This anime commits one of the ultimate crimes a story can commit in my eyes, it is aimless and meandering. There is no real through line that links the beginning to the end. The final challenges faced by titular character Izumi have no real link to the beginning of the show. Every rushed "arc" feels like a separate story, which can be done well (see Hunter x Hunter- although that does have much stronger through-lines and recurring characters), but in this case it was not. The main enemy of the story, the final boss if you will, was only introduced about a quarter of the way into the show, and only really given any proper screen time half way into the show.
Another annoying aspect is this weirdly forced environmental message, which is very trite and says nothing above a primary school level of environmental understanding. Izumi just sort of goes on these environmental tangents and it threw me off every time. His love interest- I can't remember her name and it isn't important- was incredibly annoying, doing nothing but crying and complaining at Izumi for the whole show. Their "romance" was worse than Anakin and Padme from the prequels and should not have been implemented in an already rushed show. Honestly, the pacing is so bad, it feels rushed in the interesting parts, and the boring romance and slice of life shit is dragged out. WHY WHY WHY? The secondary love interest was far more engaging, even though she didn't have much going on either.
I know this is more a rant than a review, so... positives? The art is OK, the dubstep stuff in the OST is interesting for an anime and fits the action scenes well. I liked the relationship between Izumi and the symbiote. The show started off interesting when I thought it was going somewhere... Yeah, that about does it. I was gonna give this show a 5/10 but on reflection throughout writing this, 4/10 makes more sense. This is a below average show with flashy animation and action that hides how hollow it is. Please do not waste your time with it.
