The art was good, the story was good, the animation was okay, the character development was good - but none of them were great. They were all lacking. You know the saying 'show don't tell?' - they told a lot and showed a little. There were great opportunities to show memories and thoughts and feelings alongside music, but instead they opted for still flashbacks - with no timing or consideration of the music. It could have been a very powerful, emotional anime, but instead it was just a good one.
They obviously had a strict animation budget, and I believe this hindered the character development a bit. Characters develop a lot over the course of the show, but we don't see a lot of it. We don't get to see many of their intimate thoughts and feelings and moments, and when we do, they're repeated again and again, only adding small details.
I didn't feel like the score worked well with the animation. The music and animation and art were rarely considered together. I felt like the music moved the story, but didn't enhance it. I expected the music to move me, but with all the choppy dialog and lack of powerful imagery, it didn't.
I would have liked to see more real, genuine, relatable moments, carefully shown and timed with the music to really tug at the heartstrings. I wanted to love the characters more. I wanted to relate to them more.
A lot of the show's elements didn't work well together. It brought in too many characters and didn't have enough time for all of them. It felt like it should have been a 50 episode anime. The ending was anticlimactic, possibly due to poor consideration of music and animation.
I liked this show, but I didn't love it.
