Story: 7
Basic story. I think that often times in anime, if it doesn't have a show-stopping mindfuck of a premise, people rate the story lowly. I think that the only thing that matters is if the story is one that I can read about and then want to watch it. That doesn't make the story anything amazing, but it means that it has potential. I've never watched an anime based in the 60s before. That was cool. I've never watched an anime about jazz music before. That was cool. What the show lacked in is what it became in the latter half of the series.
Art: 10
I've got nothing but praise for the art in this anime. I kid you not, reading the dialogue wasn't my top priority a lot of the time. To me, the art was impressive. Usually in anime (or at least the ones that I have watched) they use very many lines. In this anime, they use blends. There's no line differentiating the skin that is shaded between the skin that is facing the sun; there's a blended transition. The fluidity of this anime was shocking. If anyone knows anything about anime, they'll know how there's usually a lot of corners cut when it comes to the art and animation. There's usually a lot of loops, and certain angles aren't fucked with. In Sakamichi, especially during their music scenes, there was nothing but captivation and awe within me. Like I said before, I've got nothing but praise for the art.
Sound: 9
An anime dealing with jazz... that's incredibly cool to me in itself. All this anime got me wanting to do is listen to Moanin' on a endless loop. The beginning theme is one of those themes that I will doubtlessly be listening to over and over. Something about Yuki's voice paired with the lyrics of the song gets me in this audacious mood. Seriously. It makes me want to get off my ass, go outside and live. The ending theme though, I can't say the same for. It wasn't bad by any or all means, but it wasn't captivating. I'd stop listening after the first 5 seconds. Mostly though, the music was enjoyable.
Characters: 7
This is where the anime began to fall on its face. One minute, I love the characters. The next minute they're doing some horribly dramatic, unnecessary thing. The main character, Nishimi, is probably the worst of them all. He makes the same mistake over and over and over again and makes things a lot worse than they have to be. And it's all is over absolutely nothing and it often escalates too quickly. He needed a heavy dosage of plz calm the fuck down. Sen is a character that I liked for the most part. I think that he was too quick to throw a fist, but I liked him nonetheless. He was funny, carefree and a good friend for most of the series. But he wasn't immune to enticing very worthless drama. Besides his few minor offences of that though, he was a good character. Ri'ko... I'm on the fence about. I have this huge thing against lacklustre, personalitiless, docile females in anime. There are SO many and they're all SO boring. She was a nice character and she did have flaws, she was just a... I don't know, boring character.
Enjoyment: 7
12 episode anime that took me some like 3 days to finish. With that, I wouldn't say that it captured my attention that greatly. But it certainly held it. There are some anime that are just impossible to put down and there are some that are impossible to not finish, even if it's eventually. 3 days isn't bad, but considering that I'm out of college and all I've been doing is eating and working out, it's not good either. I think that in the middle of the series my interest dipped, just to peak again in the last episode. I kept watching though, which means that I enjoyed it enough.
Overall: 8
What happened when I watched this anime, is that I didn't know whether to rate it a 7 or a 8. It was better than Kaichou wa maid-sama, which I rated a 7, but it was worse than Nana, which I rated an 8. What did I do? Change my rating of Maid-sama to a 6 and Nana to a 9 (plus it's one of my favourite anime, I don't know why it wasn't a 9 anyway). I was so set on rating this anime a 7, but I was really impressed by the ending. If it weren't for that, this anime would have gotten a 7, no question. Judging by the posts on the last episode discussion board people are very up and down about the ending, but in my opinion it was the perfect way to finish of the series on a bittersweet note. It also had me feeling for the characters more than I thought that I would, since I was never 100% invested in them. I was very impressed.
So is 8 an inflation? Sure is. If I could be more specific with my ratings, this anime would probably get a 7.5. Worth the watch, impressive bits, and slightly over average.
