(Very light spoilers)

Kekkai Sensen is different to anything else I've ever seen, it's a shounen anime with good characters (some better than other), a fun sense of humour and it manages to create a unique world, and a story in it, as absurd as it can be without being unbelievable. That alone makes for an interesting watch, but that's not all. The way this whole thing is presented is also beautiful and done by people who surely know a thing or two about cinematography. It has it's problems but it is good, and it is like nothing else out there.

While the art and animation are not outstanding overall (sometime it is, but on very few moments), they are certainly good, and complement the also good direction. You get to see a lot of really nice shots and great sequences that are not conventional to a shounen anime, that sometimes convey more meaning in just three or four shots than what a mere exposition would do in a typical shounen series. This doesn't mean the show is free of exposition, but it does not abuse it as many series would do.

The story happens in a place called Hellsalem's Lot, which is the very well known city of New York, but after a kind of apocalyptic event where the human world was merged with another one full of paranormal stuff, like demons, ghosts, monsters, spirits, and pretty much anything you can imagine. This world was contained by some magicians called "casters" inside the city of New York so it wouldn't expand to the rest of the world, and thus, Hellsalem's Lot was born. Everything in this anime happens in this city, and you can argue that the city itself is the plot of this series, since the argument of pretty much every episode and the arc that goes along the whole 12 episodes exist because of this supernatural city of absurdity. Some might argue that the script and the story are "weak" because of this. You can have in this city pretty much any ridiculous thing you can imagine, so your story can be anything and anything would have a reason to be and not worry about it making no sense at all. I personally think that it takes a whole lot of creative thinking to come up with this show, and that the device of the city itself seems really unique, and serves well to it's purpose, It allows for the weird but great storytelling this series has. If this were to be a conventional shounen, I would have probably dropped it. It's the absurdity and the way it is presented what keeps you engaged to what otherwise wouldn't be as interesting.

Everything is presented to the viewer the same way an outsider would experience it when getting to know the city. It is weird, and it is shocking, but when you watch episode after episode you start to get the charm of that weirdness. Perhaps sometimes everything is way too confusing and not explicative at all with not enough information to put the pieces together. Not everything has a purpose, but most of the times it is fine that way. The series knows well when to get serious and when to put a gag or make you laugh, and surely it knows how to make you laugh. It's sense of humour reminds me a lot of FLCL, where you could not believe the sheer absurdity of what was happening, and how over the top and exaggerated things can go, but it also has some subtleties that can make you not laugh but smile.

I would say the weakest point of this series is that it only took 12 episodes for it to reach that ending. I ended up feeling like I missed two or three episodes, and that it needed more development before that final episode. The series is mostly episodic and through most part of it, you get little hints about the main plot and how it will unfold, but then it does as fast as possible in the span of two episodes (one being twice as long, so it would be like three normal episodes). That was very disappointing, but it wasn't bad. I liked the ending. I just think it would have been great to have two or three more episodes before 11 and 12 to dive deeper into what happens in the end. The series ends with hints of a second season (which has already aired but I havent' seen yet) that I'm surely going to watch.

Overall it was a good watch, and a memorable one. Besides it's problems I liked it a lot. It's prehaps the most unconventional shounen anime I've seen out there. I don't usually watch shounen, but this one stands out. I would say 7.5/10. It's not a masterpiece by any means, but it sure does entertain and make you feel things and think; for a ridiculous series as this is, that is a lot.