1. Concept - 5
The near-future setting is quite common for anime these days, but what grabs me to check out this show is the interesting idea as stated above. Despite the unique idea, this show fails by throwing in numerous bad inconsistent ideas such as deforming armors and weapons that beat the shit out of your common sense and of course the retarded logic of a national defense HQ located right below a local high school.
The ideas aside, the way this series handle the concept is poor. Although they make time to explain the important rules and bits with pretty much nonsensical bullshits, they are unable to follow them decently throughout the series.
2. Plot - 6
The plot of this series is somewhat disappointing as it starts with a promising serious tone but ends up as one of those forced nonsense of a plot. basically this series is trying to tell us about the story of high school girls saving the world with their own personal issues in the way. There are also horrible cliched plots and moments that I passionately despise such as the infamous bad guy turns good plot device. Despite the horrible story, pacing and the storytelling aspect is done quite decently.
3. Art - 7
Most of the scenes in this series even the action scenes are hand-drawn without expensive visual effects. Though the semi-CG concert scenes at the start of the series are done well, they are unable to maintain the quality to the rest of the series. The art style used is quite common for anime these days with decent shading despite the inconsistencies. There are not much background detail given though the characters are drawn well with good details.
4. Character - 6
Characters in this series are visually designed well however their characteristics and actions doesn't resemble that of a human I can empathize. If you think this is a pure sci-fi series like Infinite Stratos or Gundam, you're wrong because there are characters that stomps on physics laws and common sense without any sci-fi reasons or explanations at all. This might be a mistake on the studio for not explaining things or just a poor case of character designs. The relationships between the characters are laughable, an example would be the implied love relationship between the possessed main antagonist and the chief of the organization.
5. Animation - 7
The first episode is animated surprisingly well with good particle simulations and fine CG animations though that is not the case for the rest of the series. The animation style of this series' action scenes resembles TTGL though with lower quality. As for the non-action scenes animation are done decently bad with inconsistent detailed movements and poorly animated backgrounds.
6. Sound/Music - 8
This series is about girls fighting while singing so there's bound to be a whole list of songs, some are bad, some are decent, and some are actually good. I am no judge for this particular aspect, so this might be more of an opinion. My favorite would be the OP for some reason that I cannot explain. Music are mostly played on action scenes therefore it brings down the emotional value when played on emotional scenes. Sound effects are quite good in this series as they have a slight variation for every sound effects they use.
7. Enjoyment - 3
I find a bit of a pain while following this series as the main plot twist is as obvious as the nose in Voldemort's face. The only thing that managed to surprise me is the last plot twist, and not in a good way.
final score= (5+6+7+6+7+8+3)/7 = 6
8. Others
- Good Directing (+0.25) : There are times that this series managed to impress me by good camera angles, movements, and screen composition.
- Forced End (-0.2) : The ending of a series is the most dominant factor to leave an impression on the viewer. If its done badly, it would be remembered as a bad series overall.
- QUALITY issues (-0.1) : Those who followed series week-to-week and discussed it must have known the corridor scene at episode 3.
Final Score = 6 + 0.25 - 0.2 - 0.1 = 5.95 = 6
If you happen to pick this series, I advise you not to take this series seriously despite the first episode...
