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Misaki discovers the game Angelic Layer, where two players telepathically control dolls and make them fight. The winner knocks the other doll out of commission first. She enters the Kansai regional tournament, unaware that the mother she hasn't seen in years is the reigning national champion.

Overall, I rate this a 5 and recommend you skip it. At the end I'll talk about some issues that contain spoilers, and mark it as such. The rest of the review shouldn't affect your enjoyment of the show. I will talk about the major aspects of the show, and what is good or bad about them.

The story starts out ... good, but fills with holes in the second half. The plot has a few threads: you have Misaki's tournament battles, the obligatory romance subplot, and her (nonexistent) relationship with her mom. Also, there are a few glaring similarities to Cardcaptor Sakura that I'll mention.

*Tournament Arc:*

The focus of the show is the battles, so if you're not interested in action you'll probably get bored. The action isn't anything amazing. Each episode is animated well enough, but the fights in each episode tend to use the same movements on a loop. Misaki, being the main character, mostly wins battles. In the beginning there are good reasons for this: she's a natural, she uses the strengths of her doll to the max, and she can learn moves instantly. She'll memorize the moves that other players pull on her and then use them on future opponents.

One of the reasons the show goes downhill is that they run out of ways to make Misaki win the fight naturally. Now her doll can take punch after punch while barely taking damage, and then she'll one hit KO her opponent. It was plausible at first, if you consider the strength and placement of hits. It quickly pushes the suspension of disbelief when a nearly beaten Misaki can take a powerful hit and stay in the game, and moments later use the SAME EXACT ATTACK on the enemy and drain their entire health bar.

There are MANY instances where an opponent is suddenly nerfed when they fight Misaki. More than once a doll is so fast that Misaki can't even see the movements, but a few episodes later they fight and Misaki can keep pace with them. Also, weapons are forbidden, but a few dolls use abilities that should definitely count as weapons (and are only loosely explained). The most egregious example is a giant unavoidable energy ball that explodes the entire playing field.

There are also cheap moments to create suspense. Throughout almost the entire show, damage is calculated instantly. The moment one doll hits another their health bars update. Then there are a few moments where the health is "Calculating" to make you wait, wondering who wins the fight. It was already obvious who the winner would be from the story structure and these scenes just throw away the internal logic of the world for no gain.

All of these problems appear in the final, climactic fight too. Even worse, Misaki's doll can push through a hard situation from sudden "power of love" that doesn't make sense in this world. All this did was give me some very unpleasant flashbacks to Lostorage Incited Wixoss.

*Romance Arc:*

The romance subplot is... there. There's the one dude that obviously likes Misaki, and there's a girl that likes him. It's exactly the subplot with Meiling, Shaoran, and Sakura again. Some spoilers about this later. There's also another guy that likes Misaki. Probably because she's the main character. I'm reluctant to call any character a "Mary Sue" because of how overused the term is, but... there's literally a scene where like every character in the show talk about how much they love Misaki.

For almost the entire runtime of the show, the whole romance arc is this conversation: "You like her, don't you?" "N-N-N-No I don't know what you're talking about." That stops being funny quickly.

*Mother Arc:*

Misaki's relationship with her mother is an interesting premise. You know that if Misaki keeps winning, she'll play against the champion and discover it is her mom. Misaki will meet people that know her mom, and she almost runs into the mom once or twice.

Her mother had to leave, which is fine. But she could have at least written letters to Misaki. Now that Misaki is in Tokyo, they can meet in person whenever. The mother doesn't want to. She's a terrible mom. Wondering how/when Misaki and her mother will finally reunite isn't nearly as gripping when you think about how shitty the mom is.

I'd be hooked if I felt like Misaki was going to come to terms with her mother leaving her and accept that she's just a shitty mom and that Misaki should move on. This is not how the show like to portray the mom. The only character who really expresses any frustration with the mother's decisions is Misaki's aunt. Overall, it gives you the feeling that the writers don't think Misaki's mom is bad.

