Reviews for Hiiro no Kakera: The Tamayori Princess Saga

Boring. This is the only word I can describe this anime with. Yes, it's reverse harem made from otome game, so you shouldn't expect much from it, but it fails even the lowest expectations. The premise is nothing new, but it seems they haven't even tried to make something out of it. Even the bad guys are a common set (and not the best one) that you'd see in any other anime. We have an aloof five year old blonde girl that acts like she's fifty. Eye patch guy, megane guy with creepy attitude and a busty bombshell that everyone's drooling over. You can make a listof tropes out of it.

I saw a lot of reverse harem anime. No scratch that, I had a short period of being obsessed with them so I tried them all. There were really bad ones (Starry sky) and the ones I actually like very much (Hakouoki). Hiiro no kakera is just a bore, it's not bad, not good, there's simply nothing of interest.

And I really hated their use of 3D in making those forest spirits - looks seriously out of place.

Utter waste of time. It’s like someone just wanted to make an anime without caring about plot, character development, or..well…anything. The ending is absolutely disappointing and reveals nothing. What little story there is builds up to what is expected to be a spectacular ending. They throw hints of mystery and character ties that never get answered. The main characters are constantly complaining about their lives. The heroine is annoying. The characters are forgettable. There isn’t a single redeeming factor about this anime. I give it a 4/10, and that is being extremely forgiving.

This is my first review, so bare with me please. This will be based on the first 6 episodes released so far. Hiiro no Karera got my attention when it came out. It is a reverse harem, so you would say it's more for the ladies than the gentlemen. Consisting of 26 episodes in total, the story is really slow paced. Though, I'm a big sucker for reverse harem anime. Just to start off, this anime is based off an otome game ("An otome game (乙女ゲーム otome gēmu, lit. Maiden Game?) is a video game that is targeted towards a female market") The main heroine is onedamsel in distress. Tamaki is a descendant of the "Tamayori Princess" who possesses great power, but through out the six episodes released, there's not much power in there yet. Who knows when she'll get her powers when there's 26 episodes?

Story: 8/10. If you do not like slow paced anime, I would not recommend it. The action of the anime is really slow, but the fight scenes are really well done.

Art: 8/10. Yes, the monsters pretty much looks dull if you watched the first episode, but the fight scenes are well made. I wouldn't compare it to a Fate/Zero or a Fate/Stay Night fight scene, but it is kinda close to it. There's a lot of details!

Character: 8/10. They all have different personalities, plus the characters are also well drawn. You may find the main heroine a bit tad annoying though... It does seems that later on, the anime will have some kind of romance. Because let's face it...there's like 5 men and one lady.

So far, I am enjoying the anime. I do agree that the first episode was a bit disappointing, but I forced myself to watch the second episode. If you liked reverse harem like Neo Angelique, you might like this anime too. People would say this anime is for female, but I do say that the guys would enjoy the anime too.

EDIT //

I've come to love the music of this anime after watching the 11 episodes that are released now. The other reviews for this anime are pretty right. The anime is REALLY slow, but it seems to get better. They could develop it faster, but I feel like if they did, the anime would only be like 12 episodes and really fast paced.

Making an anime based off a visual novel is never easy especially one aimed at a specific target audience, or in this case, the female market. There could be mistakes through adaption, the delivering of the characters, or in other cases, not sticking with the story. There is much to be said regarding what can make an extravagent series out of a visual novel these days especially from a series a game that is not too well known compared to some of the more popular series like FSN, Higurashi, etc. Will Hiiro no Kakera carry out the task of getting through the right audience anddeliver a series worth to talk about?

Hiiro no Kakera (also known as Scarlet Fragment) details the story of a young girl named Tamaki who had a peaceful life till one day she learns about the true extents of her origin and family. Expect the unexpected, right? But more than that, there are five other gorgeous guys that accompanies her and protects Tamaki as she is the next Tamayorihime, or the princess after her grandmother. The story goes on from there where her original peaceful life gets thrown into turmoil when other malevolent forces are after her and the secrets that lies with her past.

