The 9-nine-: Ruler's Crown anime is a compelling adaptation of a visual novel. If you watch it standalone, you might think the original visual novel was just a Steins;Gate-like time travel story with urban fantasy magic action. While that’s technically true, what you may not know is that the original visual novel was episodic, with four episodes focusing on the main character romancing each of the four main heroines—yes, including his little sister.

In a way, that’s both the best and worst thing about the 9-nine-: Ruler's Crown anime, especially compared to the visual novel. If you only care about plot reveals, cool magic action, and an all-killer, no-filler approach to building characters—just enough for you to care about them before diving into the plot—then 9-nine-: Ruler's Crown does that best. The world of artifacts is a way for the main characters, main villains, and some side characters to have secret magic powers tied to a TV show.

The story starts with Kakeru Niimi, the main character, a seemingly normal, slightly snarky but nice guy, wanting to get closer to his classmate Miyako Kujou, an attractive, kind, and feminine girl who works at a small coffee shop. His goal of getting closer to her ends up dragging him into a huge plot revolving around the city they live in.

As stated, with 13 episodes, the anime builds up the five main characters well enough. In addition to Kakeru and Miyako, we have Sora, Kakeru’s gremlin-like little sister who’s cheeky but clearly cares for her big brother; Haruka, who seems to have multiple personalities, switching between a shy girl with social anxiety and someone confident and flirty; and Noa Yuuki, who seems extremely aloof, blunt, and edgy but knows a lot about the situation and may have the powers to deal with it.

For the most part, the characters are introduced well. You get a sense of their general personalities, and they’re pretty likable. As the story progresses, you meet more characters like Kakeru’s best friend Yoichi; Renya, a chuuni redhead; a mysterious blonde woman; and a mysterious talking plushie, Sophie.

By blending genres like mystery, action, slice-of-life, comedy, and romance, 9-nine-: Ruler's Crown creates an interesting world and characters. It’s not the best in terms of characters or plot and can feel derivative at times, but the way it blends urban fantasy with a Steins;Gate-like time travel story is well-executed. There are cool twists and drama once the plot gets going around episodes three or four.

Sadly, while the plot is generally well done, the character interactions and development are more of a mixed bag.

The main character, Kakeru, is mostly well done. However, because the anime adapted the plot by eliminating most of the slice-of-life romance and comedy, it feels jarring that his so-called crush on Miyako Kujou fades into the background extremely quickly after the first few episodes, until the way end of the show.

Similarly, while there’s some teasing about Sora’s feelings for her brother, it’s barely addressed outside one or two scenes toward the middle of the anime and is quickly forgotten.

Haruka has great moments about wanting to overcome her shyness, but her arc feels fragmented, mostly occurring toward the middle and end of the show. There’s also an implied romantic crush on Kakeru, clearly based on the visual novel, but it lacks buildup since her slice-of-life episode from the visual novel was cut.

Noa Yuuki probably has the best overall character development, as her story ties heavily into resolving the increasingly complex plot. My issue is that her warming up to the main crew feels a bit jarring due to the lack of slice-of-life moments, making her transition from cold to fitting in with the group feel abrupt.

I’d comment on Miyako, but I think she was intentionally written as the least deep character, which isn’t necessarily bad. She’s a shy but nice, deredere character with just enough depth in wanting to help people.

There are also some personal nitpicks I have, like how Kakeru’s best friend, Yoichi, is kept a bit too conveniently annoying personality-wise, or how the redhead, Renya, never makes his love of flat-chested girls rants from the visual novel. I also think that, even though Sora seems to be the most popular heroine from the original VN fanbase, I always thought she was fairly annoying.

While the animation is mostly serviceable, there are moments where the animators clearly used lazy stills—when characters are zoomed out or in the background, they often have funny-looking eyes or shadows over their faces so the animators didn’t have to draw them in detail.

Overall, 9-nine-: Ruler's Crown is an enjoyable but inconsistent experience. It excels at drawing you into the plot and delivering crazy reveals about the magic, the main villains, and the time travel aspect. While there are likable characters and decent comedy, not all of them shine in the character development department, and their supposedly close bonds don’t feel as strong as they should.

I’d recommend 9-nine-: Ruler's Crown with a cautious positive recommendation. Watch it if you’re interested in eventually reading the visual novel, if you really want to see something that emulates a Steins;Gate-like time travel story, or if you enjoy urban fantasy magic action.