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First, if there was something that was almost universally praised back then was the animation and I don’t exactly get why. I mean, to be fair, the artwork is clean with practically not quality drops I guess, the backgrounds are well done, as it’s usually the case with P.A. Works, and it’s true that it has among the best uses of lighting and shading you can find on any anime of its time and that would only age for the better as time passed. I don’t know why but many seasonals nowadays can’t reach even that level of more than a decade ago in that department. The body language when the characters do something that’s supposed to be funny is quite good as well. Even with all that said, when you compare it with some of the shows and movies that were coming out in its year or even the one before it, can you really say this is among the best animated? Because I sure can’t.
The series has this weird black dust, clouds creatures, things that appear sometimes out of nowhere and those look really bad and outdated by now, heck, they already looked weak for the time this anime came out, and let me tell you that when the characters fight against them the motions are not very good either, heck they aren’t really that good at any fight at all. Even when the characters fight among themselves they mostly stand or sit still and shoot their guns and that’s it. Only one of them who has some kind of energy blades moves around well. Plus the special effects during fights aren’t very good either, certainly not as good as what it’s done with the backgrounds. Also, although the body language is good in the comical moments as I said, thanks to the repetition of the jokes, and the overuse of sped up movements, even that can become repetitive and boring to look at pretty fast.
Aside from that you have the character designs which are easily one of the most uninspired that I have seen in my life, in anime at least. This is an usual problem with P.A. Works, they change their style with every new show they make and although that way their series don’t feel visually rehashed and repetitive, it’s what makes them lack a visual identity on their own, it’s easy to mistake any of their products with something done by anyone else. In this case, outside of the coloring of their hairs that makes them look like everyone has wigs, there’s not much issue with the character figures themselves, as they are always consistent unless they are purposely deformed for comedic effect, it’s just that every one of them feels like an uninspired KyoAni reject or straight up clone. The only one I can make an exception for is a dude known as TK who would have never be done by that studio, but the rest? It’s not that they look generic, it’s that they straight up make you think that you are watching something else. Visually, this anime really feels like it was done this way just to cash in on the fame of Kyoto Animation and other Jun Maeda recent shows and movies at the time, I mean just look at the dates.
The music was also quite praised at the time and I don’t think this aspect is outstanding either, just like I don’t find any particular tearjerker anime to have an amazing soundtrack, it’s all slow and sad piano pieces and simple and generic equally slow and sad jpop songs for both background music and opening and ending. The only reason why they are remembered is for the details outside the composition. In case of the intro is for how out of place it feels with its almost melancholic tone even though the series is half tryhard funny and half overdramatic, and its unusually still images and naming of the characters that made it look more like the opening for an early 2000s visual novel instead of one for an original television series. In case of the ending is for how less characters appear with the passing episodes, as they keep dying in series, which is actually a good detail. As for the insert songs, it’s not for the singing or instrumentals themselves, but because they are used for the scenes when someone dies.
The series tries to establish a rule by saying that if the characters don’t do something at the school other than studying and getting good grades, they’ll disappear, but even then it’s only an excuse for typical school anime situations and nothing else. What about all the other quiet and still students? Why don’t we see them doing something to avoid disappearing or at least see those go away? Because they are background unimportant characters, that’s why. World consistency is not important apparently.
What’s usually said to defend this show, is that it was meant to be twice longer, but that’s only an explanation for how bad it is at best, if the team behind its production knew that, they should have rewrite the script to be more focused and not spend as much time with typical school comedy as it does. There is also extended media from it that supposedly explains the missing details, but that doesn’t affect the lack of planning and quality of the series.
Another issue is how there are no rules for the world whatsoever, anything can happen at any moment to have something happening and any random thing for the characters to do at some point, just as an excuse for something to face in any episode, just to fill space and time, being other students or monsters. Plus whatever damage is made to the setting have no impact whatsoever, and characters can heal wounds or respawn quickly, they also can make guns or other weapons appear out of nowhere.
Anyways, the real way for the characters to pass away and reincarnate is to remember their lives and deaths, meaning, that until that happens they don’t have any backdrop, and when their pasts are revealed, they disappear, thus the series becomes formulaic, repetitive and predictable. You just know that when someone is getting focus, is going to die, and when they do, sad piano and an insert song is going to kick in to manipulate your emotions and try to make you cry for a character that up until that point was nothing more than a generic character archetype. It’s even worse when it’s revealed that some of them knew the others from before, because if they were able to remember the rest earlier, the show would be over much faster. This only aids to make you notice that all the school comedy bits were a waste of time. Hell, not even all the characters that the series presents at the beginning get to reveal their backdrops to the audience, some of them just pass away out of screen.
And there are even more problems with this element which is that, with almost no probability whatsoever, some of them get to reunite after their reincarnation, which on top of being astronomically convenient, ruins the supposed emotional departures, even the last scene, which by the way was a huge plot hole, as it’s revealed that one of the first main characters known to have appeared in the setting somehow died after the protagonist who was the latest to spawn there.
Just for the sake of overkill, I could also say how the series tries to build a romantic dynamic with some of them but without meaningful nor distinct interactions whatsoever, even less because they can’t know much about their partners otherwise that’d mean their deaths.
There’s nothing good I can say about this anime, the sound department, the visuals, and the premise are uninspired, the plot and setting make no sense, the pacing is atrocious, both the jokes and emotional moments are presented in a way that becomes formulaic, repetitive and predictable, the directing is manipulative, the characters are archetypes with close to no dynamics among them almost to the end, its legacy has been practically ruined, and as a whole, despite being an original show, it feels like a rehashed and derivative project made on the fly to cash in some popular products from its time. It’s no longer among the top worst anime I have seen as it was back when I watched it, as I’ve consumed much worse since then unfortunately, but it remains one of my most hated ones and perhaps the one I consider to be the most overpraised and overrated.
2/10
