This anime brings forth a main female lead who has escaped from a harsh reality that comes from even the most safe and trusted of people and places. Specifically she loses her home and her trust in things she grew up with since childhood.
It defies the norm in the sense we have a female lead who is hurt by betrayal and is trying to overcome and make the right decision from it, unlike from the ordinary first time a female lead is shown to be a bad-ass and reliable person one can count on. She learns and grows both in character and in philosophy. This and the obvious 'It isn't a male lead.' It has promoted growth and development in character.
This is well told through the storytelling of the show;
She learns how to defend herself and others,
she learns independence,
she learns how to distinguish others demeanor instead of naively trusting them immediately.
And she adventurers along a mix of old and new friends in her party to realize her goal.
It very much reminds me a bit of a more Chinese storytelling rather than a Japanese storytelling but that may just be it visually for background, art, and setting. The action is standard with sometimes our main male lead standing out in his more bold moments.
What I lost interest in was in two things;
The lesser con was the music sounds so great on its own, but I never felt the scenes complimented well with them. One never helped the other standout. I'm either really picky or something just seemed missing in terms of heavy or light moments. It was more character reaction that made things more memorable.
The biggest irritation for me was the lack of focus a high number of times. I get there is a time and a place for everything, but it seemed so segmented rather than fluid in delivery. This would be the back and forth of serious moments to comedic moments as well as the change of art style between shots but in the same scene.
It's jarring and a very agitating way of storytelling. An example comparison to get the idea across is sometimes a scene that includes CGI as a big part of a scene but it did not compliment the previous shots that had none or had that it didn't give introduction to help transition to the CGI segment.
The show will change scene appearance into a very sudden flat shot either for all or just one of the characters and/or its background. A poorly contrasting use to the detailed backgrounds and mood set before it.
A more small minor thing that bothered me was that the latest prophesied dragon/party member was haphazardly put in. Unlike the first three where we got to see backstory, interests, intentions and character. This is probably due to them reaching the last of the episode time/budget.
The standard anime check list is here at least whether you like them or not; Incest love interest (Cousin), the majority of friends have some romantic interest in the lead, the villain has some good in his evil doing, and comedy dialogue to show that our cast isn't always uptight (Although here gets a bit too much.)
It has good moments, but to me, it falls to make sure it does typical norms of the medium and therefore hurts itself into putting greatness into what it has.
