Story-wise i also wasn't super convinced, the first episodes had a nice vail of mystery that got me curious about various aspects of the world and characters, but towards the middle the pace really slowed down, the questions posed at the beginning seemed to've been forgotten, and with nothing left to keep that connection to the plot or characters curiousity slowly started to fade into boredom, this made me question if the manga was possibly an extream case of style over substence
Thankfully the last 10 or so episodes completely turned that around
These episodes delve deep into the dynamics of the Band of The Hawk, giving some much needed insight into the characters psyche, personalities and motivations, all leading into one of the most epic gorefest of a final battle, i'm convinced 50% or more of the animation budget went into this final showdown, it looked incredible!
Overall i'd say this is a win, those last episodes did what they had to do and got me back into wanting to pick up the manga
This could've easily been a 10 if the production quality and storytelling was a bit more consistent
