Another extremely late review. Will try to finish Ikoku Meiro no Croisée after this, if I have time, that is.
Imagine a riding a rollercoaster. It starts off by building up your excitement as you are slowly ascending the tracks while, at the same time, speeding up. The rest of the ride then consists of ups and downs, loops and turns, and random spins, before ending with a final surge of exhilarating speed. That is how I felt when watching Kami-sama no Memo-chou. The first episode made the series seem promising but it eventually failed to deliver, despite having a decent ending. Let's see how it fared in the usual four categories of art, character, sound and story.
Art (7/10)
Animation quality usually takes a backseat to the characters and the story when I watch anime. However, when those two categories end up being bland and uninteresting, I am forced to focus on other aspects of the episode just to prevent myself from being bored out of my mind. The artwork in Kami-sama no Memo-chou isn't outstanding, but it isn't horrible either - just your typical run-of-the-mill quality. Nothing more to say here so let's move on.
Characters (6/10)
Maybe a 6 is a bit generous for this category because, at the end of it all, I couldn't really say that there was a character that I "liked", unlike in most anime that I watched. Yes, there was some character development, but there wasn't enough for my liking. My image of the main protagonist, Fujishima Narumi, didn't change at all throughout the whole show; he was still a plain and boring character to me, for the most part. On top of this, I slightly disliked Alice and her personality. The previous sentences are, however, just my opinion so you may not necessarily agree. However, I do believe that I'm not the only one who feels this way. Non-memorable side characters make this category suffer even more. To sum it all up, the characters in Kami-sama no Memo-chou are nothing to be happy about, so don't expect a lot if you are someone who pays a lot of attention to character development.
Sound (7/10)
Once again another generous mark is given, this time to the sound category (it may seem like I'm starting to pity the anime and that's probably the case). Aside from the OP, everything was just "decent." The ED, BGM and voice acting were, at best, average. With that being said, I admit all my expectations were lowered drastically midway through so this category should technically receive a lower score than what it currently has. Anyhow, I found the OP to be the lone bright spot in terms of sound. Kawaru Mirai only took a few episodes to get me like it. It is upbeat and catchy with surprisingly good vocals to go along with it. You can say that half of my motivation to download and watch each episode was because of the OP.
Story (7/10)
One may choose to say that, if the story is able to overshadow everything, bad art, characters and sounds can be excused. However, this is unfortunately not the case for Kami-sama no Memo-chou as the story is just as bad as the other categories. Maybe it won't seem that way after the first episode, but as the series went on, the story definitely didn't live up to the expectations of many viewers. There were some parts which were surprisingly interesting while others were absolutely horrid. Looking at the big picture, I personally didn't feel that the plot advanced far enough. For a 12-episode season, the story moved way too slowly with barely anything important happening. It is only during the last few episodes that the plot was developed the most. Overall, a disappointing story.
Overall (7/10)
Kami-sama no Memo-chou is a good example of a light novel adaption gone wrong. Average artwork, boring characters, unimpressive sounds and a disappointing story just screams "don't waste your time!" While I don't want to scare people away from watching it, I would just like to give a word of warning to those who are not sure if they should watch it for not. By all means, go try it if you have nothing better to do or like "mystery" anime. Whether you agree or disagree with me at the end of it all is totally up to you. All I will say is this: while it is supposedly a "mystery" anime, Kami-sama no Memo-chou is undoubtedly unable to reach the level of success that big titles such as Detective Conan have. Don't expect too much.
Quite a generous review indeed! I agree with you that the series didn't live up to the expectations. I think the worst thing about this anime was Alice. Oh, she was insufferable! She talks too much, explaining obvious things in a patronizing manner as if it is a prophesy of some kind and talking nonsensical rubbish otherwise. Her reaction to Narumi's remarks is very annoying as well. Characters are bland and uninteresting. We have a stereotypical cast of a womanizer, boxer and a geek. The only one that is missing is a high school loser, someone the team had no problem acquiring. I waited for Narumi to grow a backbone, but he didn't, there were a couple of moments where he seemed to grow up but the next moment he would start apologizing and behaving like a wimp. The plot is non existing, the "cases" get more and more ridiculous as the series progresses, although the last two are more interesting than the other ones. Overall, 4/10.
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