When I first watched it, the characters had some really mysterious powers and I loved the fight scenes. The music was awesome and fit the mood really well. I saw the Animax dub version and the voices were really well done.
The problem is, if you watch the series now, the animation is spotty. The fight scenes mostly consist of static scenes with little in terms of animation. The characters go into chibi form way too often and the transition from a serious scene to a funny one is sometimes jarring. I personally am not a fan of the japanese dub. Those wierd characters I gushed about in the first para? Well better anime have come out since then.
The music still holds strong and so does the humour. The saving grace is the story. The problem is, we have a crap ton of fillers between the actual main story missions. We have about 5 main story missions and rest are all filler. Some of the filler episodes are really funny and hit the spot, but most are misses.
And here is the worst part. The story is incomplete. The last arc ends on a cliffhanger and sadly we are never going to see this.
I think a mark of a good anime is to stand the test of time. Get backers was a fine anime back in the day. Its dismal by todays standards. The music is still good. The story while good, has been done better in GITS or Serial Experiments Lain. I give it a 7/10 with 2 whole points for nostalgia. The real score is closer to a 5/10.
