Oh hey look, a robot anime from the same guys who did Steins;Gate. Based on a visual novel in the same way as Steins;Gate. I loved Steins;Gate, lets give this show a try and see how it is. How bad could it possibly be. Welp those are always some famous last words.

I eventually finished Robotics;Notes kinda based on my pure desire to see if the show ever went anywhere, or if something would convince me it is just a very bad adaption of the visual novel. And that I should just go play the game. But after 22 episodes, I think the answer is the entire story and characters just is not very good, and the anime couldn't solve that issue. I'll get around to playing the visual novel eventually to confirm that theory, but I'm not hopeful.

Lets start I guess with my various issues with the show. The story is incredibly messy and feels very unfocused. I could never tell what the main story was meant to be in the show, or why these two completely different stories would be connected. We have one story about Kaito running around the island collecting Reports that some guy created years ago about some plot to kill billions. And another completely unrelated story about Akiho and the club they are all members of building a robot to go to some expo. On there own you could have a very good story, but together it just gets messy. I could never tell what the point of these two stories were, or how they would eventually come together.

But I think the largest issue I have with the story is how there is never really a threat or a point of anything that is happening for most of the show. The characters aren't all working toward a major goal, they aren't trying to save the planet together or anything like that. The club is building a robot for personal reasons, which is perfectly fine. But at the same time you have Kaito and these reports about underground groups and plans to kill billions, but they aren't a threat. We don't even know this stuff actually exists for most of the show. So what he is doing for the entire time feels pointless since there is no challenge or antagonist to what he is doing.

And by the time the threat is real, most of the show has already passed. And you are in the final couple episodes and don't really have time to feel threatened by what is happening. You also don't have any connections with the antagonists, they haven't existed for most of the show. By the end it feels like they rushed or moved around story plots in a major way that didn't work in the anime, that got put together in a completely different way in the visual novel. Maybe one day I will know the answer to that question.

Along the way of building this robot and collecting pages, we are introduced to a decent cast of characters who work with our main leads to assist them along the way. Except as the story progressed, I realized how little of a role most of them actually had to play in the story. They are in the story to do a single thing once, or play a super minor role to the point you kinda forget about them. They never reach the point of being memorable characters. In Steins;Gate all the major side characters had a point, and you remember them all, they have a point to them. That just doesn't happen in Robotics;Notes.

As for the two main leads in Kaito and Akiho, they are fine. But I don't feel like they really got all that closer over the course of the show. Or had any major developments at all. They are largely the same characters from the beginning of the show, just now understand a bit more about the larger world perhaps. This issue also applies to the side characters as well, they just don't get enough character development somehow.

Visually and animation wise, the show looks fine for the age I guess. I didn't have any real issues with the show, but at the same time nothing really stood out for me. Don't think it will go ahead and win any awards with people or show up as a background image. But doesn't take away from anything.

In the end, it was a disappointing show for me. The story didn't really work and nether did the characters. It could be a bad visual novel adaption. But at the same time, the visual novel doesn't exactly look like it is winning awards with people. So maybe it is just a generally bad story all around. Who knows. All I know is I can't really recommend watching the show.