Well, I was pretty dispapointed with this anime in general. It started off extremely strongly, showing huge promise of a fantastic plot with a well-done first battle. Things degraded downhill pretty fast as the anime progressed. This is really a true example of an anime that did not reach its full potential.
Onto the actual review. For info on the last episode, go here.
Story
In retrospect, it was an extremely simple story. The entire anime revolved around only a few events with a large amount of filler in between. The basic premise was gripping but, as it played out, it become excruciatingly difficult to watch. The things that happened fit its genre well, even thought they could have easily swerved in a direction that I would have preferred. Overall, it was just a very light-hearted story that you shouldn't think too deeply into, which was not my cup of tea.
~5/10
Immersion
The pacing was extremely slow. They spent a large amount of time building things up but with no follow-through. The climax was poorly done, and there was no real feel of urgency within the anime. The setting was interesting, though. With what we call natural instinct, a system like this would never be possible, but it was still interesting, indeed. I noticed that a lot of anime seems to always be able to come up with interesting settings, and then they just fail on the follow-through.
~6/10
Characters
Well, they sure were simple characters. With a genre like this, you wouldn't expect much development, but this had zero. There was no relationships between the characters; nothing even changed at all for any of them. The closest thing was a slight change for Leo-sama near the end, which was also the most out-of-character thing I have seen in a while. The only characterization I did like was learning that the main character wasn't a random scrub like in every other anime these days. At least they picked the second best in a tournament, which does explain his athletic ability rather than magically having it in, like in other anime.
~3/10
Animation
This was actually done decently well. Other than some obvious screw-ups, it was generally pretty well-done. It really shone in the second episode when they had a nice and flashy battle. Things seemed to slow down from there, but it was generally still well-done; generally much better than most the other anime airing this season.
~8/10
Personal Satisfaction
The second episode was where everything took off for me with this anime. I had high hopes after such a nicely done episode, only to be disappointed time and time again. Things only went downhill from there, with the only glimmer of hope I had for the anime snuffed out. I had extremely high hopes based on how well it started, with even a strong set-up for some very strong plot-building, and yet they took a horrible route. The only real factor I liked by the end was the insert songs. They had two of them, and I always love when anime have insert songs in them.
~3/10
Overall
It did a good job being a nice and light-hearted fantasy story, but I feel that the pacing was much slower than it could have been. I just feel it didn't live up to its potential with what it could have done with the set-up they created for the climax. I wouldn't recommend this for much more than a guilty pleasure, if you're into that entire dog girl thing.
Final Score: [5/10]
~Pearz
