What I love best about this series:
- It's such a big departure from all the other action series I've seen over the last 5 years in terms of tone and style. It's not trying to be edgy or dark in the way that everyone seems to be clamoring for. It exists on its own terms and that's more than I can say for most of what I've watched lately.
- The lack of deep character development (so far) is made up for by a very balanced core cast. The huge supporting cast is
probably never going to be fleshed out into any deep detail, but I'm okay with that. I'm done with shows that string along viewers with extensive backstories of supporting characters, only to dump them out of the story altogether once we become attached to them or start to care. The minor characters are all given distinct personalities and are charismatic enough to enjoy watching, and that's all I need at this point.
- The "simple" art style is an artistic choice, it's
not a shortcoming unless you think every series should look like
Guilty Crown or
Attack on Titan and is garbage if it doesn't. I love the character design, maybe because I haven't seen anything like it in a while, who knows. The animation is everything that it needs to be. The openings are not mindblowing like we've come to expect from everything but who cares (the first half of
this doesn't bode well for what you're about to watch but the 2nd half is everything that I love most about anime OPs, originality be damned, obviously this is all beside the point and has nothing to do with the rest of the show).
-
Watch a scene like this (from episode 8, I think) and pay attention to the choreography, the movement of the characters, the cause-and-effect of what's going on. It's actually a lot more well-done than most shonen fighting stuff I've watched. Despite the superhuman abilities and powers of all these characters and the fact that they're moving blindly fast and leaping several stories into the air, you always know where everyone is and what they're doing and why they're doing it. I never get the sense that they're just making it up as they go along (not going to name names here but maybe you know a couple of series like that).
- Or watch that whole scene from the beginning because I really think it does a great job of establishing tension and conflict between the characters. Maybe it's tempting to complain about it for going on as long as it does, but I don't think they're simply padding the scene out or killing time. I'm not so impatient that I can't sit through characters exchanging a few words before a fight begins. These scenes play out with a purpose and (so far) haven't existed simply to hammer home platitude-laden messages or anything quite so cliched.
Just a few thoughts, not meant to be any kind of vital critique and I know it doesn't even come close. A
very good show to watch when you're having breakfast, I guess.