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What do I do with this... It's been a while since I watched an anime with such a good idea, such simple but likeable characters with their own personalities, yet such a poor plot. The idea and setting are incredibly original and could be used in much better way. After a while I started getting very confused with the motivations of certain character and in the end all I could say about the plot was: what the hell was that...?
I gave it a six only because the characters and setting were really nice, but the mystery was pretty much 1.

I liked the sound, music was ... great though. Never skipped this Addams Family-inspired opening.

Why do I like to watch the series or a movie in its entirety? Because often this is the only way you can see the big picture.

Akudama Drive was a sinusoid. Some may hate it, some may like it. I must say, as much as I was losing hope, I regained it after watching it all, as it gave me a perspective from which to judge the whole series. I highly recommend you watch it all! and only then decide whether you liked it or not.

I must specifically praise the series for its first and last episodes. Great sense of visual and quite a nice ... feeling for music score at the most crucial moment.

First of all, I'm not a fan of anime series featuring antropomorphic animals in city life settings. I associate it with some weird fetish and just don't buy it. But I decided to give this series a go because I had a feeling it would be worth watching. And boy, was I right!

My expectations were low and there I was, binging it all in one afternoon. The plot progresses in great pace, the characters are deep and involving, demonstrating different approaches to life. All the main character's POV show how they cope with the reality they live in. And the tension between characters was sick! ... I don't want to go too deep into interpretation because verbalizing it is not my strong point. Generally, the moment you accept the idea of the world with widely existing tensions between carnivores and herbivores, the axis around which the plot revolves, the moment you accept the, hmm, questionable idea of sexual attraction existing between different species, once you process the setting, the story will make perfect sense.

The animation is amazing, very impressively showing character's emotions on non-human faces. The dancing scenes are realistic, backgrounds are detailed and beautiful, shots are interesting - the use of mirror in the first episode or Haru's reflection in the water tap in the second (?) for example.

The sound is great. Nice, undisruptive music reminding me of Yoko Kanno's work at times, moments of silence when it matters most, and so on, makes it a great soundscape. Also, I watched with a dub, which was SPOT ON. The VAs were well matched (I especially liked how Haru's voice underlined her personality traits). I was breathing with characters, I would find myself totally immersed in their thought process.

One might argue that certain details from character's life were a bit to forcefully introduced, but I still accept it within the margin of good writing. I was also expecting a different progress with Bill from halfpoint of a story, but accepting the unexpected was part of a charm of this anime.

Overall, it's been a while since I was so impressed, and this anime is definitely the best example of how low my expectations were and how highly satisfied I was in the end.

Plot execution: meh
Characters: likeable
Soundtrack: fantastic

Long story short, storytelling destroyed this anime. I decided to write down a few words, because I had high hopes for this anime, which actually looked promising. Overall, characters are likeable, Sonia might be annoying, but she's harmless overall. The stories of three protagonists are showing their personalities and dreams well, despite not creating much of a character development (maybe a liiittle). But when it comes to the plot, it's full of question marks. Last episode was the absolute trash, being so rushed I had the feeling it's rather an abridged version of something longer, or that I actually missed at ... least one full episode which fills out the holes in the plot.

On the positive note I must say that the opening and ending are both fantastic, and for me clearly the highlight of the season or two, hands down. The soundtrack is equally great and gives off a bit of a noir-y feeling.

My opinion is generally positive but I guess my enormous frustrations about the main character (Pacifica) won't be easily revoked. TLDR: She's an absolutely awful spoiled brat and I found it hard to root for her at any given time.
Review does include a slight spoiler to the nature of the ending, which I will mark with caps.