*Characters:*

Misaki is a likable enough protagonist, with a few quirks that stop her from being a blatant Sakura Kinomoto clone. She's small, and she likes Angelic Layer because age and size don't matter in the game. She likes to say that a lot. It's a pretty good message for a show. She loves her doll, like most players. She loves her doll to the point she has to overcome the fear of watching it be injured. Not only that, but she feels bad when she injures other dolls. Why does she play a game where the only goal is injure the dolls? Great question. I would have loved to see how Misaki feels about that.

Misaki gets some development (and I hated it; more on that later) and that's about all the development. Side characters are mostly entertaining but don't change. Not much to say about them. None of them are bad, but none of them stand out either.

You have the weekly enemy who has some sort of personal issue and they think winning will fix it. Misaki wins instead and then is nice to them. Suddenly, "Oh I see I was thinking about this game all wrong. Misaki showed me the goal is to have fun and I love her now." Then they make cameos in future episodes to support Misaki. It's par for the course.

*Overall:*

It was cute in the beginning. It's funny, you like the characters, it's pleasing to look at, and you want Misaki to do her best and win. Then she starts winning for no reason, character development doesn't happen, and the show just fizzles out with an undeserved and unexplained "power of love" ending. I had a good time in the first half, but when I think about the show, I think about the ending. I do not recommend.




*SPOILERS:*

So, the romance plot? Goes nowhere. The guys that likes Misaki, he never tells her. There's the girl that likes him. She tells him, he doesn't know how to feel about it, and they never resolve that. It ends with them being awkward around each other. Super depressing.

Misaki admits to herself how lonely she is without the mom and stops pretending to be strong. She wonders why her mom is avoiding her. She realizes her mom knew she was in Tokyo and had the opportunity to see Misaki multiple times. Then they meet up and they talk, the mom offers no good reasons for abandoning her daughter. Misaki says "well I could have been more selfish in demanding to talk to you" and they make up. None of the characters ever seriously call out the mom for what she did wrong. This really killed the heart of the show for me.

This show isn't a mature, dark, or edgy look at the criminal underworld like some of the people who praise it would have you think. Nor is it a stupid premise that went nowhere, like the haters would say. It's just fun. It's also a breath of fresh air from the usual high school setting and moe girls.

I'll have a lot of negatives to say about the show in this review, but don't get me wrong. I enjoyed it a lot, and I recommend that you try it.

A city where 3% of the people are assassins? Absurd. All the people relevant to the plot happen ... to know each other and/or randomly meet each other in the city? Impossible. If you're going to be put off by this, it's probably not the show for you. I wouldn't blame you.

What the show is good at is the characters. This show is honestly just a bunch of eccentric, hilarious, but still believable characters having hilarious interactions. If you saw (and liked Durarara), you'll probably understand what I mean about having a bunch of crazy characters talking to each other. There are plots, and story, and "character development" sure, but... well, I'll tell you about that later. There's a dude who dresses in a weird samurai getup and uses a sword. But when you meet him, it totally makes sense. He thinks it looks cool and won't let anyone get him down. There's another dude who gets a ninja theme, and again, it makes sense. He's not some crazy ninja fan, it's a marketing ploy to get more people to hear about him. It's things like this that kept the characters from feeling like absurd caricatures that wouldn't exist in real life.

The story? I mentioned earlier that you need suspension of disbelief. Something happens to somebody, it turns out all the characters are involved in a different part of the plot, they accidentally run into each other, then they team up to steamroll the enemies like a group of over-leveled MMORPG characters crushing a public event. Rinse, repeat. There is also a main-ish story. Sort of. I forgot about it until I was writing this paragraph.

The art? I like the designs. They're memorable, suit the characters, and animated well enough. The action is fine. (Aren't you glad you are reading this? Top-tier quality in-depth reviewing right here.)

The characters? They get over trauma far too quickly. Some stuff goes down in the first arc of the show, and it just never gets brought up again. They have believable motivations and backstories that support their personalities in the show, but they don't change. There's not a lot of depth there, either. The show tries to make Lin deeper, but it's hard to feel serious when it's usually silly.

