The colors range from bright and abstract to mild and soothing, are always top-notch and beautiful to look at. The motion is fluid, from fights to skateboarding to just running, and it just carries you along with it in a wave of awesome. The characters are drawn extremely well—most of the time, their emotions are shown beautifully in their expressions, eyes, or postures. And, of course, there are the comedic moments with all the sparkles and big eyes, also drawn very well.
SOUND: 9
The soundtrack amazing. There are a lot of fairly unmemorable tracks, and a few that are just bad, but for the most part, the soundtracks of both seasons are brilliant, and are great to use as background music when cleaning or doing homework. Some of my favorites from both seasons are Knock-On Effect, If You Die (all the sarumi), Kindling, Knight, and Kitten, but I honestly love almost all the tracks. As a background soundtrack for an anime, the music is wonderful, too. It always fits the scenes brilliantly, and is very pleasant to the ears. There are times when the most soothing music is played during a high-energy battle, and it seems strange, but somehow it all comes together perfectly.
The voice acting, too, is great. The emotions of the characters are captured brilliantly, and even the nameless characters sound realistic, natural, and unique, for the most part.
STORY: 8
The first season was amazing, amazing, amazing! The plot reveals everything to you very, very slowly, allowing you to know barely anything more than Shiro, the main protagonist, did, while teasing you with enough extra information to make you want more. There are lots of twists and turns, and the show keeps you guessing the whole while, and then pulls the rug out from under you in a series of interesting twists, some of which make you relieved, others of which make you want to cry. The first season, on its own, would get a 9 or even a 10 out of 10.
The second season was a bit of a let-down after the first, as the first few episodes really seemed to drag. In addition, there was a lot more fan service in the second season, and I mean really blatant boob and panty shots, which was annoying and unnecessary. However, about halfway through, it picked up again, and even lessened the fan service a little, going more into some interesting new characters and bringing even more twists and turns, although these weren’t quite as engaging as those of the first season. The ending, however, was solid—once again, a rug was pulled, and once again, it was done well. The second season also some some interesting character development from characters that weren’t developed that much in the first season, which was nice.
All in all, the story is mostly amazing, with some disappointments and downhill moments here and there, but in the end it all really comes together and leaves you satisfied.
IMPORTANT NOTE. There is an end credit scene in the final episode of season two, which will tie up some loose ends, so you’ll have to watch for that.
There’s also K: Missing Kings, a movie set between the seasons that explains what happened in the year that passed between them. You don't need it to understand RoK, but you should watch it anyway because it's pretty good, although there are some fight scenes that last way too long. I skimmed through it, and only watched parts that interested me, but I'd still recommend watching it for those few particularly great scenes.
CHARACTERS: 9
I saved best for last—despite not having the highest mark of the four topics I discussed, the characters of this show are probably my favorite part about it. They’re all engaging and unique, but not so exaggeratedly unique that it feels forced, and all of them have strengths and failings that you often can’t help but love. The antagonists are fascinating, whether they are malicious or misguided or just bored, and the protagonists… well, you either want to bow to them or hug them tightly and give them cake. Or both. Even the secondary and/or nameless characters, as I said before, are given just enough variety in the background to make them seem like unique individuals, rather than just one, faceless mass. The main characters also get a lot of development, be it personal characteristics or ideals, strengths, weaknesses, friendships, or other, which are sometimes executed gradually, and sometimes happen all at once, but it always feels natural, and the characters are almost always better characters for it. There’s even more development to be found in the light novels (for example, Misaki and Saruhiko’s story in ‘K: Lost Small World’) that adds on to everything in the show, helping you to understand why the characters are the way they are, or how they changed during or in between the seasons.
All in all, K is a ‘masterpiece’ in my list, and I love its art, sound, story, and especially its characters. It’s 26 episodes in total (not including the movie), and I honestly think that that’s 8.67ish hours well spent, so, regardless of who you are or what you usually watch, you should watch this.
