Review of Kokoro Connect

(This review takes into account the final 4 episodes as well.) To start off, I am a sucker for shows that deal with swapping bodies. This series was no exception. Without giving away anything too much, I also liked how they changed to different phenomenon other than body swapping. The characters I really liked as well. While some of them seem to exude a lot of the cookie-cutter anime tropes that get old quick, they managed to pull the audience in with more depth to their dilemmas (especially in the case of Irori.)The usage of numerous phenomena to reveal backstory and character traits, I thought was a very clever way of introducing the audience to the characters.
My favorite aspect of this show was Inaba. Even if there were times when I thought the series used tired tropes from slice-of-life anime, I could always expect that they'd use this character to pretty much speak my thoughts and be the voice of reason when the other characters were being too irrational and stereotypical of this genre of anime. When I first started watching this series, I was just thinking the whole time "oh my goodness, Inaba is basically who I'd be if I was a cute anime girl."
I thought the main villain was also handled very well. He appears at random moments inhabiting peoples bodies whenever he feels like it, and it always comes across as being super creepy and weird because you don't know what he is or why he's causing so much havoc with these characters.
If there's anything I think they could've changed, I think maybe they could've set up the characters in a less rushed fashion at the beginning and then had them swap bodies. From my experience watching American cartoons all my life, I can easily say the body swapping trope only works great if you've already firmly established the characters regardless of what kind of show you're watching.
Overall, I'd say this show was very good. Not perfect by any means, but still very enjoyable if you like slice-of-life anime with a bit of a creative spin to it.

(Also, the music in this was top notch. Probably the first anime I've seen where the music really stuck out to me.)