- Story 5/10

I'll be honest here. This story has not impressed me as much as I originally hoped. At first glance, it seems to contain a lot of action packed fighting just based on the OP. However, the story flows a bit slow and replaced with rather heavy dialogue relating to protection, secrets, and artifacts. Speaking of artifacts, it is obvious that others would also want them. With one fragile girl and five handsome looking guys looking out for her, this story may seem compelling to fans who are into bachelors and that sort of genre. Unfortunately for me though, that's not my case. But of course, it's based off an otome game and it's aimed at the female market.

+ Art 8/10

If there is one thing out there about this anime that impressed me so far, it would be the artwork. When it comes to artwork for this series, it is done quite beautifully and probably one of the more stand out points. As much as I despise Studio Deen for some of their previous work, the art is beautiful and more realistic.

+ Sound 7/10

Surprisingly, the sound of this series is fluid and occasionally catchy. The OP song “Nee” performed by Fujita Maiko is relaxing and who doesn't want to listen to some relaxing music when waking up on Sundays?

+ Character 5/10

There seems to be something I'm missing here. The main girl gets off a bus and gets protected by a hot guy. But, what kind of connections do they have? Oh but not only that, there are four (well, one later in the story) guys that just pops out into the story with little background so far. As for our antagonists of the story, they are all represented by German numbers. Now, is that significant? The fact that they are after a certain object seems to put them on the bad side of the "good guys" so far. With little to no background of what the characters are like so far in the series, my point of characters stand out as a disappointment.

+ Enjoyment 6/10

Overall, this series is nothing special and not something that I consider the hit of this Spring Season. It might even be worth a drop or an on-hold as a matter of fact. The story is slow and dialogue heavy not helping by the fact of the almost obscure character backgrounds. However, if you're the target of the demographic that the series is being aimed at, then the bulls eye might be hit. The various endings of nearly episode (that I found somewhat disturbing after awhile) may be pleasing to the eyes of a female viewer. Additionally, the fact that the series is labeled with “romance” might bring out your “inner fangirl”. Unfortunately, it's not working for me. However, this could be a pleasing gift to give on Christmas or on Valentine to your girlfriend that are into the bachelor sort of background.

My very first review so please :P Anyways honestly this entire anime/storyline/plot the whole thing about it, was everything i used to dream of as a child. Being told one day, you're some important princess that must "save" the world, but in this story she must protect an important seal or this monster will terrorize the world, which is practically the same thing! And it is a reverse harem, which is a bonus. But pretty much this is a really beautiful story, i'm going to be sure to check out the manga here right away. Beautiful opening theme song, it's just really beautiful the whole thing about it.^_^

An average high school girl who also just happens to be a magic super special princess goddess. If this plot is new to you, Welcome to Anime! :D As of episode 8 we haven't seen her manifest magical powers, though we have heard her say she'll DO HER BEST! *defiant air punch* quite often. But she doesn't have time for magical powers because she's got a lot of gasping, crying and apologising to do. Ad sometimes she has to gasp, cry and apologise at the same time. She's surrounded by the usual spectrum of protective types, a grumpy supernatural boyband with one of every flavour: there's the niceone, the aloof one, the baby one, the weird one, and the shouty one.

The villains are led by a tsundere blonde loli and include 'eyepatch guy', 'stubble guy', 'creepy old wtf dude', and 'OMG BEWBS'.

There's nothing new in this but it's mostly harmless and oddly pleasant. A colourful 'something' for your eyes to look at when you just want something pretty and unchallenging.

The background art deserves proper praise however as it's dreamily gorgeous.

Truly fantastic, I would say from the bottom of my heart i am so truly enjoying this anime right now - It's different, new and it keeps you guessing. I'm a big fan of romantic animes and this one im hooked onto, The music is beautiful, the charecters are fantastic all with there own special personalitys. A must watch - give it a try, it's like marmite you'll either love it or hate it. I absolutely love it.

