So I'll be honest, there was a couple times where I almost stopped watching this show in the beginning. Through the first couple episodes, the two main female leads both felt the same, the main male lead was angry all the time, and the other male characters felt like they had no personality, so it was hard to relate to any of them. Plus, there was wasn't much drive to the plot and I wasn't quite sure what the show was going for. But, being the person I am who doesn't like to leave things half finished, I thought I'd preserve and finish it - and man, I'm so glad I did.

Without going into any major spoilers, there's a subtle build up the show does, not only with the characters, but with their relationships and the themes as well. It wasn't until I hit episode 8 or 9 (which is also where a major plot point is introduced) that I started getting really invested in the story. I started to see growth in the characters and their desires. Their conflicts became less superficial and more genuine. And then the plot starts connecting to these characters in an interesting way.

This hits a huge peak at the midpoint of the series. Everything after that just has such a great payoff that I'd almost forgotten I wasn't a fan of how slow the buildup was. It retroactively made the first half better through taking all the ideas from the first half, and just splicing them together in unexpected ways. The show had become almost something completely different, and while I hadn't been a fan of most of the characters in the beginning, by the end there wasn't really any characters I disliked, and there were many that I'd grown to love.

I'll talk briefly about the art and music as well, because I thought that was fairly well done. Underwater scenes, and anything to do with the lead character's skin, fit the show and had a really beautiful quality. And speaking of beautiful, I think I might be addicted to the OP2 "ebb and flow". The first OP was fine: it fit the feel of the first half of the series, but I usually skipped it and didn't get much from it. But the OP2 I loved from the very first episode I heard it. Just all the emotions in the song, complimented by the clips shown, drive down what the second half of the series has in store.

So I'd definitely recommend giving the show a try if you're interested in this sort of romance genre, but even if you're not, there's some great aspects to this show that I wouldn't want to spoil. My score for this show increased dramatically as I watched it, and the only thing that stopped it getting any higher is probably my feelings in the beginning. And more so than that, I feel bad for people who may have found the first few episodes hard to get though, and then never continued, or never saw the parts I loved most about the show. But again, I'm so glad I preserved and hope others will do the same.