I am going to start my review with a question. Can and should shows be judged by what they are NOT ? On one hand, you shouldn't judge a story someone chose to write by what it is not. The writer chose to write this story, not your fanfiction that you conjured up in your head. On the other hand, there can clearly be deficiencies in a story. Something that you usually can find in other, similar stories. Or maybe you just hoped that the story would just include more. Or you hoped that the story wouldn't just be another one in the bunch.

If you think that a story shouldn't be judged by what it is not, then you will almost definitely disagree with my review. I personally hoped for something more and I did not get it.

Does that mean I think this show is bad ? Not really. Its decent. I just hoped for more when it came to the story.

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!!!WARNING!!!
Spoilers ahead
I am not going to hide spoilers. That said, outside of the story section, this review should be MOSTLY spoiler free.

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# ART Really good/10 Honestly, not much to say. This show is really good when it comes to the art. Well drawn, well animated. Kudos to the studio and the team, they have done a fine work. # MUSIC and SOUND Enjoyable/10 Same as the art. I don't have much to say about the music. It's mostly your standard music tracks that you would expect in a show like this. And while I enjoyed the music in this show, I probably won't go out of my way to listen to it outside of the show. In my eyes it does not stand out much from other tracks in different shows. But as the saying goes, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or in this case, the ear of the beholder. I won't fault you if you enjoyed the music much more then me.

When it comes to the overall sound design, I have even less to say. It's good.

CHARACTERS

Chisato/10 When it comes to the characters, I enjoyed what I got. We have the main duo of Chisato and Takina.

Chisato is the more genki type of the two. She is your sun to your shadows. She will be there for you when you need a cheerful friend to lighten up your day. So far so generic, but I do have a major props to give to her character. She is not like that all the time. There are a few scenes were she dips into a kinda ""realist"" mode. She drops this cheerful self to just have a heart to heart. That is not to say that she plays up a character and she switches to some kind of a villain mode or something like that. She just has her moments where shes a bit blunt and "realistic". I very much enjoyed that.

Takina is the stone-faced gal in this duo. She is a professional. She will get the job done. She will be blunt to you. But she will also be your best friend once you get to know her. Over time, her cold outside melts a little and she befriends Chisato more and more. This creates a great progression in the main duos relationship that I enjoyed watching very much.

Outside of that, one character that I would like to highlight is the manager/teacher/father Mika. I would like to give major props to the writers for making this character black and (possibly) gay*. I enjoy when characters like this get some representation in media, especially anime. What I enjoyed most about this is that the story barely mentions these facts. He is just a person like any other, it just happens that he is these things as well. I personally dislike when the writer think they are being clever by constantly highlighting these characteristics. In my eyes, it just cheapens characters like this. But not here, he is just a normal person like all the other people in the show which is great.

(*I am actually super unsure if this is what the writers wanted to imply. I just got these tones from a few scenes. I apologize if I grossly misunderstood what happened in those scenes)

Other character are decent. Mostly generic, which does not necessarily mean they are bad. On the contrary, they are enjoyable. Just not special enough that they bear mentioning in my eyes.

STORY

Dissapointed/10 Oh boy, here we go. I am disappointed. The story looked like it could go somewhere else, somewhere new, somewhere exciting. But it did not. What we got is as safe and generic as one could expect.

I will give you an example from the story.

First one that comes to mind is also the most egregious in my mind. To very quickly set up the scene: There is this super secret organization that "lives above the law" and trains girls to be assassins and manages/directs them to carry out assassinations of criminals and terrorists for the government. This organization is basically the keeper of peace in this world.

Well, things happen and the secreteness of this organization is threatened. Well actually, not just threatened but actually compromised. There is this scene near the climax of the story where one of the main villains, a terrorist, outright reveals the existence of this organization to the public. Like, not just video footage of these girl agents shooting other people, but also a live demonstration of them. These girls are basically everywhere, hidden by their unassuming school uniforms. Well, in this scene, there is this girl that suddenly feels threatened in the public by a civilian with a gun (He has a gun for plot reasons, I can't be bothered to explain exactly why) and she shoots him in his shoulder, injuring him.

IN A BIG CROWD OF PEOPLE IN DAYLIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY.

Well then, interesting, I said while watching. I was genuinely excited that the story seems to actually go down an interesting route. There is no way this is getting covered up. There is a ton of footage of this organizations agents (young girls in school uniforms), there is live proof, a lot of people saw a young girl in a school uniform shoot a civilian. There is no way this is getting covered up. The story is great.

It got covered up. Nothing happened. It was just a stunt promoting a movie they claimed. And everyone ate it up like its nothing.

How ? Well, MYZTEEERIOUZ GUVRMENT ORGANIZAAATION. They can do everything, right ? Like literally make people brain dead, right ?

MAJOR SIGH AND FACEPALM

You were this close, this close to actually having an interesting story. A story where the organization has to suddenly disband or at least go into hibernation. The terrorist wins, the girl agents have to run and hide. Chisato and Takina would have to use their skills to hide and evade the public. Great setup for season two. They could go on a hunt for the terrorists while having to evade the public or something else.

But no, everything goes back to normal. There is no consequence. The organization is fine. Any threat to them is resolved like nothing.

Another thing that I would like to quickly mention is the villain but its basically the same story as before. It starts out interesting. He dislikes this organization. Why should a secret organization rule the people, its not fair. Interesting I said, I kinda agree. A great setup. Maybe he will manage to convince the main duo to help him, or at least let him just go and do his thing. There is a scene near the end where he has a kind of heart to heart conversation with Chisato.

Well, it goes nowhere. Just your generic, "I disagree because you are the bad guy and I am the good girl".

Sigh

Chisato shooting people with ARMOR-PIERCING RUBBER BULLET. I guess ? Why not. Why does she do it ? Well, killing people is BAAAAD. Ok, Batman, you tell that to yourself.

Minor sigh.

The story is in my eyes a disappointment. Is it bad ? Well........ no. I just thought it could actually be more. But it wasn't. And here we circle back to my initial question. The story that we got is not bad. Even arguably good. But I am judging this show by what I hoped it could have been. It could have been much more. It could have set up a great season two. But no, we got another generic story.

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#CONCLUSIONThis anime is good. Period.

Art and music ? Great.
Characters ? Very enjoyable.
Story ? A disappointment. Could have been more, exciting, deeper. But it is generic.

Oh well, still had decent time. I don't regret watching this show. I like cute girls doing cute (murderous) things.

Will you enjoy this show ? Who knows. I definitely don't. That is up to you to decide. This is not a bad show. It is a good show. I just hoped for more. Is it my fault for hoping ? Maybe ? Probably ?

Oh well.