Did you expect something great like Natsume Yuujinchou, which is also about a person who can see Yokais and moves to the countryside. Or maybe something like Mushishi a guy travels around and sees Yokais and spiritual stuff. Forget it, those anime are a whole different level in enjoyment. Story: A girl moves to the countryside, to her grandmother. The family is very traditional and strict, so the girl who can see Youkais and all kind of spirits must succeed the grandmother as the princess of her clan. This traditional family is backed and supported by more conservative family's from the village. The tradition says shehas to have bodyguards for her protection, those come from said conservative families. Those guys are all her age and visit the same school as her.

Art:

This is a weak point. Its an old style anime, which is disappointing, because in the genre of Yokais you want to see beautiful pictures like in Natsume or in Mushishi. Personally I dont like the artwork, I think its somehow flat, the main protagonist seems very boring (Looks like a boring version of Kaori in X-Clamp). The scenery seems very heavy and dark, which is bad cause it makes the story even worse.

Sound:

Not much to say, there hasn't been any special piece of music yet.

Characters:

This is a weak point. The main protagonist is your average boring Japanese girl. The characters aren't well defined. They all are very traditional conservative people. Also the reaction of the characters is too reserved for me above all form the main protagonist, if you consider her whole life has changed and that she all of a sudden was forced by the circumstances to move to her grandmother and not enough, that additionally she has to take over the role of the princess of the clan in a very cold household, you would expect her to have some emotional reaction. (I mean she is a teenager..) ...The others characters are the bodyguards which are also her schoolmates, one guy is always in bad mood and the other one looks younger than he is.

Enjoyment:

Either an Anime focuses on battles, or on some critical issue or on the characters, or it is just a good-vibe Anime like Mushishi and Natsume, but this Anime fails, it is a "boringvibe" Anime. The battles are short, the Youkais aren't explained well, I don't think the Anime has any political or emotional message and above all for me the artwork fails, so whats left? The story, I think the story could be somewhat interesting, but so far the execution is very bad.

Overall:

I don't recommend this show.

I am reminded of the Anime called “Asura Cryin'”. The first season came out in April of 2009 and the second came out in October of 2009. The first season of the Anime actually shares a lot of the problems that “Hiiro No Kakera” happens to have. One of the problems happens to be the fact there were signs that the series had potential but the whole first season falls flat. However, the second season ended up giving those of us who gave it a chance a pleasant surprise. Similarly “Hiiro No Kakera” has the same potential to possibly wow people with the secondseason that is supposed to come in October. Of course, it also has the chance of falling flat. Even if the second season turns out to be a pleasant surprise the question of whether or not watching the first season just to watch the second is going to come up.

The unfortunate fact is, while “Hiirro No Kakera” shares a lot of the same problems, the problems are more evident then they were in “Asura Cryin”. First, “Hiirro No Kakera” has only two episodes (the first and the last) that draw the viewer in without the use of bishonen to drool over. The rest of the episodes fall flat in their story telling. There was a lot of material that could have easily been condensed and the story line would have still not had a rushed feeling to it.

Second, in the first episode you are introduced to a heroine who is mistaken for being clumsy but really isn't. She's weak, but that is because she's never had training for her abilities like the five males. One would think there would be great potential but what I was looking for didn't show up until the last episode. Instead, we were treated to episode after episode of her having angst fits about how she can't do anything.

Honestly, don't be surprised to see this heroine compared to Bella Swan even if the second season is well done. Some people may call her out for having a fake fatal flaw of clumsiness because she is called out for being clumsy in the first episode. This is despite the fact she really did simply misstep like many other people would have done. And lets not forget the constant angst we got from this character and the fact she's likely to be paired with the bad boy of the group. Yup... she may be called a Mary Sue even though she may not be one.

I'm honestly holding out until second season before I judge her on this regard... if there is a second season. I'm not saying I don't want a second season here, I don't like it when series are stopped in the middle and big plot holes are left. Thankfully too it seems they have the other episodes done already. However, I'm also not sure how well this Anime is going to go over. They can always change their mind if they don't make a profit off of the first seasons DVD sales to recoup the cost for creating the DVDs.

As for the sound, the music is beautiful. The voice acting... not so much. It also grated on my nerves at times. Even if these voice actors have good roles, this just isn't their best. Far from it. Hands down, for those who have NOT picked up the first season yet, I suggest waiting at least until the second season comes out and reading some of the reviews for that, that of course don't gush about the bishonen. Even then... you may want to consider using a wiki to get the information necessary from the first season to watch the second. This was rather painful to watch, and I say this having enjoyed the first and last episodes.

