This show is not generic. It may seem like one, but you can tell that when you watch it that they're really trying to do something else with the whole high school romance thing. It is however very forgettable.
Let me just address the art first. I see a lot of people in the reviews praising how well the backgrounds are and how well the characters are animated. In my personal opinion, the backgrounds were fairly good, but nothing special. I barely paid attention to it. The characters are not animated in any special way. It's just typical anime animation. I did not find anything special in the show's art. It was good I bet, but none of it had any lasting effect on me for me to be able to even remember an example right now (and I just finished the show a few minutes ago). And this is coming from someone who regulars Sakugabooru. I usually pay a lot of attention to these. (Or maybe it's because that I visit Sakugabooru often since I might've been overexposed to so much stellar animation).
I also saw some people praising the voice acting. I don't typically pay attention to voice acting and I don't really know what qualifies as good voice acting or not, so I won't say anything about it here. However, I just want to say that the senpai of the group whose name I forgot because she really was only a side character has the most annoying voice ever. It's like someone fused a frog and a cat and told the resulting monstrosity to sound cute. And being the first character to be introduced after the protagonist, Sana, I suddenly got massive premonitions of how bad this show might be when she first started speaking. (Fortunately, those premonitions weren't met in entirety.) I got used to her voice eventually, but I wouldn't call that good voice-acting in the slightest.
Now, let's discuss the story. It's a very simple storyline to be frank. Bad things happen after a period of good things and they keep happening until they stop happening and everyone's changed because of it. It's not a bad storyline. This actually applies to every story out there. It's probably not a story if this doesn't apply to it. However, what makes this show different from superior stories is that this show's story lacks both nuance and anything worth remembering. At this point of writing (which, as said earlier, is only a few minutes after finishing the show), I can't really remember anything more than what I just said earlier. Bad things just happened to the characters. Now there's nothing bad about having a simple story as long as it's memorable. However, this story is not memorable. None of anything that happens in the story has anything intelligent or meaningful to say. As examples, two of the characters which I will not name due to potential spoilers (even if I believe that you'll just forget them anyway as soon as you finish the show, I'll still abide by my code of honor) have terrible family lives. It does not discuss at all anything deep about this at all or attempt to examine closely why things happen this way. One could say that this show is trying to tell us that parents are people too, except the parents are never depicted as actual people. The parents are all very two-dimensional characters who only appear to give the main characters something to react to. They're all just mean because if they weren't, there would be no story for the characters to experience. What I'm trying to say is that the story is unmemorable. It exists only to serve the characters. This makes sense though. This is a character-driven show, not story-driven. It doesn't require an amazing plotline to justify itself. It just needs one that provides the most amount of rounding for its characters. What it wants to make memorable is its characters, not its narrative. So, how are the characters?
Well, they were likable but not really anything beyond that. They all follow a logical path of actions and thinking, but nothing else. They're characters can all be analyzable, but only down a level or too. None of them really fit right into stereotypes (except maybe Sana, our typical slightly dull-minded protagonist), but none of them were particularly realistic either. They all experience a good amount of character development, but it was a very step-by-step type of character development (this happens so she becomes this, then this happens so he becomes this). As an example, let's bring up Nanaka's character arc (no spoilers, I promise). Nanaka starts off as closed-off and distant. Angry, but a shy kind of angry. This is explained by her backstory that was pretty bad (as I said, no spoilers). She was angry at Sana for not being there for him even if she knows he couldn't. That's a pretty typical sentiment and not very illogical even if it seems so. Then, she starts opening up to Sana after several events where they got to talk alone. She however opens up in a very clear-cut way in, I'd say, a set of levels. Event 1, she gets closer to Sana but still somewhat distant. Event 2, she gets closer to Sana and now showing visible joy. Event 3, she's angry at Sana because of the classic anime misunderstanding. Event 4, she reveals feelings and is now really close to Sana. It's a very logically simple character development. It's character development, but not the most realistic. Nanaka is still a likable character, but not the most nuanced one. And this applies to all the main characters in the series. All of them are interesting to watch, but not interesting to analyze.
Now, I'll use this penultimate paragraph just to note some other gripes I had with the show I didn't get to say. The plot twist in Nanaka's backstory barely matters at all. It could've been taken out and the show would still be the same. (Doing so might actually improve the show because it would add a bit more conflict). Her entire backstory itself felt lacking in buildup. Sana's backstory was the opposite. Sana's had lots of buildup over the entire series, however it ended up being very underwhelming, told over a minute, had no importance, and did nothing to change our perception of his character. The eleven year-old kid who was important in the first half completely loses all relevance in the second half. This would be fine if she didn't lose relevance so abruptly (even if they ended her relevance with something that managed to surprise even me at the end of episode six, that doesn't stop how quickly she lost her relevance). In the end, she could've even have been taken out of the entire show. Her existence adds nothing to the other main characters, their developments, and the overall plot. She may have rounded out some of Sana's character but that's it. It's also said that Shu is in love with someone, but we never get to see this be important (of course, he may have just said that as an excuse to the eleven year-old). Asami's entire character arc is also completely out of the blue and very random. It just started as "I'm kind of important and may become very relevant soon", then to "I'm actually not what you think I am" with no buildup whatsoever, and then to "I'm not relevant anymore". The twins' arc were okay, but it ended up feeling like it abruptly ended. It feels like there were some loose ends they didn't tie up. I'd say their arc was the strongest part of this series, but it still felt kind of lacking.
Now that's all I have to say about this show. If I wrote this review any later, I probably would've forgotten many more things. If I forgot to mention any aspect of the show, it's because it's forgettable. The fact that all the characters were just forgotten after their arcs were done stuck with me though. I mean, it's just like this show.
My score is 5/10. Very forgettable.
