Review of The Ancient Magus' Bride

I was wondering why I wasn't hooking onto this when it seemed everyone else was, and then I noticed it was classed as a "slice of life"-- my least favourite genre. I was anticipating its release, but unfortunately I've been watching anime that look great, only to disappoint me with poor plot writings and portrayals. STORY: 6/10 As far as story goes, I liked the concept. But because it's a slice of life, there is little progression, which I can understand is the general nature of the genre. Still, this anime didn't feel like it should've been a slice of life, and could have had somuch more added to the plot. There were things added that I didn't think were completely necessary, which actually led to me skipping some scenes that I knew I didn't have to worry about skipping through boredom.

ART: 6/10
There was nothing really distinct about the anime's art style compared to others for the season, but it was still nice. Colours were portrayed well, and usually I think magic-genre'd anime needs to use visual effects well to immerse the viewers into the world of surreal happenings. Don't have much to comment on art, but to summarise I didn't really have any issues with it.

SOUND: 4/10
Music variety is important. The show didn't have a lot of variety, and many tracks were played over and over. Some scenes I couldn't handle the music in the background-- not because of intensity, but because I don't think it needed to be there. Some tracks are quite beautiful, like the main theme and some piano renditions, alas it was not a key feature for me in this show.

CHARACTER: 5/10
There were a number of characters that were introduced that, in the end, didn't hold much important by the season's finale, especially in the second half. I was constantly thinking "so why did that person appear?", when they weren't contributing much to the story. However, I really did like Elias' character, as well as Chise and Ruth-- basically the main three. Chise was given a lot of character development, which I thoroughly enjoyed baring witness to, but Elias wasn't given enough. I feel like personal questions he had throughout the series weren't answered or catered towards, because the series was SO focused on Chise's change. If an anime is going to add characters, they have to either be important to plot progression or undergo some sort of development.
[b] To summarise: Not enough charac. development was shared around.[/b]

ENJOYMENT: 7/10
When you watch a certain number of episodes for an anime, you start to have an appreciation for it, because you learn about the characters and share their pain/happiness with them. Watching a 24-ep anime usually does this for me, and so I can't help but give my enjoyment score a higher number than the others. I like the world that was introduced to me in The Ancient Magus' Bride, and if more stuff was released for it I would probably watch it. But still, the other factors come into play and so they lower the score for my enjoyment because im nit-picky. but yeah.

OVERALL: 6/10
A score 5 or below for me means I didn't enjoy it at all-- I'd be lying if I said I didn't think this was a cool anime, despite the things I've picked out and said I don't like, so I gave this just above a 5. There will always be something we don't like in a show, but overall I really liked the show for its world. If this was portrayed in a different way, I can see its potential and how much better it could be.

But yeah.