QFT: "So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb." - Dark Helmet from Spaceballs Too bad in this show evil is equally stupid which makes means good will win despite its best effort to avoid it. Overall/Enjoyment: 3 and 2 - Hulk didn't want to smash TV so Hulk had to put the show aside. Art/Sound: 4 and 6 respectively - very middle of the road though the CG drowned gods looked hugely out of place to me Character/Story: both 1 - if I could rate them zero I would. Why? Glad you asked ... This is one of a veryfew shows that had me raging at the TV because the characters were behaving in completely unbelievable ways. Summing up the first two "battles" between Team Good and Team Evil:

In fight #1 Team Evil wipes the floor with Team Good and takes one of the four relics sealing away The End Of The World. Then Team Evil monologues a bit and sets up a date to battle over the second relic with the promise that if the protagonists dare to show up they will all be killed and forgotten. Much posturing and flexing of manly muscles on the part of the wonderboys of Team Good in the episodes meandering along towards the second confrontation. Fight #2 arrives and ... Team Good is completely crushed again. Team Evil loses only a couple of hitpoints while Team Good is utterly wrecked. I can only assume that they cut all their real players and has been making do by sending in the cheer squad. Despite the earlier promise to dispose of Team Good, another promise is made to set up a date for a fight over the third relic with the usual menace of "If they impede us again, we'll dispose of them" weakly countered by "when we meet again, I will not lose." Riiiiight. Heard THAT before.

There was enough foreshadowing around the Prime Protagonist having some variety of unawakened power that I expect at some crucial moment she'll finally hit three sevens on the Ultimate Power slot machine and jackpot her team to victory. Which leads me to wonder why the heck Team Evil is even bothering to give them that many chances. Leader Loli ought to let her players go pick up the other two relics and jet. Sure they haven't yet figured out what to do with them but take custody of 'em and figure it out their leisure. Bah.

The anime begins with Tamaki in a god awful outfit going to her grandmothers maybe to cater to the little red riding hood fans, upon walking into the forest things happen and she meets Takuma. Who then begins to trash talks her when she meets him and is the moodiest in the bunch so he is the love interest (Fushigi Yugi, Neo Angelique). We then go to her grandmothers and everyone in or around the general vicinity may as well wear designer suits and Italian shoes and call themselves the mafia as they all appear just as shifty. Tamaki then meets her grandmother who lives ina large house surrounded by young people serving her every need, Tamaki must have forgotten that about her last visit I am guessing. Her grandmother then tells her she is the Tamayori Princess and she must protect the Onikirimaru and she has five guardians, and doesn’t feel the need to explain anything else. Who doesn’t love surprises?

Tamaki then meets the rest of her crew, suspicious long haired nice man Suguru, Loud mouth angry man Mahiro, emotionless sleepy man Yuuichi, pushover overly nice cute type man Shinji.

The episodes are full of fillers of Tamaki’s feelings and what the hell am I meant to do ness and battle plans repeated a few times to make sure you the viewer are dead certain as to what is going to happen the next few episodes. It could all be made easier if Tamaki’s grandmother shared the fountain of knowledge as she was once the Tamayori Princess she must have a cheat sheet to give, or she just likes putting the world at risk for the entertainment factor.

The bad guys the Logo’s with leading lady Aria along with the so originally named Eins, Zwei, Drei and Vier. Who apparently want the Onikirimaru for something and are stealing all the jewelry like crazed magpies or so it is made out, a few episodes in Aria’s paranoia about her team not obeying her commands comes to light and they just stop doing anything but sit in their mansion while Aria asks bum chest Vier to do some background checks.

While all that is happening there is a man on the phone eating food constantly and keeping watch on what the two teams and what they’re not doing. Ryou is sniffing everyone because a pet fox was not enough. There is also the so damn obvious Fiona Sensei running about the school they all conveniently go to and spying on conversations. Spoiler alert she is Vier, though I would question those who did not guess that.

