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*Spoilers henceforth*
Story: 2
First of all, if it wasn't for all the combat and amount of fanservice I would have thought the story was targetted towards women, given the amount of emotional drama that keeps going on. People keep crying about the guy that died earlier throughout the series, along with all the whining about how incompetent they are, as well as some blame games going on. They don't seem to properly resolve their emotional issues as they just flip in and out of their emotional states like a switch, with us only knowing that they probably overcame their sadness because the guy is eventually mentioned very little.
Next. It's yet again, an RPG theme, not that I particularly mind. However, it doesn't seem to know whether it wants to be a fantasy RPG (like Log Horizon) or a real life RPG (like Danmachi). It seems to want to be a fantasy RPG because of stuff like classes and the characters waking up with amnesia. Yet it wants to be a real life RPG as well because of hunger, money management and actually dying.
But the most striking thing is the lack of exploring the mechanics of the world. Why are there classes? There is a magic system in this world and it comes in the form of chanting, but we're not explained how it works. Can only special people use it? And what does it run on? We don't know, other than "I can't cast anymore". If everyone has magic, then why can't you just cross classes and have everyone learn a healing spell? Also, there's nothing really stopping our protagonist, Haruhiro, from learning to use the bow as well to provide support from behind. Another thing is that goblins and kobolds (our introduced creatures) are treated like some sort of thoughtless grind mobs, even though we see a lot of what looks like human qualities.
The third thing that irks me is the atrocious communication as a team. No one seems to know what their other party members are capable of doing or what their strengths and weaknesses are. They only have a vague idea and pretty much always just rush in and ad hoc it, yet they somehow manage to pull it off. But it's not only just their dialogues which are horrible, it's also their actions. So much of the time it's as though they're waiting for prompts from someone else before doing anything. An example is in Ep11 where Haruhiro just fell off a tower and gets grabbed by Ranta. Then silence... After which Ranta then immediately yells at Haruhiro to start climbing. Yep, you got that right, Haruhiro just starts AFKing or something after he gets caught and needed Ranta to wake him up.
Another problem is their illogical decision making. They literally spent the first few eps trying to kill a goblin because everyone has to go in one at a time. The other plot device was basically going to the kobold mines. Now there's a good reason why they shouldn't go to the mines, which everyone already knows why, and what prompted them to need to change hunting grounds was because the original spot became too dangerous. Now, the reasoning for going to the kobold mines was literally "I don't know where else to go".
This had potential to be a decent slice-of-life or maybe even romance story given that those moments weren't actually too bad. What ruined that potential was that the author wanted to write an RPG story but seems to have no basic concepts on how fantasies, let alone, RPGs work, while also wanting to include fanservice.
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Art: 8
I'm actually not too fond of the background art, yet it was pulled off quite nicely. The background art is some sort of watercolour, yet the typically drawn characters don't actually stand out from the background, rather they actually blend in pretty well.
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Sound: 8
I actually like the OP and ED songs and the voice actors did a pretty good job distinguishing themselves as unique characters. Haruhiro has a pretty nice monologue voice and I liked Mary's somewhat mature voice.
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Character: 2
Basically, apart from Mary, everyone is just whiny. Everyone is always either complaining or moaning about something. There's never actually any thought put into their occupation.
I feel that Manato was killed off because the author realised the imbalance of genders as he already wrote it, and needed to kill someone off so Mary would join, thus making it 3 girls 3 guys.
Mary and Haruhiro seem to be getting pretty close, while Ranta and Yume might eventually, which leaves Moguzo and Shihoru.
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Enjoyment: 2
Every episode was basically me thinking: "So... are they going to grow a brain now or is the plot armour going to wear off".
But then I was surprised and disappointed by the deus ex machina at the very last episode.
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Overall: 2
Everything about this title feels half assed. It's like the author only had nominal ideas in his mind then just wrote down what he learnt in drama school. Teamwork is non-existent, decision making skills are that of a toddler, and worst of all, the ending is deus ex machina.
And if I had to make a comparison. This story feels like it wants to be something like AnoHana, but the emotional side gets smudged out by people's consistent whining of the same thing and stagnant fights.
