I've seen people's reviews of this series complaining about the lack of story, character depth, etc. My question is why? What did you come into this series expecting? Deep character progression? A riveting story filled with plot twists and heart pounding moments? Deep romance? What are you, insane?
Since when did every anime need to try to be Shakespeare or the next Cowboy Bebop? Shimoneta is a series with a singular purpose: set up a ridiculous, silly world with a silly cast and make silly jokes. As of season 1, I haven't seen any real attempts for this series to try to be deep and thought provoking, which is good. That's not the intended purpose. I watched Highschool DxD before, and I always thought that series was hindered by trying to have so many serious moments with boobs everywhere. Shimoneta attempts none of that and I'm happier for it. The problem with trying to add character development and more serious plot development in a comedy series is running the risk of making contradictory characters.
I love Gintama to death, but I'm willing to admit that the cast of the series is flat out bipolar for the sake of jokes. There are episodes and arcs focused on the friendship between Gintoki, Kagura and Shinpachi, but then you'll also get episodes and arcs where they treat each other like crap and disregard all the friendship stuff from before. You also have moments with characters like Kondo Isao where one minute they're a creepy stalker pervert, but then later on we're expected to watch episodes with them where they're played straight and heroic. I love the series, but come on. This stuff is pretty silly.
Comedy genre characters exist to make telling jokes as easy as possible, not to develop into a better person or have life changing experiences. This often means they will be one note because anything else isn't very funny. Would you want Cartman or Archer to become better people in their shows?
I also want to add in that this series is being adapted from an ongoing light novel. Was there a character you think got no background, like Tsukimigusa? The series ended with the plot unresolved? That makes sense because it's not done. Again, bringing up Highschool DxD, season 1 left plenty of characters unexplained, like Koneko and Kiba, but if you waited for season 2, it actually covered that. More than likely Shimoneta is the same case. Judging the plot of this series based on an incomplete season 1 is like judging Fate/Zero after only watching season 1. You're trying to draw a conclusion on a story that isn't even done. If the series never gets completed, you can hold that one against it, but Shimoneta is too new to know if it'll continue or not. And for those not familiar with light novels, the plots generally don't move at the speed of light.
But if you want the TL:DR version of this:
Shimoneta is meant for laughs. You don't watch South Park for the plot, and this show should be treated the same.
