I really enjoyed the show on first watch. I've watched a bunch of it a second time already, and it definitely becomes less confusing the second time through.
*Probable spoilers throughout, if that bothers you, skip this review.
Strengths:
The action scenes in this show are outstanding and unique, sort of a combination of Dragon Ball Z and Ying Xiong (a.k.a. Hero (2002) with Jet Li). The fight between Yuna and Koku is particularly well done: There was clearly a lot of attention paid to color and light, and the music for it is great. My favorite aspect of the action is when the characters are made to look extremely powerful by only showing them in brief flashes and using their impact on the environment to convey what was happening. For example, for part of this fight, we don't see either of the two characters, but we do see and hear the beams of the temple being cut and the roof collapsing. I hope to see this technique being used in other anime in the future.
The setting is developed only to a limited extent but seems to be wide open for expansion. The show takes place in a fictional country, in the near future, with its own mythology and history. The setting reminded me quite a bit of Big O, but not quite as mysterious or noir.
Weaknesses:
With the exception of Keith, most of the characters are not well developed through the story.
Not as many action scenes as I'd hoped for. After seeing the fights with Izanami and Yuna, I was looking forward to more action sequences with the villains higher up the food chain, but there were few that lived up to those two.
Typical cop show tropes like the supergenius detective and ridiculous computer hacking sequences. I didn't mind these much since they're not any worse than Sherlock, CSI, or NCIS.
Conclusion:
It's easily entertaining enough to watch for all but the hardest to please. If you think you might like it, you probably will. I hope they do another season with a more straightforward story and more of the action sequences that are clearly one of the director's strengths.
