Animation
The animation in Your Forma is fine during talking scenes but struggles when the show needs to display action. This isn't a large flaw as the show doesn't need to focus on fast paced movement often but it doesn't act as a draw either. During the brain-diving sections, there is an attempt at being creative with mindbending visuals which I normally enjoy a lot. However, these segments visually felt like a mixed bag: I found the shakeup of the animation style to be nice but I felt like they could’ve gone further with it instead of sticking to changing colors and some theme associated oddities.

Characterization
Your Forma suffers from a bland main duo which while in Harold's case is thematically appropriate creates a dull viewing experiance.

I like Echika’s character design visually with its layering and hanging bits but it doesn’t feel clear why she is dressed in a unique way considering her personality. Despite her flashy looks she feels passive and bland throughout the show. This is made worse by how she continually becomes a helpless damsel. In the investigations, she sometimes makes small leaps in logic when she’s overshadowed by her counterpart. Despite this being the setup it doesn’t feel like a good Holmes-Watson dynamic but she isn’t given another reason to be around besides the brain-diving making it unclear most of the time why she is here in the first place. If the intent was to commentate on these traits it would be one thing but the show seems to think Echika is playing an active role and this disconnect causes a lot of problems.

For the majority of the series, Harold is monotone and doesn’t present much interest to the viewer. While he’s a Master Detective, his strict regurgitation of information doesn't provide interest. While this is the point of his character arc and he improves a lot in the final arc when combined with Echika who is equally uninteresting the result is a flat and lifeless stage presence for most of the show.

Regarding his interactions with Echika, I think There is supposed to be a romantic element here but it never landed for me. The concept of them being able to understand everyone else but not each other is interesting but it doesn’t feel fleshed out. I can sometimes see what they are going with and some moments in isolation work okay but as a whole it feels empty. These issues may be due to the choice to skip the first arc of the light novel (which I have not read) but I don’t think that’s completely the case. The problem is a continual failing and not due to not knowing information about their backstory that leads to these issues.

Worldbuilding

The worldbuilding of Your Forma is an overcrowded disaster that forces the Your Forma, Biohacking, Amicus robots, and Brain Diving to share the same space. Each of these ideas feels like they need far more room to breathe and they end up choking each other out.
Despite the show being named after them, Your Forma isn’t particularly interesting, they mostly act like a cell phone despite the show's attempts to say otherwise. “Isolation units” and “dead zones” appear whenever necessary and make the “you always have a computer embedded in you” aspect takes a sideline in the mysteries. Their major presence is showing a heads-up display through character’s POVs which I didn’t find particularly interesting and being a pathway to access cyber-reddit.

Ostensibly Biohacking is somehow related to Your Forma but it’s unclear how or why and it mostly feels like a bizarre way to have a doctor who is in junior high. There are implications they are some type of anti-technology fundamentalists but it’s very unclear how or why and the whole concept feels like a slapped-on addition.

The Amicus robots are the most developed aspect of this world thematically but their interaction with them feels very surface-level. It raises some interesting questions about the line of consciousness but doesn’t feel the need to engage with these themes deeply. The “Laws of respect” acting as modified Asimov laws are brought up frequently but I didn’t find the discussion of them to be very detailed or interesting.

Brain diving finds itself extremely underexplored thematically and mostly serves as a segue for attempts at glittery scenes. This lack of interest is a missed opportunity for narritive dept. The concept of police having the ability to dig into people’s brains at will for information seems rife for social commentary. The storytelling style for these segments is somewhat unique in it's narrative style but it’s not enough to be a draw to the series on its own. In comparison Id:Invaded has a similar concept with some incredible visuals and discussion of the thematics of the situation which I found far more enjoyable.

The show would’ve benefited massively from focusing on one or two aspects instead of spreading themselves thin and introducing multiple high concepts they can’t properly handle. I understand the urge to make the world feel more advanced by adding all of these together but in the absence of a major change to the way society functions, it ends up crowding the waters.

Plot and story structure

Your Forma didn’t work for me as a pure deductive mystery since there don’t feel like enough clues to figure things out on your own. However, it doesn’t feel like it functions properly as a thriller either with the plots feeling slow and low stakes except when they decide to have Echika get kidnapped again. The final arc improves on this and has a much better thriller structure but it feels too little too late, the constant jumping between concepts as mentioned in the worldbuilding section has left gaps that can't be patched up.

Conclusion
While Your Forma is fundamentally fine I can’t imagine telling someone to watch it with its blank characters and muddled themes. While it’s easy to blame the adaptation for this there are structural issues on a basal level that doomed it from the start. To create a good version of the series you would need to trim the fat and hone in on a thematic element to define the story. I find myself very disappointed as I was excited for a science fiction mystery series but I don’t think I can give Your Forma any higher than a 5/10.