Production value in not lacking in this project. The art style is unique and the atmosphere is well established through beautiful background and it's melancholic background music. However animation is often hit and miss. There are completely unnecessary moments where there is a beautifully animated scene that has little to bring to the overall experience. As if the show is screaming "look at me, I'm interesting."
Speaking of the show demanding your attention, there are massive chunks of the show where nothing of note happens. Around half way of it's air time the show comes to a grinding halt. While there is no reason that a slow paced show cannot be entertaining, the sudden change of pace feels jarring as it constantly contrasts with the atmosphere the show is striving to achieve.
The characters were my greatest issue however. I found the main characters infuriating at times and barely tolerable at others.
The main problem with the protagonist is that he is an inherently reactive character. Throughout the series everything he does is done because of the intervention of others. While it makes sense for him to do so at the start of the series because he was emotionally broken, the fact that he never does anything of his own volition causes the viewer to feel as if the protagonist grew very little outside of being able to produce music again, even though every other character in the story insists the contrary. The protagonist is constantly dancing to the tunes of the heroine. And in the case of the heroine, when put under thought she barely feels like a character. It is not uncommon for shows aimed at a young demographic to idealize the opposite sex. Unfortunately the heroine falls victim to this trope. The audience barely knows anything about her other than that she is beautiful, energetic and loves the protagonist. The conclusion of the show seals this thought and she is left as a shallow character, having nothing out side of his relation to the protagonist. A truly saddening fact as the show is great at establishing side characters as believable humans.But if a romance fails to write likable lead characters, it just failed it's key purpose.
