[Vegard Aune]

Okay, finally got around to finishing this... It took me like three months after a Key-series ended to actually finish it. This is a sad day indeed.

This series was a huge let-down. I mean, disregarding the animation-quality (though I do think the artstyle was mostly okay... though it could have been so much better if they just turned down the brightness a few notches), and the previously mentioned point about lackluster music-placement, (biggest issue: FOR GOD'S SAKE STOP SPAMMING UNUSED TRACK 3. CONSTANTLY HEARING MISUZU'S THEME GOT RATHER DISTRACTING RATHER QUCKLY) this just wasn't particularly well written. Or well paced. I mean, seriously, four arcs? All of which only got three episodes each? In a 26 episode series? Doesn't that equate to over half the series being common route episodes?

Oh, and out of those arcs... Mio's was the only one I found even decent. And I do seem to be in the minority here as at least Haruka's arc seems to have been generally well received, but... okay, first off, Komari's arc was just boring. The fact that I find her voice extremely obnoxious did not help either. As for Haruka's arc, it seems like the overarching theme of that arc was meant to be like, mending the bond between estranged family members... Kud's arc having a similar theme... but the problem I had with both of these arcs is, they both also saw fit to throw in some ridiculously dark elements to generate drama... Dark elements that they then completely and utterly failed to address in a satisfactory manner. Haruka's family are so implausibly one-dimensionally evil that I can only imagine them all sitting around a table in a some elaborate ominous underground lair while twirling their mustaches, hatching evil schemes to bring misery to everyone while also having a few puppies running around to kick for good measure... and there is absolutely nothing in the story to indicate that anyone even thought to report these people to the cops? The way they abused those kids should warrant a freaking life-time in jail, for crying out loud, and yet all we get is just a casual remark that "We cut our ties with them"? And from what I understand, the VN didn't even have that.
But even that pales in comparison to that final episode of Kud's arc. So, our heroine goes back to her country to find her mother who may or may not have died... and the country is in a period of civil war. So she has to go into hiding, still unaware if her mother is alive or dead. Then they finally find that she is alive and she's about to be reunited with her... then she gets kidnapped, tortured and almost killed by terrorists. Uh, am I still watching the same show? And then this gets resolved in possibly the most blatant deus ex machina ever... and is then never spoken of again. In fact, all evidence points to Kud after this point being completely and utterly fine. Oh, and we don't even see her reunion with her mother either. Just... no. That is not effective storytelling. That is not even something vaguely resembling effective storytelling. You can't have a main character going through all that, and then just have her go "OOOH PRETTY STARS" and act as if this horrible near-death experience will have absolutely no long-lasting consequences on her... and then furthermore skip the reunion with her mother which was the entire point of her being there to begin with.

Yeah. I kind of hated that episode. In fact, I think I can safely say that that very episode was the main reason why it took me this long to finish the series.

So any good aspects of this series? Well, like I said, if one can look past the excessive brightness, the art-style and character-designs were pretty good, even if the animation was lacking in places. And Mio's arc, while a bit confusing, was still... okay-ish (Incidentally this is also the only route I've played through in the visual novel. I think they adapted it quite well), oh, and I mustn't forget... JC Staff did not slavishly stick to the standard opening and ending credits for every single episode regardless of whether that made sense or not. In this one respect, they managed to be better than KyoAni's Key VN adaptations. Granted, even then there were still a few episodes that used the standard ending where it really did not fit (not to mention the opening also feeling kind of jarring during some of the more dramatic episodes) but at least they showed some willingness to change it up every now and then. Oh, and at least some of the common route episodes were quite enjoyable. I found the sleepover episode aka "Riki is so girly that just slapping a girls' uniform on him fools everyone" to be particularly hilarious, and I suppose the ending was nice. But yeah, on the whole... Refrain is going to have to be absolutely out of this world in terms of quality for me to forgive this first season.