I enjoyed this anime more than I was hoping to. It was really decent and I have mostly positive attitude towards it. I was surprised reading that this seemingly fantasy anime had mecha in tags, but after few episodes I got to know why. It merges the genres ... surprisingly well. The pros would be:
- enjoyable characters (with one exception below)
- interesting storyline
- some amazing plot twists, which were actually unpredictable
- satisfying merging of science and magic
- nothing original from my part, but SHANNON.

the main con used to be:
- the pacing is weird. Sometimes I felt like looking blankly at the wall instead of focusing on the screen, which makes me feel after 16 episodes like I’ve already seen at least 23. Seriously, in the middle arc I was really sure we’re heading towards the end, and only then I looked at the number of episodes left. Something is wrong with the script; even if it’s going forward, it’s doing so very slowly, even though there is plenty of action involved. I might not be able to put it into words more accurately. It was certainly not boring though.

- with time, my biggest complain began to be the main character.
What I thought during the series was: Gosh, how ANNOYING one can be! At first, I thought her behaving as a spoiled child would set the base for her character development, but more than halfway into the story she... never really changed. I mean, she’s a good girl and very compassionate, but still so whiney and princessy (slapping a guy on the face just because he didn’t give her satisfactory compliment on her looks? REALLY?), and veeery dumb (she must be told multiple times about the nature about her situation and even though I understand she really didn’t know what to do at the time, she could at least try to behave more mature in face of the unknown situation). Maybe she indeed was supposed to represent the innocence put in the opposite of how people viewed her, but during the show she was just constantly getting on my nerves exactly the same as she was getting on the nerves of Senes. I just wanted to shut her up so many times. She is standing for her friends and family, even to the extend of letting her hand be cut, but I still think she has absolutely nothing to back her bravado back. She doesn’t even want to learn any basic survival skills or fighting techniques. The only thing she would do, was laundry and repeating all the time "I'm sorry that I'm alive". When I compare her to Yona, she is one spoiled annoying brat all the time. Of course, you don’t discuss the taste, but for me, she was one of the most annoying main characters ever and hands down the most annoying character in the series.

Now, the part below contains the aforementioned SPOILER TO THE ENDING. No names, no incidents, just a general idea.
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After finishing the anime, I got the impression, that Pacifica was actually MADE to be very plain, a bit dumb and clueless about the world. She might have been made to stay like that to the very end, so that her natural feelings and instinct might serve as the finishing touch to this world’s destiny. It might be some kind of an interesting idea, but for a fictional storyline I don't really thing it's the best main character, if you ask me. I know, that in reality, lots of plain, uninteresting and dumb people are put in the irreplaceable position, like she was, but fictional characters should have some development and traits that make you actually feel that they’re special in something more than just their destiny. They are to teach viewers how to face the situation and how to grow from it. The only thing Pacifica actually accomplished was not running away crying – but still, I feel that she was the most spoiled and the most annoying main character I've ever seen, and I was often wondering why was she so adored by people she met on her way, because I wanted to kick some maturity in her ass in every single scene she appeared in.

So, my score for this anime would be much much higher, if only the main character wasn't pissing me off so much with every passing episode.

Hey you, who stumbled across this title, read the description and hesitated: watch this anime!
Hey you, who watched first episode and dropped it: continue!

I listened to the advice written on other reviews here and I decided to watch it until 5-6 episode as an experiment, just to know if it would attract me. I certainly do not regret it. This anime was one of the most "didn't-see-it-coming" I've ever watched. It's a good fun even though the main theme might sound weird at first. Panties? Saving the world? Huh???

I don't want to get too much into storyline, but this anime will most certainly surprise you. ... After a few slower episodes of really mediocre gags it grasps you and doesn't let go. I would suggest watching it in one shot to catch all the little things that are in it. It really gets much better with time.

It is not a very sophisticated title, it doesn't really take on character development or moral issues, it rather focuses on ways to resolve the current problem using all available means, which sometimes gets slightly crazy. But the idea is good, execution is decent, plot twists are awesome!, the characters likable and not really obvious, and I wasn't really feeling like it's a bunch of weird ideas put into one, it rather mended together pretty well and gave me much enjoyment :)

Art is really nice, cute, but darker at times, gets better with every episode. I was not really convinced with using 3D at the beginning episodes, but later on it blends in well.

Definitely worth watching, especially since it's not really long, so I'd suggest giving it a try.