TL:DR
To me this anime had a ton of potential, but only managed to live up to it in some areas of the plot. The story is really awkwardly paced, and a lot could be done to improve how it was presented. However, the characters and world building are done extremely well, and kept me going to the end of the series.
Story (6)
The story follows a group of friends as they grow up and learn about the world around them. They have interesting experiences, suffer losses, and find love. The world these characters live in is set in the future, in which mutant rats roam the country side and humanity has been reduced to small villages. Going off of this alone, you can definitely see that there is a lot of potential! However, to me personally the pacing and presentation of how events unfolded killed a large part of the series for me. For the most part the story flows well, but 2 times in the series it completely gets flipped over by unexpected time skips. They sort of pull you out of the show by advancing the story 12 years between episodes. That's forgivable, but for both cases i wish i had another episode before hand to wrap up the current arc more cleanly. The other major problem i had with the plot was how it presented crucial moments. To avoid spoilers i wont go into specifics, but many things which are incredibly important to the plot are presented subtly and casually, when they absolutely shouldn't be. This led to there being almost 0 suspense for me at the time of the climax, which was rather disappointing because there were many times in the series where i was really eager to watch another episode instead of just waiting for the series to end.
Art (7)
The art was pretty good, nothing too impressive, but definitely pretty at times.
Sound (7)
Definitely an interesting sound track that fits the story well.
Character (9)
This anime does not boast a giant cast, but the characters it focuses on are done incredibly well. This leads to a lot of emotional moments for the viewer, and creates excellent drama between them at parts.
Enjoyment (6)
The first half the series had me on the hook, and because of that momentum i was able to finish the second half.
