The good: The art is gorgeous. The premise and world building is tons of fun. And this is one of the only shows that actually understands how guns work! They get it more correct than other shows that are specifically about guns. Like that other one about girls near a front line. The choreography is fantastic and learned the right lessons from things like Equilibrium and John Wick. Scenes are easy to parse and you're rarely left confused about what's happening. Action scenes are plentiful and they consistently look good. The supporting cast is fun, and when they get side arcs those episodes are also fun. The show has some near-future sci-fi trappings and those are utilized effectively in the story without feeling cheaty or out of place. On the whole, the early show feels a lot like a Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex sci-fi investigative drama with a lethal amount of moe slice-of-life injected into it, and it manages to do both at the same time successfully. When this show is on a roll it is a LOT of fun.
The bad: The plot. Imagine John Wick but you find out midway through that his parents are getting a divorce and that's the focus of the movie now. It's not a total derailment, but it squanders the opportunity to keep doing what the show was already doing extremely well. It's also not so offensive to shut the whole show down, but there's a point where I was wondering what happened to the fun show I had been watching. It's a hard enough pivot that people coming for the action or the moe parts of the show will probably be put off after the story kicks in. The characters central to the plot aren't strong enough to support a character drama of the type it's attempting.
The ugly: The role of villain is assigned somewhat arbitrarily and even the show asks itself why the main villain is the villain instead of one of the other, obviously villainous people. The plot as a whole is structurally airtight but this is a hole it doesn't resolve successfully even after spending a lot of time on it. This is a non-spoiler review so specific characters won't be named, but some central characters are obviously villainous even by the ethically skewed standards in this universe. They explicitly hide in the shadows and manipulate people to avoid anyone finding out about the evil things they do. The show kind of tries to sell this as a good thing because one of the victims of it doesn't mind? Meanwhile the show's stated villain has some very credible complaints about the extra-governmental child death squads running around and he's treated like a monster. This is presented as ambiguity but it comes off more as dissonance between what you're watching happen vs. what you're told is happening, and it's bad enough to weaken the show.
Closing: This show would probably shine in a season 2. Its main weakness is the central conflict, and the central conflict is now resolved and out of the way. The cast is good, the setting is good, and the premise is fun. Keep it simple a la Akiba Maid War and there's the makings of a solid 8 or 9 show in here somewhere. This show, by itself, does not really warrant a total recommendation, but parts of it do shine.