The sound? It's not one of those OSTs that I remember after I finished watching the show. It didn't detract from the show, but it didn't stand out to me. The OP and ED themes were nice.

As a personal gripe, I thought the gay doctor was too stereotypically gay. I'm not the type of person who would really know if it was offensive or not, but it just irked me.
On the other hand, I thought Lin was great. He crossdresses, and it's not made into a big deal. He's not a trap, either. I liked how it was done.

A tsukkomi and boke cat duo do a random job, then a bizarre wombat spouting existential nonsense appears. (Or is it a koala? I'm not a zoologist.) It's crazy enough that I almost want to recommend it, but honestly, the show was too mediocre. It's not terrible, but it's not great. It's an OK way to stop thinking and procrastinate for an hour, but there are still better ways to do that.

To give the show credit, the main characters were surprisingly entertaining. Maybe I'm easily amused, but the dialogue and reactions humored me. There were also some really funny moments. The high point of the ... episode is usually the wombat. Voiced by Tomokazu Sugita, accompanied by an ominous theme, and saying something completely bonkers: it's pretty crazy.

This being said, however, the good moments are scattered pretty far. Not all episodes have the wombat gag, and not all of the gags are even funny. Usually, the rest of the episode is boring and it only gets good when the wombat appears. Some episodes aren't even comedic in nature. If the show was constantly on the level of its high points, it'd be a hidden gem. Sadly, it's not.

If you really are interested in watching it (I don't recommend it), I'll warn you that it doesn't start off with its best foot forward. The first two episodes are boring, and the wombat bit is strange, but not great. The third episode is downright atrocious. But if you stick with it, you will find some good jokes.

At the very least, it is better than Pop Team Epic. That's right, you heard me. Fight me, punk!

A great episodic show that runs into some absurd plot points and leaves a bad taste in the mouth, with an ending that feels like it came from the wrong show.

Overall, I highly recommend watching the first episode. It's cool, it's stylish, the soundtrack rocks, and it's one of my favorite episodes in anime so far. After that, proceed at your own risk.
I'm keeping this spoiler free, so unfortunately I can't tell you what I had serious problems with. At the time I'm writing this, Noir has a 7.38 which isn't bad, but ... isn't great either. If I had to sum up my feelings about this show in one word, it would be "eh."

**STORY**

The story is mostly great in the first part. "Moe Jason Bourne" Kirika and "international assassin and woman of mystery" Mireille take on assassination jobs while avoiding the attacks of an unknown organization. Each episode builds the characters of Kirika and Mireille while on-and-off adding more mystery about their connection and the organization attacking them. Episodes 4, 6, and 13 give a more human feel to the stories and develop the targets or side characters in a way that leaves you feeling melancholic when it ends. The show is at it's strongest here. It's not all good; episodes 8 and 9 stand out as being especially weak. The characters are all professional killers, and yet sometimes they behave like honorable rivals in a shounen series.
The main plot arc that emerges in the second half is mediocre. For the most part, it requires some suspension of disbelief but is overall not ridiculous. It really falls apart when it reaches the climax and conclusion. I cannot stress how bad some of the writing is. As an analogy, imagine if a Scooby-Doo villain forgets why he is dressing like a ghost and sabotages his own plan by trying too hard to keep up the ghost pretense. That's not remotely what actually happens, so don't read into it too much, but that's about how stupid it gets.

**ART**

The animation and character design are probably what you'd expect from something that came out at this time. The animation was fluid enough for me to enjoy, and the character designs look fine. As I mentioned earlier, Noir benefits from quality direction that gives the show real style.

**SOUND**

The sound is absolutely amazing. Yuki Kaijura brings it again with a soundtrack I want to listen to long after I've finished the show. If you're saying "I don't know who that is", maybe this will pique your curiosity: Fate/Zero and Madoka Magica. While not as good as other soundtracks she's worked on, it's indisputably better than most.

**CHARACTER**

The characters are interesting and likable, but unfortunately, they don't go through a lot of change. It's mostly a situation where the characters grow to like each other because they spend so much time together, and that's about it. There are some character revelations that occur closer to the end of the show, but they range from unsurprising to stupid.