I'm not really sure how to talk about this one without spoiling anything for you, but I'm going to give it my best shot. This show moves so fast that if you blink, you'll miss something story-critical and be confused for the next three episodes. Although it could have certainly used a couple more episodes so that it didn't feel like the show just did a line of cocaine before it started rolling, I don't think that the pacing really made THAT much of an impact on the content. It might be a detractor for those of you that aren't fast/peripheral subtitle readers, but for those of us that have no issue with series like Monogatari, this will be child's play. I'd even go as far as to say it's not the speed that makes this series a little "confusing" at points, but rather the way that the plot is presented. Flash-sideways, flashbacks, and the like are all employed to the point where keeping the different inter-weaving parts of the story straight can become a little difficult to some. That being said, I watched eighteen series this season and had no issue actively following this, so the effort required to get the full effect of the plot (which is honestly engaging and wraps up pretty well) is going to vary from watcher to watcher. If I could say anything to set you at ease about the speed/dialogue, it would be that Occultic;Nine dialogue kind of like an episode of Law and Order: characters are constantly moving while talking at an accelerated rate, even though their movement doesn't exactly add anything to the dialogue nine times out of ten, except that sometimes that movement is replaced by dutch angles instead. At the end of the day though, the plot was interesting enough to keep me on the hook every week, and the mystery and its resolution are legitimately intriguing. That's more than can be said for most anime mystery plots.

Speaking of visuals, this one definitely had a stand-out art style and direction, employing this soft-line style that allows character designs to look incredibly consistent with their backgrounds while still keeping an insanely high level of detail in their character designs. A-1 Pictures is a master of character design when they want to stray from their "A-1 face" design templates, and this show proves yet again that they can be just as visually consistent and impressive as the most in-house studios when pressured to be. The character designs overall are very good, outside of our MC looking a tad generic in comparison and another HUGE issue that will be obvious to you immediately. There are multiple times when this show is animated "on-ones" (24 frames of animation for 24 frames-per-second video playback) to incredible effect. "Camera work" is another thing I would highlight with this show, as it frequently employs dutch angles and other framing techniques to keep the setting interesting and give you more opportunities to take in the lush background art. Voice acting was also pretty killer considering just how fast the dialogue can get at times, and although the music was pretty good I wouldn't be handing out out any awards to it. The visuals were the definitive draw here in the aesthetic department.

If you are pretty fast with subtitles and are looking for a good mystery, give this one a look. One of the top five this season for sure and a definitive visual treat.