I feel as if there is little I can say about the art style of the anime other than eyes and eyebrows do not grow over your hair and CGI should not be included in anime unless the anime consists of being made entirely from CGI. When the battles do not include CGI they are quite impressive and they keep you hooked to your screen and stays away from cliches.

The music in this anime is probably one of my favorites from anime this year with the opening song being incredibly catchy and well sung.It is not an opening you skip just to get to the anime.

You will like the anime if you are into slow story flow and being told as little as possible for as long as possible or you are a big fan of the reverse harem genre and having a slight fantasy setting and have ran out of the good ones to keep you entertained. The music will draw you into watching and if you’re like me the CGI blobs in the beginning will quickly chase you out again along with the predictable characters, but if you stick with it you will see some impressive fight scenes and some laughable moments.

Story: 3

Art: 2

Music: 8

Characters: 4

Enjoyment: 6

Overall: 5

Ok this is a review of the first 12 eps so were about half way through this confusing series, now I'm a sucker for characters with superpowers but it gets rediculous when they keep getting whomped by the enemy who seem to have no purpose for being evil other than for the hell of it, not to mention the current leader being a gender confused child with the personality of a rock, the villains are pretty cool and honestly I am about to start rooting for them because the main female character is so useless the series would better from her being gone, what confusesme is why the protaganist is so whiny and pathetic when she is someone of significant importance, not to mention the reason her team loses all the time is because she is yet to awaken her powers witch is taking FOREVER to do because when she awakens her guardians unlock their full potential but sadly right now they are still weak as piss, the only reason I am still watching this anime is because I want to see the unlocked powers and how badly they trash the enemy with them.

Art and Sound are both great but it's not enough to make up for vague story, pathetic characters and a dreary progression speed, it's no wonder I've fallen asleep while watching certain episodes because apart from the fights where the heroes get owned the rest is just slow crap that will put someone whos just drank a litre of coffee asleep.

I just hope it gets better from here on

Hiiro no Kakera, so far, is just eh for me. After the first episode, I was left unsure of whether I'll want to continue the season or not. Don't get me wrong, some of it was really promising, but other things just seemed so boring and bland that it could ruin the whole show. The art is beautfiul (I would almost watch it for that alone), but that's why I was confused when these overly simplistic "monster" ghosts came out. I have no idea what was going on there; a child could have drawn them. But all of the other art, like I said, isA+. The soundtrack is pleasant and their choice of voice characters works well. The story line is pretty interesting, but the characters are what bore me--they're pretty stereotypical and hard to relate to. While the manga was a shojo, I think the anime appeals to men, women, and everyone inbetween. I would recommend watching the first episode and deciding what you think of it for yourself. The show is kind of a mixed bag right now.

First review... Story: Great storyline, poor execution; it would've had more potential if the writers focused on like actual soul searching/demon hunting rather than trying to pair the main girl up with every guy there. Art: For an anime made in 2012, it looked early 2000s. I get that they were trying to follow the game style but visually, it didn't stand out much. Sound: Appropriate OST and sound FX, but not worth looking up any particular song. Characters: teenaged girl visits/moves in with her Grandmother only to find out that she's a princess with hidden magical powers and has hot bodyguards but in typical anime fashion, she'skind of clueless and gullible but nonetheless we're supposed to believe that she can save the world or something. The villains don't really have a purpose other than to annoy the mains, I didn't care much for them. Grandma gets 0 points, she wasn't useless to the story but she wasn't exactly helpful either.

Enjoyment:

Found myself wanting to skip episodes but somehow managed to get through it because, well, i was more than halfway done and had all of the episodes downloaded already.

Overall:

I'd recommend this to the younger generation, like 10-14 yr olds to be quite honest. I had never heard of it before but I was really into reverse harem and this was at the top of everyone's list and I'm not sure why. It's a bit predictable/cliché and after about 8 episodes I found myself skimming the episodes instead of watching them all the way through just to finish it and by the end of it, I didn't even want to start season 2.

Would I watch it again? No.

