**spoilers
The story of Moribito is strange in that it starts off with an intense series of events which leads to a very prolonged lull in the action in the middle of the series, where Balsa and Chagum are living in Yogo and while other characters are trying to figure out whether the prince is actually dead (from the palace side) and what the deal is with the egg. While there were some interesting moments introduced through this arc of the story, I felt that it was much longer than necessary. For example, I think that pretty much all the content on Saya and Touya (the orphan twins) could have been cut, because they added nothing to the main story. They could have cut 2-3 episodes of Chagum sidestory content without any consequence to the plot. If they really wanted to cut the fat, they also could have cut down some of the lengthy scenes involving Torogai (the old lady).
I often say that shows are too short for their ambitions, but in this case I really feel that this show could have done fine with 13 episodes. The filler didn't add anything to the story, and just made it harder to trudge along the slowest parts of the show.
Art was phenomenal, especially the spear-dueling scenes. The scenery was very solid, the characters looked distinct and interesting, and honestly I can't find anything to complain about.
Sound... Nothing really stuck out to me in the sound department this time. I don't recall any moments where I even took notice of the soundtrack. I will note that Balsa's Japanese voice actor (I watched subs) did a good job doing a deep and threatening female voice.
Characters -- definitely not something this show did particularly well.
As mentioned earlier, Balsa didn't feel believable to me in that her motivations were far too one-dimensional and simplistic, and even at the end of the series we see almost no development/change in her despite all the events of the show. She was just TOO stoic, showing literally no moments of weakness throughout the entire show or any wants or desires outside of her mission to save Chagum.
Chagum had some growth that didn't surmount to anything in the final episodes, or even in the epilogue really.
Tanda was an incredibly passive character that actually felt sort of like a real person, because of how badly he got friendzoned by Balsa throughout the entire show. I'm glad that he didn't get a backstory episode because even the producer knew it would be too boring. Same for Shuga.
Because of the weird pacing of the show, the superfluous content, and the uninteresting nature of the characters I feel that the show really bombed in the enjoyment category during my run-through. "Boribito" indeed
