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I'll have to give this a 10, but I do have my reasons for it. Simply put, this is perhaps one of the best anime I've seen yet, and it's obvious that so much work was put into it to achieve such quality. I could even go so far as to say it's tied with AIR as my favorite series, though ultimately I'll have to choose AIR for having a storyline I found more intriguing. Otherwise, Kanon had so much great stuff about it it's tempting to call it near perfect.
The art and animation were excellent, and even during episodes where the animation faltered, it was still above average compared to other series I have seen in its genre, so it's hard for me to criticize it too much. I loved how the animators not only emphasized the big parts of the series, but the smaller ones as well (Yuuichi and Kitagawa dancing being one memorable example). The colors and backgrounds were beautiful and stunning, and I daresay episode 24 had some of the best due to providing such a lighter mood away from the snowy days.
The voice actors were also great, though I don't want to have to pick which ones were my favorites. However, I have to say Tomokazu Sugita provided a suprising performance on Yuuichi since episode one, since I have always been used to his original voice actor from the 2002 version. I remember finding Sugita to be rather dull in Chobits, the first series in which I've heard him. In my opinion, he's definitely improved since those days.
The music is lovely, as to be expected from all the Key games I've heard. For some reason, for the first couple of episodes I found "Kaze no Tadori Tsuku Basho," as much as I get addicted to that song, to be unfitting until the final episodes (due to being used to the format of the 2002 version), but I soon came to accept it as a perfect touch, seeing as how this song and "Last regrets" play off of each other as polar opposites. The background music is very nice as well, though there were times when I found I was getting tired of certain pieces.
Lastly, the story. I loved AIR's ever so slightly more, but I don't want to go off and say it's less in-depth, because Kanon is full of life and hard for me to condemn in any way. It was also good for the scriptwriters to focus on one arc at a time instead of try and mix them together, because that way it matches that of a real-life canon more closely. There wasn't one girl's story that I didn't like in the least, although I did tend to favor some over others randomly. But still, the series just wouldn't have worked as well with one of them missing.
I'm not exaggerating when I say Kanon is very memorable. It will stay with me for quite some time.
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