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Glasslip

Most of you probably heard of ME! ME! ME! by now. In case you haven't, there's plenty of mirrors to see the thing on. Watched it? Great. Now, this seemingly pointless music video, containing lots of mature content left and right, is proven to have sense, logic and hidden meaning. And it's not like it's that hard to decipher, really; all it takes is two or three rewatches and you got the grasp of what's going on. Not to mention the thing is six minutes long, so understanding it takes you at most 18 minutes. Or 24, if you're dense. Now, why did I mention ME! ME! ME! here? Because Glasslip, the anime I'm about to review, is all about the hidden meaning behind it. But, as luck would have it, that meaning has been hidden so poorly it's beyond a joke - and apart from that, the whole anime lacks any redeeming value of its own. But well, let's take a closer look first.

At first, the anime looks impressive. Nice shading, lighting, animation is rather smooth - pretty much everything you'd want from an anime that was made recently. Sadly, the illussion disperses really quickly. And that's because of one thing that I don't know whether it was put there intentionally or rather because of poor management. At any rate, it's irritating and intrusive, not to mention how silly it looks compared to the rest of the visual side. That's right, I'm talking about those still shots with sun rays on them. They're shown every five minutes or so for no reason at all - as I can understand such a process to accent how important something is or to mark half of the episode, but here, the stills are used even worse than on NCIS (where gray stills mark the advertisement break). They're overused, not welcome and generally prevent you from enjoying the show at all. Worse than that, you can actually hear the sounds even though the shot is frozen in place. So yeah... whatever the cause, this process has literally killed any sort of enjoyment I could have watching it. Even cool character designs didn't help.
Graphics: 16/20

I'll keep this paragraph short. They dragged ChouCho and nano.RIPE into this, didn't they... well, as much as I have to admit, I enjoyed their songs for opening and ending, the rest of anime just made me hate it even more. Starting with the soundtrack for the anime, which initially sounds like ripped off royalty theme from any visual novel in such setting and quickly changes into drama-only sounds to keep you... bored. That's right, the sounds are blatantly stupid and improperly used. And that doesn't stop there - seiyuus don't seem to be voicing the correct characters. I'm not even joking, for the most part it felt awkward to hear a character speak in a voice that clearly wasn't meant for said character.
~~Sound: 25/20~~
Oh, I nearly forgot. In the first episode, my ears cried for help during their attempt at 'disturbing ambient sounds'. This thing hurt. Really bad.
Sound: 27/20

Now, let's pay back for how short the previous paragraph was and write a fair bit about the plot here. The story revolves around a group of friends and a certain stranger who changed said group just by appearing. Throughout the course of the anime, the producers use various small gimmicks to add a hidden meaning to it, but as it appears, those small details are so insignificant not many actually took the time to wonder about them. And that's where my ME! ME! ME! reference kicks in - this hidden meaning is so small, insignifant, not rewarding and well-hidden, that nobody normal would take the time to rewatch this 13 episode long show as many times as it takes to simply find it. Sadly, I'm one of the people who didn't strive for knowledge this hard and rather used reddit/MAL to know a bit more about it. According to the people there, who presumably finished their majors in English (seriously, reading their posts was a sure pleasure), things like fireworks, 'fragments of the future' and chickens... yes, let me repeat - chickens... are the key to discovering this hidden truth. But, as far as the show went, those small gimmicks instead of raising my curiosity simply bored me out. To add more, those small gimmicks are apparently the only reason anybody would willingly watch it. Why? Because nothing is going on. The dialogues don't make sense, the scenes jump way too quickly from one to another, backstories are bland and washed out... need I say more? Well, let's just say it's a drama without drama, a romance without romance, supernatural series without any supernatural things per se... so nothing for nobody.
Plot: 30/20

As I already said, the character designs are nice, the voices for characters don't fit and the anime is nothing for nobody. Why do I still write, then? Because as much as I hated the show, I need to mention the characters to make it all look justified. Our main character, Fukami Touko, is a normal teenager with a normal group of friends. Her family, including herself, specializes in glassblowing. And obligatory rant here - WITHOUT PROPER PROTECTIVE GEAR! She's a teenager still learning the art of glassblowing, and yet they let her do it without any sort of protection! Ugh... our stranger, who changed the lives of everyone else here, called Kakeru, appeared out of nowhere, approached Touko without any sort of justification and started raping her mind with supernatural stuff. How did it affect anybody else? Well, apparently he pulled the trigger to all the romance-based drama in the world. Touko's group of friends, not counting herself, consisted of four people, and for convenience let's call them A, B (the boys) and C, D (the girls). A is in love with Touko, but Touko swings Kakeru's way. C, however, is in love with A, despite A being her non-blood-related family. B is in love with D, who is indecisive and loves both B and Touko. Complicated? Let's just say, then, that it all made even less sense on the screen.
Characters: 20/20

Can somebody please remind me why did I even start it? Well. Doesn't matter now, does it... I'll just safely say I enjoyed sleeping during the credits in the last episode. Only that. The rest was a repeated torture without justification or mercy for my brain.
Enjoyment: 20/20

Total score: 113/100
Judgement: SERIAL KILLER OF BRAIN CELLS