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I'll give a "9" purely because I'd like to give it a "9.something". I won't waste time on all the superlatives and glowy feelings the show gave me. The minor problems that kept it from my "10" book were:
1) minor pacing and transition issues... towards the climax and ending, it felt rushed. Having an anime series go from "too plodding" to "omigodwe'reoutoftime" is endemic to the industry but KyoAni comes closest to avoiding the problem, but personally, I saw two episodes worth of material crammed into the last one. There was one transition issue that jarred me a bit (post-Makoto normalcy). And sometimes the ED really jarred after a poignant end scene. I might have used another version of "Last Regrets" in some episodes.
2) no one died ... this is a mixed issue for me. I would have been fine with one or more mysteries ending in death (even my beautiful Mai) because the air of tragedy throughout the series demanded sacrifice. There is victory in death (see AIR) expecially when reincarnation from the Shinto/Buddhist perspective is considered. On the other hand, Kanon is about miracles so Ayu executing a "gaming exploit" to macro-wish the end (Yuuichi==happy) was just clever Ayu and completely acceptable to me.
3) ... ... ... there were other minor bits but now they escape me. Things like Akiko knowing As Much as she did without being a bit more confused. What is she, some bodisvhatta?? (well, yes actually) or the lack of blood with Mai.
Uptics:
Our "Nayuki confession" was time-inverted (when they were young) so that we saw the after-Nayuki as she came to terms with that. Fascinating way to sidestep possible problems yet give fans of Nayuki as much as they did.
Same with Mai... we got more Mai than I'd hoped for. We got delightful moments with Shiori (see my sig)... there were SO MANY moments of humor to balance the blackness. The other uptics other posters have pointe out.
Definitely worthy and one of the better examples of what anime can accomplish with the drama format.
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