Animation:
1) CGI usage most of the time. Character movement seems incredibly slow, clunky and worst of all, it breaks immersion;
2) Not a fan at all of the character design
Sound:
1) the soundtrack is okay
2) Most of the voice actors hired are incredibly experienced and famous. However, the seiyuu chosen for Cestvs is a rookie and I find that interesting. He did a solid job, giving a believable performance to the role.
Story and characters:
1) It pretends to be historically accurate by throwing random pieces of trivia to the audience;
2) The characters are boring and so is the narrative. Ancient Rome's brutality and violence are absent from this anime. Slaves, fighters and gladiators weren't killed easily for no good reason. The Roman nobility loved violence and gore. To have Nero, a real Roman Emperor and one of the most vicious ones, be confused and scared of violence was a major turn off. This guy used to doom ancient christians to serve as torches to light up the roman streets at night. Even as a kid, he would already be numb to violence as a roman noble. There are too many examples but this gives you an idea of what to expect throughout the 11 episodes;
3) I didn't read the manga but I was told (and certainly seems that way) several events were skipped between the 1st and 2nd episodes. These events aren't addressed again, except in very brief flashbacks with little to no explanation. It's a major flaw in storytelling and hurts the flow of the story. It's hard to feel connected to a character and his struggles if you don't get to experience it. This is one of the major flaws on this anime;
4) Slaves interactions with roman nobles is way too inaccurate to take this anime seriously
5) Some episodes begin with some very obnoxious and long flashbacks. Some of them took about 4 minutes in total just of footage already shown previously.
6) The ending is obviously trying to get a sequel announced but I honestly hope it doesn't happen. If you want to do a story set in a historical setting, you have to respect certain historical aspects because otherwise it feels that the audience was tricked into watching something entirely different.
In conclusion, it gets a 4/10. Awful visuals, boring characters, historical inaccuracies and skipped important events that later on the audience is supposed to understand through very brief flashbacks.
