kilrazan

An intriguing premise with excellent execution, sadly burdened by the fact that it's a glorified ad for a video game. I enjoyed it for what it's worth, but the story is ultimately unsatisfying and clearly contrived to push the game.

Story - After a disaster a few years ago brought "D2"s to earth - an alien threat impervious to normal weaponry and posessing a hatred for music - all of humanity has had to abandon music lest they draw the D2s to them and face destruction. A scant number of talented individuals have been able to rebel against this outsider threat by becoming tag-team duos of "Conductor" and "Musicart", using magical powers and music to destroy the D2s. Under the organizational banner of the "Symphonica" headquartered in New York, these Conductors and Musicarts slowly pressed the D2s into hiding, and things were looking up. One day, however, a small town is attacked by an unprecedented release of D2s, and our Main Character awakens as a Conductor without proper training, and his love interest awakens as his Musicart. We follow their journey along with his love interest's big sister as they travel to New York to find out more about being Conductor/Musicarts, and to investigate the sudden re-surfacing of the D2. Along the way, they find unlikely allies, and even more unlikely foes. I enjoyed the narrative structure for the most part, but the D2 were woefully uncharacterized and poorly explained, and more importantly, the ending was ultimately underwhelming because it clearly was just a setup for the video game, rather than actually ending the story. 4/10; I'd probably watch a season 2 if there is one, but something tells me it's literally just going to be the game that continues it, and I'm not at all interested in that.

Animation - It's hard to go wrong with Madhouse or MAPPA individually, and with them doing a collab here, it's pretty incredible. There's a lot to love with the animation, from smooth fighting scenes, to beautiful scenery, and plenty of great color choices, there's very little to complain about here. 9/10; One of the biggest reasons I even kept watching this.

Sound - The Opening is great, and a lot of the battle music is a wonderful blend of modern fight music and classical snippets. Sadly, the rest of it was a little underwhelming for me, at least given the premise that this whole ordeal centers around music. I would have expected them to go a little harder on the OST for this. That's not to say that it's bad by any means, it's just not that memorable or exciting. 8/10; I'mma be listening to that OP for a while.

Characters - While I adore a lot of the character designs and concepts here, there's ultimately very little in terms of actual character development. The narrative focuses entirely on moving these 2d character pieces through various environments and conflicts, rather than exploring their growth and development. So, at the end our characters are all largely the same as when they started. 7/10; needs more Lenny.

Overall - I certainly enjoyed my time watching this for the visual spectacle, but that's the only reason I kept going. Had this story been done in any less spectacular visual style, I would have dropped it after the 2nd or 3rd episode. I do ultimately recommend it, but keep in mind it's all flair and little substance. 7/10; Would've been much better if it actually cared to tell and resolve its own story, rather than serve as a glorified ad for a game.