I am SO happy that I finally got around to watching this series. Watched all 7 episodes in a single sitting. This quickly became my most favorite show of the season (and I'm watching more series at once this season than I ever have before). I'm not a manga reader, but I can tell that the story went a little quickly in some places here and there (and TAD heavy on the drama in select scenes in an episode or two), but those moments are few and were all handled in the best way possible, imo.
This show is simply amazing. I've read around on other sites and some reviewers find the visuals (maybe they mean the character designs in particular?) bland. I highly disagree. Less is more, and the animation for the playing sequences is really something else. All of the music in the show is appropriate and fantastic. Even though the OP nor the ED are of the jazz genre, they're both great and fit the show ridiculously well. And the BGM's just right regardless of what's going on in the scene. (My particular favorite is the sad music that plays while Kaoru is eating the onigiri Ritsuko made him on the train in epi 5 -- I actually teared up. Same goes for the scene with the tearful goodbye between him and his mother.)
And don't even get me started on that amazing duet in epi 7. I agree with what someone else said in earlier in that every episode lately feels like it was the last one in a way. I felt like I was watching a movie, and that duet was the big finale that saved the day or something.
It's going to be painful waiting for new episodes to this! Just an all-around classy show. The quality to be found here just shines.