That's about it as the story and plot goes. Other than for the addition of new characters, each episode is unrelated to the previous one.
My issue with the story, however, is that despite the premise being about a music band, there's very little in the way of actual musical performances. Rather, it focuses mostly on unpuzzling mysteries and solving issues and problems for other characters. The music serves as nothing more than a plot device in order to throw new characters at us each week. Rather than having the members make do and performing smaller pieces together as a group, we only get to see the occasional practice here and there. Other than that, the music side of this is thrown completely to the side, which is rather strange, considering it's all about the music club.
Additionally, this anime is incredibly repetitive and formulaic. Each week, a new character is introduced. This character shows an interest and / or skill in playing a musical instrument, but always has a reason for not wanting to join the band. Be it due to a negative life experience in the past, some sort of currently occurring issue at home or other reason for holding them back, there is always without exception something wrong with them. Due to this the episode follows the same pattern and routine : the character is introduced, the musical instrument of their choice is deduced, and then a minor amount of backstory and exposiiton is given about why they are not interested in joining the club. In the last 5 minutes, Haruta then pulls a large amount of reasoning out of his ass and suddenly solves the mystery and figures out their problem. It is almost solely conjecture; as a viewer, I find myself every single episode pondering "Wait, how exactly did Haruta know that?"
There isn't any real logic being presented; there aren't clues presented throughout the episode which lead to a solid conclusion. There's simply a few tidbits given and then Haruta explains it 100%, like he somehow knew all along. This ruins the mystery aspect of the show. There isn't any time being given to let us try and figure anything out. It's all presented and solved in a 10-15 minute time frame.
As far as Art goes, it is fairly average. There's nothing really to write home about, with the exception of the way the eyes are drawn. There's quite a lot of detail put into their eyes, with unique patterns on many of the characters. It does make them stand out, and it adds personality to each of the club members. Overall, I'd give the Art a 7.
The sound is decent as well. There's nothing specifically great about it, but it serves its purpose. The OP is upbeat, and the occasional musical performance we're treated to is decent. But other than that, it's the same as Art : there's nothing that stands out. I give it a 6/10.
The characters is where this anime fails the most, IMO. Due to the episodic nature, we have a new character introduced each week. After their allotted episode has finished, they fall to the wayside and offer very little else other than the occasional remark. It's almost akin to a harem, where the MC gathers a new girl each week.
Despite having an entire episode dedicated to them and their problems, I found myself forgetting what character had which problems because there's something else every week. I stop caring about what issues they were facing because it's just going to be the exact same thing in the next episode.
Chika is upbeat, happy and doesn't let anything get her down, for the most part. She also plays the role of the dunce, often making silly mistakes and being the butt of many japes and jokes.
Haruta knows everything and anything, deducing things in an instant despite having very little basis from which to do so. He's also kind of an asshole; he has no issues invading other people's privacy, spying on them and even going so far as to stalk them to different towns and places.
The teacher, Kusakabe, occasionally appears each episode to give a little advice to the main cast in order to help them solve whatever issue the newest addition is facing.
There's also a little love rivalry going on between Haruta and Chika, with the teacher being the focus of their affections. It feels quite dumb because they are taking it seriously, as if some random high school kids would actually have a chance of getting with their teacher. It is never going to go anywhere at all, but they occasionally use it as a genuine point of contention between the pair of them. I find it rather difficult to take seriously.
All the other characters are inconsequential, since once their time in the spotlight is over they don't do much else.
I'd give characters a 4/10 overall.
As a whole, I'm giving this a 4/10. For me, that denotes a show which is below-average. This isn't a bad anime by any means, but my enjoyment went down each week because it's just the same thing every time. All of the characters apparently have massive problems, Haruta solves them in the blink of an eye, rinse and repeat.
The music isn't the main focus; the mysteries aren't very good because they're introduced and solved in the span of 10-15 minutes. In the entire course of the 12 episodes, we got to see one singular musical performance - and even that felt lacklustre and far from genuine. Rather than feeling like the characters were playing their instruments, it seemed too obvious it was just an orchestral track played over the images of the band playing.
This anime tried to do too much, putting too little effort and attention into everything. The romance was silly, the characters were one dimensional, the mysteries were boring, the music nonexistant. There was never a reason to feel invested in what was happening.
