To be fair, the premise is good. It's a captivating and intriguing idea, using time travel to benefit and improve one's self, and I thought that the personal battles of Hitomi were original and enticing enough to get me to watch.
However, that's where the line is drawn in terms of where the anime succeeded. Unfortunately, I think that the execution was quite poor.
The characters fall short in depth and personality. It's quite hard to grasp the intentions and motivations for any of them. Each character's personality, especially Hitomi, seems quite flat. The most exciting character to me, Kohaku, is still a typical vibrant and motivated character that you see in most anime.
The supporting cast of characters that make up the Magic Arts Photography Club (one of the focal points in the series) get left in the dust in terms of fruitful character development. The series tries to tell you that they each improve along with Hitomi in their own personal development, but it's hard to see. I commonly mistake one of the male characters for the others since they're so bland.
The art is fine. It's a bit different from most P.A. Works animation styles. I'm not a huge fan of the character designs--I think the facial proportions are a bit weird--but the environment is pretty well-designed and the colors are brought out beautifully.
I think that the series tries to make up for the lack of character depth with emotional storytelling, but it's not enough. In the moments where the characters embrace something about themselves or share an emotional moment of triumph and understanding, I'm left wondering why these characters are so emotional after being so reserved in the other scenes.
The intertwining of magic with a slice of life premise was confusing at times. Unlike well-executed magic slice of life series like Flying Witch, the use of magic in this series tends to be more of a distraction rather than naturally blending in with the story. I didn't expect the series to explain to us the fundamentals and origins of magic in that world, but I also think that it could have benefited from a more structured magic system. For example, Kohaku believes that Hitomi has some sort of "unconscious" magic that she is consistently using, but it's not very clear what the nature of that is.
Overall, this series was a disappointment for me. I'm hoping that it gets adopted into another medium, like a light novel or manga, so that the story can be more flushed out.
