Well. I guess I got a kick out of watching this.
Story: 6
It's not the story itself that's bad. The premise is good, maybe a bit average; MC with special abilities he has no clue about. He suddenly gets involved in this mess with creatures called Duras, whereupon he meets a man named Luka who swears to protect him. The main character, Yuki, has actually been reborn several times (and this is no spoiler; they give it away within the first four episodes), with other members of his family he had no idea about until the attack, and with Luka.
It's the development that's bad.
For an anime with such an interesting premise, the development is bad, I could even say horrible. Why? I had about a billion burning questions, and pretty much none of them were answered? Sure, the characters were asking the questions themselves, but there was never. An answer.
Examples:
1) Why was Yuki a girl in his past three lives but is now a boy?
2) Why does everyone seem to revolve around Yuki?
3) How did previous!Yuki get together with Luka?
There are also a huge number of cliche'ed lines in this anime. There were so many that I felt kind of embarrassed when I heard them.
Art: 8
The art was pretty good. I felt like it was a bit inconsistent, but I didn't really care. Although the animation was smooth and beautiful, I have to say. The hair. It's so distracting. There were a lot of those 'wind-blowing' scenes, and all I'd do was stare at the hair going 'Lol what so much hair'.
Sound: 8
Another better area in this anime. All the seiyuus did a great job. Although Yuki's voice annoyed me a hundred percent of the time. I'm not sure, but something about his voice just really annoyed me. I can't hate his seiyuu, because he's played quite a bit of characters I can respect. I guess the quality was a bit less in this anime.
Character: 5
Ahahaha oh god. This is where most of the shit hits the fan. And it's mostly because of our main character, Yuki.
Yuki is literally such a useless character. They try to portray him as such a kind, caring character, I get it. He always seems to want to 'do something about the current situation', but he can't because he's absolutely powerless. He goes 'I'm going to save ______!' but he can't, because he doesn't have any power.
Or rather he does, but he doesn't use it.
See, he uses his power in situations that come rarely. Like the last couple of episodes. He somehow magically has the ability to use his offensive power, although he's been useless for the past 20 episodes.
Another thing that had me going "lol wuh' doing the anime was how Yuki-centric it is. Everyone loves Yuki. Yuki is amazing. Yuki is so kind. Our world revolves around Yuki. Yuki is our sun. Yuki is our GOD. When Yuki is sad, we'll just mope around at home. When Yuki is gone, they'll be like "Where is he? I wonder if he's okay? Can you here his voice? Yuki. Yuki. Yuki, YUKI."
I should make a tally, someday, of how many times I laughed when this happened versus how many times I wanted to break my iPod's screen.
Luka is our apathetic guy who's so madly in love with Yuki that he'd never betray him. In fact, that's his motto. He says it in every episode, right before the OP "Only I can know your pain, and only I can know your uncertainity. I will say it a million times, if you need it... I will never betray you!" He's portrayed as a pretty epic badass. Although his clothes are kind of hilarious and over the top, his character is not that bad. It happens off screen, but apparently before Luka arrived at the Twilight Mansion, he was very anti-social (whoa, whoa, surprise there). But ever since Yuki came, he began to open the doors to his heart. This is the only development we see, in his character, at least.
The side characters had a LOT of potential. I liked them much more than the main characters (particularly Hotsuma and Shusei), but unfortunately, they were not given too much time to develop their characters, and they were Yuki-ists as well.
The villains were generic. I don't even think I need to describe them, I was pretty much facepalming every time I saw them.
Enjoyment: 6.5
Honestly, I got so annoyed with Yuki I barely had any room to actually enjoy the show. One of the only parts of the anime I liked was the Hotsuma/Shusei arc, and that's probably it. The rest of the time I was laughing or trying not to break my iPod screen. Still, that being said, I don't hate it. I did enjoy some parts, if not all. It was fair, not the most enjoyable anime I have ever come across of.
Overall: 6
Honestly, I hoped it'd be better. Not bad, it was okay. I could list at least a hundred other animes better than this, but it was okay. That's all I can say about it; okay. The outfits were ridiculous at times, and the animation was really pretty. The OST was good. This isn't actually a shounen-ai, but it implies a lot. You can interpret the pairings in whatever way makes you comfortable. Some of the characters are very close, such as Hotsuma and Shusei.
