So I had to let that final episode sit a few days or else the score for this would have been much lower. Given some time, I get a better picture of the anime as a whole rather then focusing in on the final few episodes which leaves the deepest impression.
I was enthusiastic about this anime throughout it airing all the way up until the final two episodes where I think they dropped the ball. I know I am a minority on this, but the flaw everyone has been overlooking is a pretty big deal to me. Rambling aside, time for the actual review.
Story
This anime was one of the plot heavy anime. I went it to this pretty skepitcal because it was written by the same people as Choas;Head. Chaos;Head started good but had the worse end imaginable. That's the same feel I got from Steins;Gate but with a slightly less intensity to it. The starting was weaker then Chaos;Head, but the ending was vastly better too. The plot throughout the whole episode was very strong until the very end when things kind of fell flat on it's face. I am sure many people found it satisfactory but plot holes are a big deal to me, especially ones that deal with time travel. I'll go more in depth later to explain the huge flaw surrounding the time travel theory.
~7/10
Immersion
The flow of the story was pretty slow until thing started picking up midway through the season. It relied heavily on the strong dialogue between the characters to keep the series interesting. Any story with time travel is instant win for me sine I love to see how well it is done. In this case, it all held up decently until the end. It usually flops pretty quickly as I noticed most writers don't have a thorough understanding of 4D hence why they are writing and not in a mathematics field. Maybe I'm just too harsh, but it is hard to turn a blind eye when 1+1=2 all series then randomly they tell me 1 +1 = 3, because that is what it feels like. The dialogue was strong which did keep everything interesting at least.
~7/10
Characters
The two main characters really keep this show going. The nifty banter they have to keep things fun always amused me. The rest of the cast paled in comparison but were still decent. Each character had their own route in the game but obviously they couldn't show all the endings. Still, they gave a small taste of each character which always made me like their character by the end of their episode. Definitely a strong set of characters, not to mention the best girl was picked!
~10/10
Animation
Now I watched this mainly off horriblesubs rips which are pretty bad, but the animation itself wasn't stellar to begin with. Things were pretty stationary and often times did they pan to backgrounds to fill time. The direction for some of the scenes was extremely well done and portrayed the urgency of the matters at hand. Though it still doesn't full excuse the characters not being animated well.
~6/10
Personal Satisfaction
I was conflicted going in but midway through I was pretty ecstatic about this show. I was still left conflicted after finishing that lead me to believe my initial presumptions were correct. It was a fun ride, if only things ended around 7 mins earlier, I would have a much higher opinion of things. Plot holes are a big thing to me, especially when it is the focus of the anime.
~6/10
Overall
It just kind of feels wrong giving this anime such a low score because of the last few minutes that screwed everything up. Alas, the ending is extremely important to any story and it weighs heavily on it. Much like Chaos;Head, it was an extremely fun ride until everything goes to shit at the end. At least they improved a bit and it wasn't a runaway train wreck like Chaos;Head. Maybe the next one they make will be able to eliminate the bad end completely!
Final Score: [7/10]
~Pearz
