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I don’t usually write reviews but I think I’ve decided to start writing more, because it can help me remember how I felt about things I’ve seen in the past and perhaps offer some insight for someone interested in finding out more about the show in order to make a decision about whether or not to watch it (and since you’re reading this, I assume that someone would be you). Anyways, I usually try not to include spoilers in my reviews but what counts as a spoiler varies from person to person, and I also don’t plan out my reviews, I just make them up ... as I go. So I’ll warn you now, potential spoilers ahead:

This movie/OVA is pretty bad. The plot makes little sense because practically nothing is explained, which is kind of a given considering they essentially tried to make a full movie in 50 minutes. The animation is also bad, but again, that is somewhat expected given when this was made. I’m a huge entertainment media fan in general (live action movies and tv as well as anime) so I like watching all kinds of things and want to see as much as I can. That’s pretty much the main reason I decided to watch this. At 50 minutes long it was the perfect length for the amount of time I had and it was a complete story (lol, sort of) rather than just watching an episode or two of a longer show, which is what I was looking for. I tell you this to make a point: unless you’re in a similar position, I wouldn’t recommend watching this. If you don’t have a lot of free time or you’re not a bit of a junkie like me, then pass on this and watch something better.

I know I said this movie was bad (and it is) and I gave it a 4, which is a low score for me. I have yet to give out a 1 or 2 on MAL because those scores are reserved for things I hate, not just things I thought were bad. While the story made no sense and the animation was bad, I didn’t really mind watching this that much, partially because I knew it wasn’t very long and I knew I could tough it out for another 20 minutes in order to check off another show, and partially because I just wanted to see how it ended. I didn’t enjoy watching it really, but I didn’t hate it either. For me, it was worth watching once, to check it off my list, but I won’t ever watch it again. I understand I’m a bit weird though, so for most people I’d recommend avoiding this and choosing something else. But if you do decide to watch this, just be prepared for some bad animation, a decent amount of gore, and very little explanation.

Up until the ending I had this show at about a 7/10, ending kinda ruined it for me. It wasn’t a completely terrible ending, but I didn’t like it either; dropped the show from a 7 to a 4 or 5. Don’t want to give too much away, but just know the ending may be a bit of a bummer if you make it that far.

I don’t really have anything else to say because I don’t really feel like putting too much thought into this review, but I gotta reach the minimum review length so I’ll say this to expand on why I didn’t ... like the ending:

Potential spoiler (sort of)

I can handle sad endings sometimes, but in general I prefer happy endings. It depends on how the story unfolds and the factors involved. This story didn’t set up in a way that I could really accept its conclusion. It felt like the writers could have very easily given it a happy ending, but they just chose not to; and those are the kinds of sad endings I have trouble accepting. There were so many things left unexplained, and then they threw some half-baked explanation at you in the last episode and that’s why it had to end the way it did. Wasn’t a fan. Kinda feels like bad writing. Either they should have given it the happy ending that would have made sense, or they should have left more details and clues along the way so that the reason behind the ending made sense. But as it is, they didn’t, and it doesn’t.

Potential Spoilers.

I didn’t really think about this review before I started writing it, so this review may not actually contain any spoilers, but then again it might, so I put a warning just in case.

I just finished the last episode about 10 minutes before writing this review. I’ve read a few of the others and personally I have no clue what the people who are rating this show 7+ are talking about or how they could think it’s that good. At the same time everyone who rated this show a 2 or a 1, I think that’s a bit harsh. But reviews are opinions, and ... everyone is entitled to them.

Personally, I found this show to be very lacking in a number of ways, BUT I will say that although the story is very flawed, it was also strangely interesting. I didn’t particularly enjoy the show, but after every episode I wanted to keep going just to see what would happen. So for that reason I can’t say it was a terrible show.
Breaking things down a bit:

PROS:
Story (sort of) - despite the negative aspects (which I mention below) the story was somehow interesting and made me want to keep watching to see what would happen.

CONS:
Story (sort of) - the story made no logical sense and many characters were flawed. There were tons of holes and things left unexplained or forgotten, which is due to bad writing.

Animation - started off decent, proceeded to get worse every episode. The decline in quality wasn’t too noticable at first, but seriously, but by episode 10 you’ll be sitting there wondering what the hell happened. By the end it’s truely terrible. And some other reviews have admitted this, but still given overall scores of 7+ because “the story was just so good”. I can agree that if the story is incredible, the animation quality is much less important. But it wasn’t, so it isn’t.

Voices - nearly as bad as the animation.

Characters - No consistency at all. Characters personalities and behaviors flip-flopped like a fish out of water. Example: the main character, who goes from being a gullible, socially awkward keyboard junkie weakling to a clever, athletic, tough guy who can handle himself in a fight, back to a foolish, whiney, crybaby, and then finally into a tough-as-nails mastermind who wins over all the other students and outsmarts all the evil instructors. It just made no sense.

Overall:
Story: wasn’t good, but wasn’t terrible 4/10
Art: terrible 1/10
Voices: real bad 1/10
Characters: a few good ones, but mostly bad 3/10
Enjoyment: kept me watching, but didn’t particularly enjoy it. Wasn’t bad enought to make me quit partway through, but certainly won’t ever have the urge to watch it again 4/10
Overall: to me, enjoyment is the whole point of watching shows, so my enjoyment score and overall score are always the same, so 4/10