Story: 3 (Poor)
Art: 8 (Very Good)
Sound: 6 (Fair)
Character: 1 (Pathetic)
Enjoyment: 1 (Pathetic)
Overall: 1 (Pathetic)
Some can be accredited to its massive hype up until its release, but also to the objective analysis of the different parts that make up this anime. I will be delving into the different parts that I rated it on, and explaining why I chose that number. Hopefully you can come to your own conclusion about whether you'd want to watch this or not, or whether you agree with me or not, but regardless;
Let's get right into the parts:
Story: 3 (Pathetic)
There is simply no other way of putting it. The story follows utterly generic story cliches that have been done many times before. Whilst I understand this solely doesn't invalidate the anime, the sheer amount of plot holes and evidences of terrible writing does. You don't get fed a lot of information about the world, and not even in a purposeful way; whilst mystery is nice, it requires a balance of given information to keep you interested in the mysteriousness. Darling in the FranXX, however, lacks any mysteriousness as it also lacks information to begin with. You, the viewer, feel very lost watching it, as you try and piece together the characters to the story.
There is also a beach episode, which logically doesn't make much sense in the story and was extremely shoehorned into it even though prior statements showed that a "beach episode" is highly unlikely to be able to occur. These changes in the story (ie. inputting a sole fanservice episode, even when the story would dictate otherwise) show that the writer's intentions were not even towards forwarding or developing the story. Perhaps money, or a sickening desire to make fanservice, were the real reasons behind the completely-lacking-plot.
The world does look interesting, however, but this is more accredited to the art, since the world isn't explained at all, which is a shame to put such art to waste. It's like seeing something amazing that really sticks out in a painting, but never being able to find the true reason why that object was placed there, or what it is - this is the only kind of intrigue you get about the story; an annoying kind. In the first few episodes, the story progresses alarmingly quickly. This is given to the fact that the story skips over things that might seem important simply to move to the next big plot twist, however, the plot twists are extremely predictable. The next few episodes actually completely copy each other, with the exact same kinds of things happening in the story, repeated 3 episodes in a row. For example, A happens, then B happens by surprise, and C has to fix it. It became extraordinarily apparent that the next episode would follow suit, and I physically predicted the episode before it happened. Again, it copied the same template, which was so painfully obvious I had no enjoyment watching the episode (as with all of the episodes).
Although, there are definitely animes with worse stories. There are plotholes in many major publications, but regardless is still worth mentioning due to their glaring obviousness in Darling in the FranXX. If you don't think about the story, and just watched the fight scenes, I would admit that it would be an enjoyable watch. However, this does show the precedent example of how the context of the story actually somehow makes the intermittent (and rare) fight scenes worse.
Overall, the story is a weak point. In some later episodes, plot holes and problems become severely apparent. "The plot" is used to do practically impossible things, with little expectation. You actually feel quite dumb, as the anime is practically assuming you wouldn't notice the plot holes.
Art: 8 (Very Good)
The distinct 'Trigger style' is what initially drew a lot of people to this anime, as the name carries good connotations for most. Kill la Kill, Kiznaiver and Little Witch Academia all carried the Trigger name, and were massively successful, so it's without a doubt that there were already high expectations. Unfortunately, this is where its let down. Sometimes the Trigger style art is obviously 'switched out' or at least touched by A1 Pictures in some way, most notably on a lot of the fanservice moments. Really makes you think.
Regardless of that, the artwork is nice. The colours go well together, for example, Zero Two's mecha Strelezia, has a great contrasting colour scheme. The world vibrantly comes to life, especially during large-scale scenes. Unfortunately, the action scenes are a let down, a tiny bit, but still illustrate the battles quite well.
Additionally, made apparent by the beach episode, the characters are oddly disproportional. Younger, smaller characters have massive breasts which are completely impossible for their stature, yet are shoehorned into the episodes, whilst the "flat-chested" characters (basically anyone without C+ chests) feel bad about it. With no place in this anime, it becomes amazingly jarring when you see those parts of the character designs, and completely understand the artist's intentions behind the character.
Overall, there isn't much else to say for the art. The colours and art style are pleasant to look at, but are let down by the blatant use of disproportionate characters for more sex appeal, and some fight scenes not being as fluid as they could be. I also have to deduct a point for pointless cinematic black bars appearing randomly. I thought they helped make the fights more cinematic, for some reason, but I saw them appear even during random conversations. It confused me and detracted my attention away from the content itself. Still, a solid piece to look at.
Sound: 6 (Fair)
This one was harder to rate. At not one point did I consider the sound to feel 'off' except for, more often than not, the music. Sounds for everything else is practically pristine - its powerful, pristine, and matches whatever is going on, and at whatever scale, too (some objects in the world are large, for example, and sounds given off match that well). However, I noticed several times where the music used did not fit the situation or feel of the scene at all. Usually it was with the music during, and around, fight scenes. Some times it would play utterly unfitting music that actually distracted you from the scene itself, which is something that shouldn't happen in any anime, to say the least.
