Here are some things you MUST know before watching this anime:
- This anime is only 1/3 of the entire story. I would recommend Googling a summary of the follow-up chapters from the visual novel or game, called the CC and the Coda. These are a real doozy; keep this in mind when the plot becomes absolute raw emotion and just generally crazy as hell.
- This anime is based off of eroge visual novels. And it definitely plays like one. The pacing is very similar to what you would expect from a visual novel. Although the VN's are pretty sexual, this anime is definitely toned down from that. Probably appropriate for anyone 13+.
- The beginning is EXTREMELY slow. Like, I almost stopped watching after episode 6 because I felt like nothing was really progressing. There I was, in bed with the flu, and I was STILL bored watching this... and I literally had nothing else to do. But hey, that's just my opinion.
I had an extremely hard time developing an opinion of this anime, but I feel as though I have reached my
STORY: 6/10 - 3 of the most unlikely of friends come together to form a small band to play for the school's upcoming fair. Nothing special, until later, where the REAL plot starts to kick in. However, as mentioned before, I still felt the introduction was WAY too long and slow for my tastes.
ART: 5/10 - I thought the art in this anime was completely run-of-the-mill. If you like that KyotoAni art style then you will probably enjoy the looks of this, but I found it average at best. Also, that animation of Haruki's guitar playing, besides the intro, is laughable.
SOUND: 9/10 - Obviously if you're making an anime about a band of musicians, there's gotta be music. That White Album song is super awesome, even if it sounds like something straight out of 90's pornography. I appreciated the background piano tracks; they were pretty nice but not spectacular or anything I would listen to on its own.
CHARACTER: 8/10 - The one thing I thought was the most unique about this anime is that the characters are very human like, especially near the conclusion. This anime isn't always lovey dovey. It can be ruthless at times - to each other, and to the audience. Besides this, I won't go in detail of the characters in general for 2 reasons: First of all because the side characters are mainly useless and rigid. Secondly because this is a spoiler-free review and the two female leads are very complex, so it's better left unsaid for the sake of this review.
ENJOYMENT: 4/10 - As I said before, this anime is incomplete plot-wise and the beginning is very slow. I liked the show at times, but I mostly found myself bored, as terrible as that sounds. The drama in this show can be a little absurd at times too, with characters being in places they have no right to be just for the sake of them seeing or hearing specific events. The ending was pretty tense, but I was left unsatisfied by the end of the series.
OVERALL: 6/10 - This score is found by taking the scores of all categories and finding the average. And a 6 it shall be, which I find appropriate for this.
Would I recommend it? Only in niche cases, if you are looking for a heavy drama with some music. Otherwise I would tell you to pass.
