Robson F.

Rating 1 star, anime zealots blinded by rage; Rating 2 stars, ones who rightfully looked for what is missing; Rating 3 stars, ones who fairly judge based on what was delivered; Rating 4 stars, ones who want to see more of this spin and vision... Rating 5 stars, people from the past two categories trying to do justice against the rate bombing that the other two categories ended up doing.

Incredibly relevant for the girls, boys and humans of today and also yesteryear: Every "villain of the week" is an elaborate visual metaphor of a certain trauma or deep fear that ultimately took that week's side-character to the edge; there is no Aesop's here, no heavy-handedness or moral anvils dropping from the sky with explanations attached (actually, the narrators for the unplanned recap on episode 8 are unreliable and dismiss some of the heavier implications from stuff that happened previously), so much of the "innuendo" works due to the audience being in the known about certain social problems of current japanese society (but then again, most of us are aware of these problems, e.g. "compensated dating", "digital bullying", "consumerism")... The beauty of it all is in the execution of the (mostly mental) battles and how truly human all of the protagonists are, how they view their own situations and the bonds they form with each other.