a story about nothing more than a boy trying his best to avoid looking at panties. In expected fashion, he ends up in situation after situation where seeing panties is unavoidable. Yet out of the blue, it changes into something completely different. It all culminated in a final episode that was, admittedly, pretty well done. It was quite the surprising bait and switch. So why the 7? Well let's get down to it.
I won't spoil anything, but I will say there's a pretty interesting plot twist a few episodes in. As soon as that twist happened, the show felt like it suddenly took a bit darker and more action heavy turn. I thought that was pretty cool. However, I also think those first few episodes were overall detrimental to the entire experience.
By the end of the series, I only really felt like I cared about two of the five main characters. If those first few episodes were in the tone of the rest of the series, I feel they could have been repurposed better towards making me care about the characters. Or at least towards making the story that pops up later more interesting. If anything, I just sort of disliked those three other characters and found them annoying more than I did care about them. In my eyes, it would certainly be putting the episodes to better use to repurpose them and drop the whole original premise that basically gets thrown to the side anyways.
And what about all the stuff they spent the first few episodes explaining? It more or less doesn't even matter in terms of the rest of the series. The first few episodes really just feel like a pointless excuse to show panties, and some silly reasoning shoehorned in to distract you from that fact. While the series definitely picked up after the twist was revealed, I still didn't feel all that invested in what was going on until the final episode.
So in short, the story felt weak, only some of the characters felt well done, and it overall really didn't make me feel overly invested in what was going on. If anything, I felt an overwhelming disappointment. The show felt like it could have been so much more than it was. I wanted it to be more. Instead we got pointless panty shots and a story with a cool premise that doesn't really shine until the very end.
As for the positives, there were definitely some cool action scenes. The story was enjoyable at certain parts, though fleeting as they were. The soundtrack wasn't half bad. The art was pretty cool, though the animation certainly wasn't the best out there. Bottom line: check it out if you got nothing you're dying to watch and willing to stick it out until the end. You may enjoy yourself. But don't go in expecting a masterpiece of any sort.
