[GuidoHunter_Toki]

The animation and voice acting was for the most part superb. The first 20 so episodes where really gripping and I was hooked from start to finish of each episode. As it went a long though it lost some of its steam. The story seemed to take somewhat of a u-turn in terms of plot theme. Yes they had the typical evil guy they needed to destroy, but many of the intriguing "sub-plots introduced in the beginning where kind of dropped or where never revisited. Probably to do with episode constraint and not following the manga up to a certain point. There were many developments that I believe could have been included if they had left certain things alone, like the excalibur episodes. My emotional involvement in the show wasn't huge except for Black Star and Tsubaki, whose backstories, in my opinion, had more depth and feeling to them. They just seemed explored with better detail than others, which probably explains why they were my favorite characters. Episode 11 with Tsubaki fighting her brother is still my favorite episode and it still gives me goosebumps watching that last charge by Tsubaki.

So all in all it was a very entertaining series which lost a bit of its alure for me towards the end, but it was still enjoyable up to the end. A few things could have been better explored, but for the most part, developments where handled well.

7/10