The quality is good overall. Looks good, sounds good, feels good.
The characters are all interesting and distinct, each with her own interesting backstory. The character dynamics are entertaining and pleasant.
This show started off really well and had good momentum until somewhere around the halfway point, where it started introducing too many threads even as it abandoned them, it lost focus, and it failed to adequately resolve all of the threads it haphazardly introduced. A lot of the resolutions deserved more time. And most importantly of all, it did not even begin to address Mahiru and Kano's relationship. Chekhov's Lesbians. It is some of the best buildup I've seen in an anime before literally nothing happens. They don't fall apart. They don't get together. They don't address their feelings at all. They just... magically move on without a word. As if nothing happened.
It makes me feel like anime studios need to hire someone to just stand around and be like "Hey, if you do that, you'll piss off all the yuri enjoyers." Because clearly someone needed to hear that and didn't.
A show does not have to have romance, and romance does not have to go well when it happens. But to set up this romantic interaction with such excellence but then never actually address it? It's baffling. And Mei's confession to Kano... is just her being a fangirl. or something. It is not addressed again. And the suggestion that Kiui is genderqueer is also never addressed in any significant detail. It's 2024. Being gay or trans isn't that taboo anymore, and even just a shallow peek into these subjects can really help people who might be questioning. These threads being cut off so prematurely is a massive waste of potential and is incredibly disappointing.
I wish it had stuck the landing. But it simply didn't.
