my humble opinion on 'Hatenkou Yuugi' anime ~ what was it just now?

beware of spoilers
what am I saying now? already having spoiled so many times
it has the fastest pace among all the animes I have ever seen. so short and so fast I could not really savour it enough. however, if you ask me whether I want more - I would certainly say no. does it mean that I am disappointed? no, again. then, what was it just now?

plot and characters

I am still not good at using the word 'sassy', but it seems to be right if we speak of the main heroine here. she is even bolder, even more straightforward and daring than you could expect from a non-typical shoujo heroine. with a ready tongue and positive attitude to everything around her she is marching through the story. yes, positive girls are everywhere, but they usually take the whole 1st episode to let us know how positive they are despite having a hard childhood and youth because of...

a. growing up an orphanage

b. living in a church or the likes

c. being brought up in a strict house

d. feeling unable to get used to a boarding school

e. _________ (think up of your own variant)

Rahzel has a 'trauma' like this, too. better to say, several of them. however, they do not take as much time as they usually do. two phrases from her dad and she is thrown from home. it takes us less than a minute to see it, the rest being explained by Rahzel herself in a couple of sentences - already unexpected

the next moment she sees a handsome guy and what is her reaction? blushing? hiding? chasing him? admiring him? being captured by him? parting with him for a long time but recalling him as her 'ideal prince'? what other variants can you think up when you expect just a shoujo? nope, she just addresses him naturally:

wow, he is holding a gun. run away? get afraid and hide? tremble? become a 'maiden in fear'? ok, Rahzel says:

oh, he has such cold eyes... be enchanted by that? feel sympathy towards him? think of what caused him to look so sad? haha, Rahzel's conclusion is:

he also has a ready tongue. moreover, now he points his gun at her. time to be afraid even more? show some fragility and try to make him melt? but Rahzel claims:

oh, she is also supposed to be kind to everyone and understanding but when a ghost starts speaking about her tragic fate...

in other words, humour is one of the most enjoyable points of the story. I particularly like this one

...the ancient people left us a very good saying! in the kanji for 'person'...

however, I am also speaking of the story. and this is where the disappointment lies. too fast and shallow to be touching, too intricate to be considered as 'light'. accidents and deaths. lack of true emotions and deep feelings. even if brevity is the soul of wit, it must not affect the overall quality

graphics

Art-Nouveau on the background! erm... well... expect for that, I did not get a lot of Victorian-Edwardian-early-XX-century-something that there was reported to be, huh?

seiyuus

good enough. not memorable

music
oh, 'twas good, really. background themes were diverse in styles and of proper mood. OPEDs were not as great. opening theme was just average and the ending was a huge disappointment because the verse melody was promising and then came chorus which was absolutely odd

conclusion

I like this concept a lot

and I like these two types a lot

what made me watch till the end is probably the unusual, always surprising style...

and I was not disappointed with this philosophy even once, from the beginning to the end

and still, 'hatenkou yuugi' remains nothing more that an entertainment for one day. what does not let it become a good anime is the huge gap between the elaborated unusual characters with unusual behaviour and reaction, and the underdeveloped, sometimes even boring, story. the truth is, Hatenkou Yuugi anime must seem good enough only to those who have already read the manga and want to see the animated version of it. to us, who only come to the original after watching, this is unsatisfactory
did I mention the anime actually starts and ends in nothing? yeah, 'tis not a properly designed story. are you able to put up with a huge number of unexplained facts and  mysteries?