1/10 I can honestly say this is without a doubt the most boring anime I've ever had the pleasure to experience. The characters are bland, boring, and quite frankly, pathetic. None of them gave anything of value to the story. Their abilities and powers were worthless and with the skills they have in this show I'm surprised they even managed to help at all. The plot was barely existent. I feel like you could watch the first and last episode and still have a fairly decent idea of what was going on. I don't even understand how the writers managed to create a plot like this. Getting through thisanime was an absolute chore, and I nearly fell asleep so many times while watching. I would not recommend this to anyone I know.

Ok, first ever review so sorry if it's a bit useless ¬_¬ Story: I thoroughly enjoyed the storyline. It may have been a little slow-paced but I enjoyed the slow development. There are a few twists and some mystery involved in the story line, although some of it can be pretty predictable. I found it very interesting the way things turned out and there are some exciting events, however the first half of the series can get a bit irratating at times but I thought it was definetly worth it. Art: I LOVE the way the characters and scenery is drawn! Everything looked beautiful but not over exaggerated. Iam especially fond of the way the characters are drawn. Emotions are conveyed efficiently through the art which creates a more emotive feeling. The only slight down side is the way the gods are drawn. In the first episode the gods are basically uncreative blobs but further into the series more interesting gods/demons are introduced.

Sound:

The music for the opening is stunning. I absolutely adore it! The sound used throughout the series consistently fitted with the scene and helped to create more vivid and emotive moments. Perfect.

Character:

There is a lot of development in many of the characters, particularly the guardians. They start off having very distinct characteristics which are individually likeable but also have some ideas and feelings that are quite negative. We see them all go from feeling one way to another, which sounds vague but I'm trying not to spoil it! I especially liked Mahiro-Senapi, he was funny throughout and is interaction with the others was always amusing. The guardians also have more serious sides and it's good to see well-rounded, realistic characters. Tamaki annoyed me a little because it took her a while to get into her role as the Tamayori princess but once she got her act together a bit more she was ok. I also really liked Mitsuru-chan, she was sweet and lovely and her character never failed to make me smile.

Enjoyment:

I loved this anime! I watched the first episode but I must admit I wasn't immediately hooked, I waited a whole week before deciding to try another episode and I'm glad I did. The first episode is pretty average but I promise the rest of the series was much more enjoyable! It was nice to see them all forming friendships and the romance between a certain two characters was highly engaging.. I would reccomend you watch this anime NOW! :)

I try hard to stray from dropping too many animes. I try to stick through with watching all the episodes no matter how bored I may get. But I must say... I was thoroughly saddened by this anime. I had high expectations, but was disappointed. I got to episode 6, and dropped it. Let me explain: Story: 3. Okay. This is what got me the most. The plot is REAL slow. I mean, I've fallen asleep on the same episode at the same point three times in a row. It's just slow. I would not suggest this anime to someone who likes things fast paced. It'shard just to get past the first episode. I feel like there were plenty of scenes that did not need to be included in this anime.

Art: 8. The art was actually really beautiful. All the main characters: the good and bad were wonderfully drawn and animated. Of course, there were a few mishaps here and there, but that's expected. The monsters, however, are fairly dull. They aren't really anything special.

Sound: 6. Mm... The music was really nice. The background music is mostly soft. That's probably what lulled me to sleep so many times... But it was good music.

Characters: 6. It's really a reverse harem... The boys are nicely made. They have good characters and are well-developed. The only problem I had with them was that they followed the common-thread of the reverse harem, and even regular harem, world. It'd have been nice to spice them up a little more, but they are good characters. The main girl, Tamaki, is dreadfully boring. She's developed... she's just dull. There really isn't much to her. I'd say she's really the common girl in a common anime. There isn't anything special about her. She could have used a lot more work.

Enjoyment: 1. What can I say? After those scores I gave... it should be obvious why it's that low...

Overall: 3. It just really wasn't anything special.

Unless you are REALLY interested in slow-paces reverse harems, this isn't your anime. I suggest you just skip over it unless you really want to try. It really isn't anything special. I wouldn't suggest it.

