1. Not unlike Apple with the iphone7, the creators were seeing just how bad of a product they could intentionally make, and still have people fall for it.
2. The show was written by somebody no older than 15 who was trying really hard to look way smarter than he actually is.
So what's wrong with it? I want to say everything, because there is no facet of this series that is well-executed. The episodes follow a predictable structure : 20 minutes of slice of life, and then a CRAZY PLOT TWIST during the last two minutes. This is because the protagonist goes back in time after dying. So the idea is that he dies at the end in a very "surprising" way, and then you get to re-watch the same time period as he tries to change things in order to survive. The concept isn't bad, there is potential here. But the execution is bad. Bad. In the lead-up to Subaru dying, it is just so tremendously boring. The amount of rambling and forced attempts at humor fall short of delivering any kind of entertainment what-so-ever.
But sometimes, during the non-twist part of the show, you get a break from the bad comedy and you get an action scene. This is where it really tests your patience, because it's profoundly annoying, not just bad. Whenever there's a combat scene, you get maybe 5 seconds of action, and then the characters pause to talk shit to each other, probably for a good minute. Can you imagine a battle in medieval times, and after a few sword blows traded, both armies pause and start talking smack? Sounds retarded? It is.
The characters, you've guessed it, are another huge problem. There are a few of them that are decent and somewhat entertaining (Betty and Roswal), but the rest are abominations.
The protagonist never shuts up with his "epic one liners" that only a 13 year old could think are cool. Emilia is a pure plot device whose personality entirely depends on the requirements of the current scene. The maids are the most annoying though. Rem goes from killing the protag in one timeline, to practically falling in love with him in the next, with just about no motivation for the change. Protag went back in time about 3 days and through small changes in his actions, changed her actions completely! Isn't that convenient. B-but but the butterfly effect! Nah. This writing is so bad that it makes the latest season of Game Of Thrones look like pure brilliance. Seriously, only a teenager could come up with this and think it's good.
Probably the biggest offender in the show is the sheer quantity of cliches. It's not a few here and there. It's everything. Everything. like 80% of it is copy-pasted from various other sources.
"push you out of the way of a car/stampede and get hit myself" check
"you pretend to do it for me but you're just selfish!" check
"protag says some deep line and girl starts smiling and tearing up as wind starts to blow in her hair" check
Nothing in this show is genuine. Nothing.
So now you'll ask me how in the world i made it to episode 13. There is one thing that this show does well, and it's hook you with little doubts, cliffhangers, etc. It really makes you believe that in the end there will be some sort of complexity to this story, if you hang-on long enough. I never expected it to become good, but it's more like morbid curiosity. "How can they possibly explain this stupid thing, or will they just hope we forget about it?". The other thing that kept me going
is the prospect of writing a really bad review for it. I wanted more material to complain about. Now that i wrote it, i feel pretty good. Was it worth it? No.
Bottom line is, if you've finished high school, don't even try watching this. You might think you can watch it on 3-4 layers of irony (that's mostly what i did) and get some enjoyment out of it, but you probably won't.