Since it doesn't stick out, and is let down several times by unfitting music, it isn't amazing, but nothing to complain horribly about.
Character: 1 (Pathetic)
Well, in addition to the parts of the review that talked about the story, the characters fit in next. They are bland, to say the least. The most relatable character for most viewers is probably Goro - he's down-to-earth and overall a nice guy. Unfortunately, he is not the protagonist. The protagonist, Hiro, is a carbon-copy of Kirito (from SAO), but objectively worse and actually lacking any form of personality. He makes dumb decisions, not even for the sake of 'its a mistake', but completely illogical. For example, there are multiple times where the conversation is turning towards a point where we might actually learn something about a character's viewpoint/feelings, but in both situations, Hiro, gets distracted by 'something' (aka an event that was shoehorned into the plot, completely coincidental, and would never happen between people talking, ever), and you completely lose the buildup. I would suppose, however, that I do like the side characters, as a positive. They are very relatable, and actually react to conversation in a much more realistic sense, unlike the protagonist. If you are okay and can deal with a complete self-insert basic protagonist, and can see past him to see the more interesting characters, it would be bearable to watch.
The characters are definitely the weakest point of the anime. It's such a shame for characters with strong visual representation to be so poorly-written. They fulfill tropes to a disgusting degree, although that can be argued to help the story by letting the reader's instinct about particular tropes (eg. the fat guy eats a lot) to extrapolate information to help construct a context. Apart from this, it's difficult to get any more information about the characters other than what's scarcely fed to you.
Overall, the characters are weak; some are strongly relatable, but you easily begin to realise that their small screen-time is jarring and disturbing. One character introduced in Episode 5 for about 5 seconds is seen again in 6, for about the best of 30 seconds. Even in this short space of time, they already give off an amazing air and vibe of mystery, with me desiring to want more. Why couldn't I feel this for all the other protagonists and side characters? It really shows the shortcomings in the character development, compared to other animes by the same studios, for example.
Enjoyment/Overall: 1 (Pathetic)
Well, it's hard to be objective about this part, so it will be subjective. Darling in the FranXX is mediocre at best, but terrible at worst. Its most marketable character, the pink-haired 002, is arguably the most well-known character due to her distinct look compared to the other main characters, but she is wound up in this odd plot. There is no point that you want more answers about her and her lore simply due to an air of mystery, you are fed information intermittently, and you piece together bits, but never get any real answers for her, or the other characters for that matter.
The plot is basic at best. It's a generic "us vs. them" story for starters, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but is orchestrated in such a horrific manner that it becomes a letdown. Things make no sense, plotholes become obvious, the plot itself makes drastic changes that are absurdly unrealistic, and ultimately results in a disturbed experience as you wonder 'Why? How?' to almost everything.
Not to mention the sex appeal appalling fanservice. Random scenes of close-up bodily parts, obvious insecurity from 'flat-chested' (as I mentioned before, who are practically not even flat-chested) characters to the rest, disproportionate body types, and such really detract from the rest of the art. Whilst the enemies, allies, and world itself look beautiful at times, seeing a character with massive breasts that are too big for her body swinging them about (which I may add, is whilst wearing a skintight suit, therefore them 'bouncing' is impossible) for no reason really shows the creator's intentions. It genuinely seems like, most of the time, the creator is gearing for the next posterior camera angle rather than the next reveal in the plot.
To which I will go on to say that each 'reveal' that you're geared up to be somewhat excited for is a massive letdown. Either it follows the same archetype of there being some sort of 'unseen problem' which is ultimately fixed by the power of ____ (insert feeling here). One part I remember, is where another team of characters we've never seen before had to fight some enemies, and I actually connected to them more than I had any other of the main characters. Their situation was realistic. They acted realistically. At no point were they saying cringey lines.
To mention 'cringey lines' is funny too, as a lot of the words are unnecessarily replaced with innuendo-esque words. "Kissing" is used a lot to refer to a certain event in the anime, as well as "Docking" etc. Again, it seems too intentional to really take the anime seriously at all.
Overall it's a shame. The anime looked good from the trailers and screenshots, reveals and character designs. Hearing 'Trigger' really set people into expecting a lot, but the end result is a massive letdown. You may wish to watch this if you can see past the problems above, but I doubt there are a lot of people who can actually be honest to themselves and actually admit that it is genuinely a mediocre-to-bad anime at most. Similar anime that do their job properly would be Evangelion, Aldnoah.Zero, and Sidonia no Kishi.
Thank you very much for reading my review.
