Let's put it this way: It's very much your standard decent yet flawed 6/10-tier seasonal. In that it has an interesting and creative premise; perhaps even a fascinating one which if executed more competently and artistically, and if those responsible for the show were given full time allotment of maximum/unlimited number of seasons and episodes they sought plus a better budget, you could easily see it be a 7/10 or even 8/10-tier or possibly more level show, but like too many things it's rushed to the point where you intuitively get that sense even if you haven't read and aren't familiar with the original source material whatsoever, there's a painful feeling of something missing in that it's not being tapped into to realize its full potential.
A lot of seasonals I watch are like this. Great premise in theory, but the modern preference for 11 - 13 episode one-cour runs is massively crimping their style. Even though some go on to receive second or even more seasons after that, and indeed this is one which has fortunately already been confirmed for at least a second season early on, you can't shake the feeling that that uncertainly over whether they will be greenlit to continue their run affects the pacing and plotting out of the story in these beginning episodes.
The first episode was a double episode or two-parter with both halves aired back to back, and was one of the most enticing and impressive first episodes I've seen from a new seasonal in the four years I've been watching them, just in terms of the sheer variety of things they managed to touch on and how frantic yet simultaneously still coherent and information-dense it was. The remainder of the season after that was something of a letdown by comparison and gave off a feeling of riding on its coattails a bit. This series also has a lot of different settings, characters, and subplots, so there's greater potential than most perhaps for them to disappoint you/any random viewer by focusing more time and care on those aspects of it with which you're less invested and interested than others. I think that the series so far has done that already, not giving as much time to some of the more interesting plot points and characters compared to others it dwelled on instead.
I would say, like anything, watch it if you're intrigued enough by the premise. Drop it after episode two or three if you're not enamored enough with the execution of said premise as the execution will not change thereafter, at least for this first season. I watched it and don't regret doing so, because I gave it a 6/10 which is an average decent rating for me and a 6/10-tier type series is "good enough" for me to continue watching, as long as it's not something with hundreds of episodes.
The show also has some technical issues as someone else pointed out, so how much you care about that too would determine if that side of things is a dealbreaker or not. The animation is fairly limited in the sense of very limited frames during action scenes and the like which is standard fare from non-big budget anime. I personally don't really care about that as as long as it's at the most basic passable level, animation is far down on the list of my priorities for requirement of enjoyment of a series and I'm more forgiving on it than most. The music issue is a little more annoying and bothersome though. The OST is perfectly serviceable - some typical/classic low stakes, relaxing, snappy jazzy cafe-esque music fit for like a comedy adventure or Slice of Life, but it's also played too loudly over dialogue at times and used in inappropriate ways (when it starts and ends) in inappropriate scenes. Editing/mixing issues. It's palpable that even with an ever so slightly more experienced/skilled director and sound design person it could be much more effective at transmitting its intended message and emotion moment to moment. |