Review of Texhnolyze

I know this anime is often regarded as one of the classics in the "artsy/philosophical" category, but for me it is probably the weakest of the bunch. The main story takes forever to take off, and the progression of everything is just so sluggish at times. And I say this as someone who likes when the story takes its' time. But the key is - that time has to be spent on actual character development, worldbuilding, and interesting visual bits. And when Texhnolyze is at its best, it can present a lot of these things. The main characters all have some unique charm, the showhas some interesting concepts going on with all the communities surviving in this closed, technologically-advanced environment, and some shots are just fantastic. But oftentimes the show just trips onto itself and wastes time on political bickering which was way more interesting in the writer's head, or, even worse, just very slowly unfolding the events in question. And there's not too much to unfold to be frank - the character's arcs are interesting, but very brief. There are shows that accomplish EONS more of character development in less episodes. The visuals are nice though. The anime manages to make its designs both bleak and stylish, which is a rare feat. And it also mixes in some good frame composition and visual metaphors to the story, there's clearly a lot of people who cared about making this. And it breaks my heart to see the pieces just not fitting together very well.
The ending is a bit underwhelming. I'd say it fits with the show's core messages and ideas, but at the same time undermines a lot of the story that has just happened. However, that is a problem inherent to nihilistic storytelling in general.
If you like artsy shows that take their time to unfold some interesting ideas - and you've already seen all the other classics - then this is an auto-recommend. Otherwise be wary of slow pacing and very bleak story/worldbuilding