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Darling in the FranXX is an anime that disappointed me. In a nutshell, it tries to be bigger than itself by trying a grandiose and deep approach to the story and characters, but in reality it is just a facade for a quite shallow story and characters.

Story (4) : The story so far has been shallow and confusing. They don't seem to really want to explore the nature of the sci-fi universe they live in, which would have been fine by me if it wasn't for the fact they give a lot of importance to this universe. There is also no logical progression, and events ... seem to happen when they are convenient for the story, which again would be fine if it wasn't done in such a clumsy way. They also try to pull a bit of suspense with the nature of some characters and the world, but it doesn't really work that much because you don't have much reason to care. That is probably the biggest weakness of the story, we don't know about the world, the characters don't seem to care that much about the world, we don't care about the story because they don't make us care. Instead, the "story" focuses on the characters and drama, which are petty and shallow.

Art (4) : The art is unimpressive. Doesn't look special in any way, and looks like animation from 5 years ago. The only character they put an artistic emphasis in is Zero Two. When it comes to the mechas, I'm not much of the mecha guy but I did like these at first. They are different and seem to fit the personality of their riders. However they haven't explored the mechas at all and the riders' personalities are inconsistent.

Sound (6) : I gave this a 6 because I don't really have anything bad to say about it. Nor much good. No amazing music nor shitty sound effects. Just fair.

Characters (3) : This is what makes this anime frustrating to watch. The characters have very superficial traits and problems, they do develop, but they go from token characters to stupid characters. Sometimes, when they want something to happen to a character, but it wouldn't make much sense due to his/her personality, they just kinda change their personality (to be fair not by ridiculous amounts) with no reason to make the event make sense. They are all very petty and their problems are very shallow, although they seem to hint that there might be a "bigger reason" for that, as I said in the story part, why should we care? Once they start developing other characters than Hiro and Zero Two, you start to realize that Zero Two is the only interesting character really, and even then they kinda trivialized her and also changed her personality as a plot device.

Enjoyment (3) : Ugh. Watching stupid kids going through shitty melodrama while the safety of thousands supposedly lie in there selfish childish hands is frustrating. Episode 11 feels like a kick in the nuts. Most characters in the group seem to have a past trauma or hidden desire that drives or inhibits them, but when you actually learn what they are you will regret even wondering due to how petty and stupid they are. A defense I've seen against this is that it is quite realistic, and people are stupid and petty, but that doesn't make it enjoyable, and real people also have a bigger sense of priority than these idiots.

Overall (4) : Dropped the anime. I'll read reviews once it finished airing to see if it is worth watching until the end, but it is not enjoyable, it is not funny and it does not get you invested.

This manga is so damn confusing. Not only from a plot standpoint.

First, let's talk about the plot (5): it's confusing. Honestly, you won't fully get the answers you want from the manga, but at least they didn't completely abandon it, and did try to explain themselves a little.

Art (9): Great, nothing bad to say here, there are some moments when it's outstanding at showing the characters' emotions.

Characters (5): This is also confusing. The reason why the characters are confusing is both because of the plot, and because of the awkward direction they are taken in. After they bring in more characters into the "light", eko, ... take and the class rep, everything is so damn confusing. The manga suddenly becomes an ecchi for about 5 chapters and a shitty harem for another 2. It's so weird and out of the blue, it will severely damage your enjoyment of the story. Plus, those characters are pretty pointless. They don't really bring anything significant to the table, and they are all super incoherent and chaotic. The show would've been much better if they had just kept it to the 2 main characters.

Enjoyment (6): can't say I ever enjoyed the series a lot, but the beginning was definitely the best part. And by beginning I mean the first 10-15 chapters. To be fair, I was intrigued so i can't say I didn't enjoy it in the slightest, but it did left quite a bit to be desired.

~~~~~~~~~~~~(SPOILER ZONE)~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Overall, I have no idea what they were thinking. They had this very intriguing outline, that had so much potential, but instead of exploring the depths of the world we are presented with, they very superficially explore romance in the worst way possible: by turning it into a harem.

First we have Kamimura, which likes MC because of obvious, logical reasons, being the first (and for a long while the only) person to acknowledge her existence and believe in her.

Then we have the class rep, which becomes "sentient" for some unknown reason and likes Shiro because reasons (probably MC magic).

Then we have Eko, aka fanservice girl, that was added mostly because none of the current characters had a big enough chest. Her story is interesting and she doesn't just randomly fall in love with Shiro which is nice, but all the ecchi scenes really forcibly pulled me away from the story, which was supposed to be serious and deep.

Finally, we have Take, aka comic relief best friend character. If you haven't noticed these last three characters are almost directly taken from a shitty slice of life harem manga. But this isn't what this manga was supposed to be. They took it so far: the MC has such harem powers that he made his best friend gay. I like ecchi, and sometimes I can even enjoy a harem, but this series shouldn't have had these things.

In a nutshell, I'm very disappointed, but I can't grade it lower than this because the reason i'm so disappointed was because the manga was interesting in the first place.