On one hand it is one of the most visually unique pieces that I've ever seen.
But on the other hand are most the character designs very standard and border line ugly.
The story put me at the edge of my seat at times, but I would sometimes be bored out of my mind and the end of the episode couldn't come fast enough.
Some characters are great on every single level (read: Haidee), while I would care an absolute minimal amount about others.
When Gankutsuou is good it is Good with a capital G, and when it's bad it is the epitome of "meh".
I often found myself wishing that it would have gone further; every so often they would show the cool town with huge Greek statues everywhere and psychedelic roads in multitudes of colors and those moments are great. I am a sucker for whatever type of modernism this anime tries to portray. The surroindings are gorgeous, the soundtrack is gorgeous and even though I complained about the character designs, many of them are great!
But this is a character driven drama, and most of the characters in this drama are super dull looking. The count himself is the only one who is often on screen, and also the most visually interesting. The rest of the cast (unless they're part of the counts posse) look like your average slice of life high school drama kids, but with a weird filter.
They're obviously trying to mimic some kind of french modernist art style, but they would have benefited so much from something as simple as emotional coloring or subjective coloring. Make characters whom the main character feels close to have vibrant colors on their skin, hair and clothes, and the ones he felt distant to could be less saturated.
Visual metaphors are usually quite pretentious but I really think it would have worked great with this show in particular.
As far as the story goes, I don't have much to say. It is "The Count of Monte Cristo". In the future. In space. I think you can figure it out for yourself if you'd like it or not.
