The anime really shines in the atmosphere - varies from claustrophobia and tense to true face of cruel world with all the obstacles, feeling they are on their own and grimy theme that the world is a very dark and unfriendly place. The sound, art, character reactions blend so well sometimes to make the impact in the representation. The art and sound are very good, even mecha and fights are alright, and those are the only positive points about the show. Some moments in first episodes were so good I'd easily give them 9/10, but it's time to get on negative parts.
Even though the story is simple and alright, the way it unfolds and twists is often so absurd and makes no sense. Clear plot-holes or forced events happen that some characters lose brain for a period of time that a new subplot can start, which makes me think whether to put characters as nothing but plot gears, starting the protagonist Yuji. He is one of my biggest complaints and one of the worst and most annoying protagonists I've seen so far - he behaves like a 12 year old brat with memory of goldfish. He feels like a merely plot trigger - his idiotic actions are the cause of events which bring nothing but trouble and death to everyone around him (I wonder why wasn't he tied and put in the trunk). Completely ignoring orders, making noise, running off and lecturing others on "morals" even though they saved his life countless amount of time. Then he turns 180 degrees over night and starts preaching the philosophy he hated so much just hours and and later forgets about it. The subplot with the girl and the dog felt so forced and artificial (especially the promises and participating in such unnecessary danger) that it was unbearable to watch. I guess that creators wanted to push him through the events to make him question his beliefs and adapt to the new world he woke up in, but it was very poorly executed. All other characters are either angels or douchebags who make nothing but trouble for plot reasons. Oh, what about the romance? Most of the time it ends in either one of them being insanely dense while the other is yelling the other one's name all the time and then comes the impact which is supposed to cause emotions in the watcher but it fails miserably or makes them laugh. Also a plenty of action is terrible and serves nothing to show someone as a good/bad guy or give plot armor to someone to carry on with task - a plenty of scenes have only 2-3 people doing action while all others are mere audience, even if they are guards who are supposed to catch someone in a small room.
The show has some really great moments but sadly they are shunned by immeasurable absurdity of the plot and the characters. Things make less sense later, some things are forgotten, then the show turns into some harem/slice of life/whatever thing and I couldn't have stomached it anymore. The show can be much more enjoyable if you ignore all the nonsense but even that amount annoyed hell out of me. Sorry if this conclusion is a mess because the show doesn't deserve it, being nothing more but an artificial nonsense.
*SPOILER ALERT*
I'll give here few examples of absurdity or forced events, I didn't count much but some of them baffled me.
The event while Dice, Yuji and Marlene were in a buggy driving through the desert, they fought a flying insect and Yuji fell out the buggy. Just after that was a scene of some nomad woman saving Yuji, even though Dice and Marlene searched the place! That subplot was pretty wacky - peaceful nomads whose female member drooled over Yuji, while Mad Max villains appeared out of nowhere to terrorize good guys, then of course Yuji showed them who's the boss in such awful action scene where everyone stood like mannequins and let him do all the work.
Episode 10-11 where guy named Han was obsessed about a sleeper and attempted to screw his whole team to go with herself alone into the space in a space shuttle, not with others too. His 180 degree turn was laughable and his excuse pathetic - where would they go if not on Second Earth? It didn't make any sense, creators just shifted the guy to become mad.
Also upon team reaching Second Earth, everyone on the space station is a douchebag and punishes others for no reason. Military heads not demanding full report from Marlene but for plot/drama sake keep yelling nonsense and punishing... I hope you get my point. It's not the issue that the anime has some plot/characters/logic issues, it has way too much of them. The only character I sorta liked was Dice, he felt out of place and managed to create some chemistry with characters, but he was ditched shortly afterwards.
