This anime falls solidly under the category of "good but not that good." Its best attribute was its conceptual basis: the battle between both AI and humans with different ideas for their future. However the execution was pretty lackluster, with terrible pacing at times and a number of scenes that just fell flat.
Story: 7
The concepts here aren't new or unique in any way; Chobits explored the issue of human-AI relationships over a decade and a half ago, and more recently a similar conflict was explored in Detroit: Become Human. However, Beatless combines this human-robot identity crisis with political and social issues to spin a much more complex and nuanced web of clashing ideals. Instead of the usual dichotomous pro- and anti-bot factions duking it out, we get seven different AI's and at least seven more human factions engaged in both direct and indirect conflict. And while I do have some complaints about the execution, Beatless did a pretty good job of not being too confusing. Also, Arato's philosophy was refreshingly straightforward and a bit different from anything else I've seen in fiction.
My biggest complaint about the pacing is probably with regards to the relationship between Lacia and Arato. At some points, especially near the beginning and the end, new developments came in rapid-fire, while at other times it felt like it was becoming stagnant. The pacing was also pretty bad in terms of the appearances of Arato's two best buds, to the point where I lost track of who was who because I honestly just forgot that one of them existed by the time he showed up again.
Art: 6
There wasn't much special about the animation. I gave it a point above average because it had less noticeably bad CGI than most, and the use of colors and physical traits to make the different AIs very distinct was pretty good.
Sound: 5
An average soundtrack to me is one where you don't really remember anything about it, except for just a small number of times where it sounded a bit off from what was going off.
Character: 7
In order to keep track of 14+ different humans and AI with different ideals, the characters must be fairly well done so it's easy to distinguish between them and keep track of who's who. Beatless did a pretty good job with this. I also particularly liked Arato's character because of his unique stance on hIE's, which I can totally get behind. However, some of the supporting cast seemed pretty meaningless and superficial, especially Arato's and Kengo's sisters.
Enjoyment: 6
I found the anime just good enough to want to keep watching, but I never really got hooked. The first two episodes almost did, but just knowing that I'd have to sit through another 16 episodes to get anywhere was pretty off-putting.