The whole series was such a waste of time. I have NEVER been so STRESSED and so FRUSTRATED and so ANNOYED over a female protagonist before. I feel like stabbing myself wasting me time watching this ugh... But, I quite like the guys of the show (especially Mahiro because he reminds me so much of Chuuya from BSD). I know this was an anime adaptation of the visual novel, and a lot of visual novel adaptations are quite... bad. This one wasn't TOO bad, it was okay. Would I recommend it? Yeah if you like hot anime boys and wasting your time.

Everyone knows of at least one anime that had the potential to be great, but instead it became a pile of crap, wasting all or most of the potential it had. Well Hiiro no Kakera is yet another title you can add to the list of shows that had potential, but wasted it. Hiiro no Kakera is an adaption of a bunch of popular otome games that currently remain only in Japan. Adapted by Studio DEEN, who can do plenty wrong, you can guess it's them adapting the games improperly that led to this. The show starts out with a girl named Tamaki finding out she isto become the Tamayori Princess that takes place after an encounter with a weird creature she can see. However the thing is, the show doesn't bother explaining much about what the Tamayori Princess is, or anything else after this happens, which is where the cracks start to show. Events just happen thanks to this, and seem like complete nonsense.

The show later soon throws in the guardians into the playing field, and they don't bother developing them much either. By episode 2, the entire cast is together (A bunch of guys that remind you of the vampires that were around Yuki from Vampire Knight-also by DEEN), and they make it seem like all the characters have known each other for a very long time, and have been fighting battles to protect the artifacts (Another thing they don't bother explaining) from the Logos for just as long which shows even more cracks. They don't bother explaining what their goal is, or why all this is happening which makes getting engaged in the story to be quite tough.

The character development is quite erratic. Early on in the show, they just throw the characters in, but later on in the show they attempt to develop a few characters (Especially Takuma in the final few episodes) a bit instead of just making them poof out of nowhere. This helps improve things, but the cracks are already so deep, it's completely impossible to fix them.

Another example of erratic character development is one moment in the show Tamaki suggests the characters talk to each and get to know each other to help in their battle with the Logos, but this doesn't come to pass as they skip this much needed development completely, which completely dashes your hopes about this show. It just shows Studio DEEN is relying on soley the pretty guys and artwork to make this a hit with fujoshi (It should be noted, the show has already bombed in Japan). This is already evident when every episode ends with those brief scenes trying to show off the guys of the show after the credits are done.

The artwork and animation are the show's strongest suit, and everything looks beautiful, especially during the battles with Logos where DEEN steps their game up, but the unfortunate thing is they put in more work into the art and animation (Especially on the male characters-again fujoshi-bait) than everything else which spells nothing but trouble. The artwork in the end becomes pretty much one of the only reasons to keep watching.

Accompanied by the art and animation is of course the soundtrack, and it just works. Nothing too special, but it fits the mood, especially the music during the battles. It helps make a show that is already tough to enjoy due to it's many flaws in storytelling and character development enjoyable at times.

Now I haven't played the games, so I can't confirm how good or badly DEEN adapted them, but as I've heard from those that played the games, they got nearly everything wrong, which doesn't surprise me as I've heard DEEN has done a ton of other things wrong, and I've seen many of these things for myself. Going by the poor and erratic storytelling and character development, them adapting the games wrong is probably true. I just can't imagine the original source material having all these facepalming flaws.

All in all, Hiiro no Kakera can be an enjoyable show if you don't take it too seriously, you just want to stare at beautiful art, and you're not expecting something like Vampire Knight. It was a show that had the potential to be great, but it was wasted due Studio DEEN messing up yet again and putting too much work into the character designs, the art, and the animation than the more important stuff such as the character development and story. I can only wonder how bad the second half of the show is going to turn out when it premiers this Fall.

This is my first review ok. Anyways, overall this anime was very good. It's definitely worth a watch. The art, sounds, and characters were outstanding. The only thing that ruined it is that there was no romance..... That's the ONLY thing I didn't like, but I know Takuma had a thing for Tamaki and she likes him. I think they'll be together soon. They had chances to kiss at least you know and I know the story would have to be altered if that happened, but the story would be a lot more enjoyable. ( I'm big on reverse harem with romance lol )