I am glad that I watched this.
I would probably recommend this to others.
I have watched this once, subtitled. I have only watched the anime.
I probably won't watch this again.
---- Positives ----
The save-point mechanic was fresh.
The main gimmick of the series of having a save-point was great. Now, everything else about it was a negative, covered in the Negatives section below.
Repeated events are generally skipped/sped-up.
Once the series gets rolling, the repeated events that Natsuki goes through are largely brushed over, so as not to misallocate time to showing them all over again. Considering that this series already spends much of its time poorly, it's nice that we don't have to re-watch old events.
The reason for why Natsuki cannot tell others about his power is handled extremely well.
I was initially worried about how the series would handle Natsuki not being able to just talk about his power with everyone, if that's the path that the series took [and it did], but the reason the series gives for why he cannot do it is superb. He tries multiple times, and the same reason stays, and in one case gets even worse. There are also secondary results of him trying to tell someone about his power, and those results have an impact on the plot in multiple instances. In addition, he learns a little about that mysterious blocker in the series. It was tied in very well, and felt like a genuine, in-world, plausible reason. Further, the series worked well with him not being able to tell anyone about his power, since he had to gain the trust of the people around him in indirect ways, which he does multiple times. Although things could have been interesting the other way, where he would be able to tell others about his power, this series handled the path it took very well.
There are many interesting events, except for pretty much everything that happens around Mathers Mansion.
The series introduces many interesting events for the characters to experience. Most of the events are entertaining. The mansion section felt like a significant time drain, though.
The series starts off very strongly.
Although parts of the series are slow and weak, the beginning was great.
The series sort of manages characters well.
Later into the series, many characters are introduced. The series successfully manages this by only focusing on relatively small groups of characters at a time, and staying with them for extended periods of time. I never felt character-overload anywhere in the series.
Technical execution is all-around solid.
Everything looks and sounds great, though no technical aspect reaches the level of outstanding.
Color-coded characters.
Characters are over-the-top color-coded in this series, making it easy to remember who's who at a quick glance. Rather than a positive, this may just be an amusing aspect of the series.
---- Negatives ----
Transported-to-a-fantasy-world wears off quickly.
I'm guessing the transported-to-a-fantasy-world thing is a hot plot point in recent years. It doesn't really do much here. Transported-to-a-fantasy-world wears off very quickly in this series, where Natsuki blends in unnaturally quickly into the world he's been transported to, with the only noticeable reminder that he's not from this world being his unnatural clothing that he kept from his old world.
Opportunity for cancel: Possibly. Maybe this plot point gets used more in the original material, past the point where the anime ends.
The series spends too much time on every scene.
Almost every episode, I would glance in dismay at the progress timer for the episode because of how little happens per episode. It feels like every scene is held for too long. Because this issue effects large parts of almost every episode, it's a major negative that I wasn't able to overlook, even during the best parts.
Opportunity for cancel: Overall, no. Maybe the anime staff only had a small amount of material to work with and had to stretch it as far as possible to fit the season length. If this was an original work, the speed would have been unacceptably slow with no decent excuses. Even when a series proceeds slowly, there are interesting things that can be done to make it not so obviously slow.
The randomness of the save-point mechanic was unwelcome and inadequately explored.
The specific direction that Natsuki's save-point power took of not being consciously settable was a little bizarre. It added some positive tension to the series, though I think the series could have stuck out more if the save-point was settable, and the series explored how Natsuki would decide where to set his save-point, and the consequences of poorly setting it. Natsuki doesn't try to reason out when his save-point gets randomly set, so it felt to me that the randomness was a result of the author not wanting to explore this, despite it being the main mechanic of the series.
Opportunity for cancel: Almost, but, in the end, no. If Natsuki spent time trying to figure out his ability, or somehow otherwise explored the consequences of it being random (besides simply displaying varying emotions after-the-fact, based on where his save-points take him), it would have countered this negative effectively. For example, in any one instance, he could have decided, after much thought and discussion, to ~not~ return to his save-point even though he wanted to, because he would be too afraid that it updated without him knowing, and would take him to an undesired time. It's silently understood somehow that his save-point never moves backward and always gets set at a conveniently safe time and place. Also, the same thing for the opposite reason could have happened - he could have decided not to return to his save-point out of fear that it ~didn't~ update, and maybe he didn't want to go through a physically/emotionally painful experience again. Thoughts like that didn't happen enough.
Natsuki doesn't solidly grow as a person, despite attempts.
Yes, there's particularly that one episode toward the middle/end where it seems like there was a large character growth moment. The problem is that you can't have characters making solid decisions without equally solid motivations. Yes, he snapped out of his momentary depression, but if he relapsed into his hopeless state, I wouldn't have been surprised at all. I didn't get a strong, genuine feeling from him regarding the change. That, and changes happen over time, not in a single discussion, though the point of that entire episode was him suddenly turning a new leaf. Natsuki doesn't have the core personality to fit this series. As an example, if characters from Code Geass or Death Note were swapped in, they would have had the necessary brains and drive to lead this series in a different, more interesting way. Natsuki didn't acquire such brains or drive throughout the series, but instead just threw tantrums at everything and somehow worked stuff out through giving it his best effort.
Opportunity for cancel: No. From his blind love toward Emilia, to his faulty but present drive, to his frequent outbursts, to his way of saving everyone by unnecessarily sacrificing himself, to his half-baked way of turning a new leaf, Natsuki is immature and does not adequately grow throughout the series, despite the series seeming to try to show us that he ~has~ adequately grown.
