☢CAUTION!!☢ SPOILERS AHEAD ☢CAUTION!!☢
Story: 3
If I was able to make any recommendation across media, I would definitely say this show reminded me a lot of Nitro+'s visual novel Saya no Uta. For those of you not familiar with it, it's a somewhat gory and sexually explicit short story following one male protagonist, who through what can probably be excused as fate, sees the world as a conglomeration of flesh and things. The only thing that appears normal to him is a girl, who in time they fall in love with one another, and in the end, she turns out to be an unstable slaughter-alien that basically destroys the earth. It's a really heart-touching story despite what it may sound like, and Saikano attempted very much to accomplish the same thing.
The problems with Saikano, though, are many. First off, the one question that kept nagging me was this: who are they fighting? Across the entire series, you never find out who the Japanese are fighting against. They're only referred to as 'the enemy', and it's basically impossible to determine anything about them because you only actually see 'the enemy' a total of about 3 times. So if that's not military intelligence enough for you, check out their choice of weaponry: Arming a hormonal teenage girl with enough missiles to wipe out an entire town several times over, and then letting her run freely around school, pretending to be a normal human. Why didn't the military pick a mid-20s male in prime shape, and instead pick a clumsy, dopey girl? (More complaints on characters to come) Nobody knows. I guess the military was just trolling. Tens of billions of yen spent creating the 'Ultimate Weapon', and they fail to pick somebody who was even capable of walking in a straight line without wiping out.
Military matters aside, all that's left in this show is romance drama. I probably wasn't watching as closely as I should have been, so I got confused with the characters a little, but it didn't matter. The basic idea is that this is supposed to be, as the subtitle may suggest, "The last love song on the planet." It's anything but pure. Nearly every character in the show cheats on one another with every other character, resulting in one big, confusing, web of spitesex. None of the characters seem to be enjoying it, and none of them do anything to pretend that they do. Probably half the scenes have the characters crying or cursing themselves, while the other half typically have one of the partners cut up, coughing up blood, dying, or with tentacles coming out of their stomachs. Meanwhile the other sits and says classic lines such as, "You're beautiful," or "Touch my breasts."
The 'plot', should you be generous enough to call it that, resolves when the main character and his Ultimate Weapon Girlfriend (UWG from here) are atop a building where they first fell in love, repeatedly having sex while the town under them is destroyed in a giant tidal wave, shortly followed up by massive black ... masses coming from the sky and doing I don't even know what. Then, failing to protect the planet, UWG manages to only save main guy, who is then left alone on the destroyed planet (probably) only to sit and rather easily go insane, and probably to die of starvation within a couple days. There's nothing heart-warming about that. There's nothing depressing about that. It's just stupid.
Art: 6
...I hesitantly say this is the best aspect of the show. The art is solid and consistent throughout the series. That isn't to say, though, that it's actually good. First off, for some reason, every character is constantly blushing. Constantly. Throughout the entire show. Then when they actually do blush, it looks more like a rash that got irritated and their entire face becomes inflamed. Or something.
The character designs themselves are pretty unoriginal, which loaned itself to me not being able to keep track of characters. Main character looks like he's about 30, though, and UWG averages 8. Her face is literally a circle, and she's short and fat-looking. I mean, I'm not gonna rip on them for /actually/ making an anime girl fat, but the thing is, I don't think she's supposed to be. I think it was their attempt to expand on her character through her appearance. Then again, I could be wrong.
The one thing that did manage to win several points was UWG's design when she was in full-out destructo mode. She appears several times with a pair of large, metallic wings in various forms throughout the show, each time a little different than the time before, and every single time, pretty darn cool. And that's why the art is the best aspect.
Sound: 5
Ugh. The opening theme is annoying. I listened to it the first time, then muted the volume every episode after that. The ending theme is boring. If there was background music, it was so transparent that I didn't even notice it. Except once again, when UWG goes into destructo-mode, there's one song on the soundtrack that sounds like something out of Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor. It was nearly decent, but completely unfitting most of the time, because the action scenes were not very action-packed, and electric guitar with no action is a bit of a paradox (unless it's K-on or some crap like that).
The explosions sounded okay.
Character voices... I guess for the most part they were decent, but there were several points in the show where characters either laughed or screamed, and it was just the most irritating thing I've ever heard. That happens a lot though, and isn't something I haven't grown to expect.
Characters: 2
Okay. Let me dismantle this character-by-character (Going straight off the list here on MAL, since I won't be able to remember them all on my own).
Main Character: Chise. I don't know why they picked a whiny, clumsy brat to be their ultimate weapon. She's constantly tripping and falling and screaming, which is apparently only cute to a bunch of perverted old men at a cafe where she works late in the series. She's horribly indecisive. She can be persuaded just by yelling at her. Also, there's some sort of split-personality going on, where she turns robotic and manages awkward utterances such as, "Your liquid entered my body. Why do you do this?" after a kiss. I don't get it at all, but it's annoying.
Main Character: Akemi. What? She was a main character? All she did was offer 'helpful' relationship advice to Shuuji, hiding the fact that she liked him the entire series (of course, it was painfully obvious to the viewers), and by the time she finally got around to admitting it, half her body's blasted away from an earthquake or something. Awkward sex scene ensues, she dies coughing blood all over Shuuji while he reassures her she's beautiful and the only one he loves. What happened to UWG? She's off cheating on Shuuji.
Main Character: Shuuji. He's the most difficult to respect out of all the characters in this show. He says he's Chise's boyfriend frequently, and every night, sneaks out of his house to go sleep with his senpai Fuyumi (who in turn, is also cheating on her husband, who in turn, is also cheating on his wife with Chise. Go figure.) When he's around her, he shows his affection by calling her 'Idiot/Moron/Doofus/etc', then leaves to curse himself and be an otherwise deadpan, static rock of a character.
Atsuhi: The most interesting character this show has to offer, he's friends with Shuuji and the scarcely-important Take, and has feelings for Akemi. He joins the military to 'protect' her, but turns out to be a wimp and dies anyhow.
Tetsu: Fuyumi's husband, a military dog who seduces Chise because he wants loli but doesn't even remember her name. Dies.
Fuyumi: An annoying succubus. Dies eventually.
Shuuji's Dad: What.
Yukari/Take: Listed together because they're equally unimportant. Take dies in episode 1 or 2 or something and you don't learn his name until like 10 or 11. Lulz ensue.
Enjoyment: 5
This is higher than it would seem to be. That's because I was actually laughing at what a pathetic show it was, and how all the melodrama was more mock-fodder for my taking. Also, it just has such a weird-out factor that you probably WILL remember it for a long time if you actually watch it all.
Overall: 4
That's the average, right? I don't even know. So yeah, trash, avoid.
