Anime Discussion Thread - Page 5991

I actually liked it quite a bit. The sci-fi was actually very well done, especially in the first half. The characters were mostly likable. The story was very gripping - I never got the feeling anything story-wise should have been disposed of. Animation and sound were top notch, I really enjoyed myself regarding those two!
However, I think it could have used a few more episodes. By the last third I felt like they tried to stuff in "too much" story relatively to how much time they had left. I think all the story-bits were needed but the world-building suffered from that. With a few more episodes they could have added more in-depth explanations to how human-forms work, the development of anti-human-form weapons, more backround to the Tessiks, their Xam'd cycle and the Xam'd "overlord, etc.pp. They could have used a bit more time for the story as well to soften the edges. It felt pretty rough at times because the pace was so damn high near the end. It also had a little bit too much of "hey, let's give every character an important role in the finale even if we have never talked about it before" for my taste.
Regarding the ending, I think they chose a really impactful ending but messed it up a little bit. To me it felt like they cut it during the most important point when Akiyuki gave away his self without showing any reactions. It was kind of a "that's it?"-moment. Then they swapped into the future and by the end of the episode Haru and Akiyuki just met again because reasons (because someone called his name or so yadayada). I might have missed something but that took a lot of the impact away for me. I think the stronger ending would have been without a time-skip but instead having an inner monolouge of Haru stating how she will wait for Akiyuki or something similar at the very end. Just leave it in the air whether they meet again or not. It also kind of took away from Nakiyami's sacrifice. I was much more attached to Nakiami than I was to Akiyuki, yet they decided to give more importance to Akiyuki's sacrifice.