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The character development feels rushed and you can get a small glimpse of the other character's background. The first three episodes were just introduction and felt very generic like any other anime would have had the story set up. There was nothing special or interesting about this anime.

The anime has multiple characters with multiple archetypes that feels unnecessary and there was not much creativity that went into the story. The character development felt generic and not very detailed as well as it did not dive deeper into each character.

The story surrounds the MC who is a lazy general that acts like a smart ass around ... everyone, sprinkle on some love (a bit of tsundere) and the MC acting like a hero around others which of course, is a repeated theme in many anime/manga. [Boring]

The art is decent, but that cannot carry how bland the story is or how the story has been repeated a million times over in other anime. The anime overall feels like a re-make of a military themed anime.

The anime is not enjoyable due to the lackluster character development and poor story telling that does not spark an interest in the audience.

Darling in the FranXX is definitely not an anime that everyone should watch nor should have really high expectation to be the best anime of 2018.

Overview of story:

Darling in the FranXX starts off in the beginning by explaining the universe that they are in to the audience. There are parasites or "children" as the adults call them, who are bred to be fighting warriors against the Klaxx. From this pack of parasites, the MC suffers the inability to pilot the FranXX (giant mecha robots used by parasites to fight off Klaxx monsters). MC, who is named Hiro, ends up meeting Zero Two who Hiro ... could pilot the FranXX with. Hiro finds a new purpose in life and that is to kill Klaxx monsters with Zero Two. However, Zero Two has a different idea of the relationship. Zero Two is actually a special parasite experiment who was called the parasite killer who would kill her partner that piloted the FranXX. Zero Two has always been isolated. Hiro wants to change that.

Twist 1:
Zero Two actually met with Hiro at a young age and Hiro coincidentally took in some of Zero Two's blood. This results in Hiro having the ability to pilot Zero Two without her being able to consume his soul aka kill him. Eventually through all the jargon/rhetoric, they reunite and remember that they both met each other at a young age and fell in love again.

Twist 2: Klaxx monsters are actually the good guys that are defending the earth. Zero Two and Hiro are given a final mission to save earth through the Strelitzia Apath which is a giant mecha that tries to kill the enemy (VIRM).

Review starts here:

Story: 3 Poor

The plot and organization of events is very disorganized because the story would reach a climax and then completely crash with a unnecessary filler episodes or a fan service episode that is completely irrelevant to the story. This is just bad story telling from beginning to end and almost makes you question if this anime is just a cash grab. Also, the anime has a very repetitive element such as Hiro/Zero Two overcome the challenge of defeating a strong enemy which is nothing unique. I think Yu-Gi-Oh's plot structure of the duelists defeating the bad guys over and over again to try to progress the character is similar to DitF. In Darling in the FranXX, the same story structure is adopted where the Hiro/Zero Two has to overcome the challenges and they develop the story together. This structure is very mediocre and to combine it with a romantic element has created a huge mess and disorganized segments of the story that could have been deleted. Another huge problem in the story is how there is a sudden shift from the main characters: Hiro and Zero Two to the relationships of the supporting characters. This is pointless because the supporting characters do not get enough air time to fully develop nor the audience have a strong sense of connection to the character since the anime is always focusing on the Hiro-ZeroTwo relationship. Again, this is a huge mess in developing the supporting characters. As usual in every Japanese romance anime, there is a love triangle which has been beaten like a dead horse over the years. This is used to move the story further between Hiro and Zero Two, but the love relationship between Hiro-Ichigo is disingenuous where the sole reason Ichigo loves Hiro is because of Hiro naming Ichigo which is a pretty lame reason to fall in love with someone (not very creative). The audience cannot make a connection to this because the love is disingenuous and feels fake. This feels like a plot device that the writer put in to "extend" the plot.

Art: 7 Good

Has a waifu-ish main girl character. The characters are well drawn and each has their own unique style.

Sound: 7 Good

Opening "Kiss of Death" is pretty good

Character: 3 Poor

Poor because there is a constant disorganized shift between the relationships of main couple and other couples. There are just too many different potential relationship couples in the story that shifts the focus from Hiro-Zero Two to Ichigo-Goro, and Kokoro-Mitsuru which causes problems in the main story which is the story of Hiro-Zero Two. This anime lacks focus on character development. However, the supporting characters do fulfill their role in moving the story forward. The director emphasizes the supporting character couples because of how bad the ending is.

Enjoyment: 6 Fair

I enjoyed watching up to ep 17, but the filler episode which was unnecessary kind of turned me off. Also, the fact everything was super predictable killed the story for me.

Overall: 6 Fair

Darling in the FranXX is a romantic and bit of slice of life anime that caters to individuals that are seeking to watch an anime that has good art and good sound, but fails in delivering an organized story that focuses on the main couple of the story. Also, beware that the ending of this anime may not be everyone's cup of tea where the ending is up for interpretation of the viewer. Furthermore, the anime bites off more than it can chew and could use more episodes to develop the characters a bit more rather than rush the story. Some episodes were extremely packed with information and character development while some episodes were irrelevant (beach episode) to the story. There was the problem of keeping focus on the main couple of the story, but the director went with switching back and forth on relationships between couples due to the nature of the ending. The love triangle feels disingenuous/fake between Hiro-Ichigo, since there was no real development between the potential Hiro-Ichigo couple.

After finishing watching Re:zero, I have mixed feelings about the anime.


Pros:
Great animation, the studio did an amazing job
Invoke emotion to the audience (sad moments etc)
Great OST/OPENING/ENDING
Good utilization of side characters and again, great animation of them


... Cons:
Plot felt like it came from a different anime [steins gate, danmachi, grimgar of fantasy and ash] similar but not exactly.
Plot device of returning back to a "safe point" felt like a scapegoat for the author to continue writing
Cringeworthy moments (I hate)
MC isn't the best compared to the other characters, felt the MC was not really as significant or portrayed well enough.


Overall, this anime is good, but not a master piece. I would say that it does have a good amount of similarity to other fantasy anime if you take out the going back to safe point time mechanic.