Gainax did an AMAZING job with this anime. The animation had a quite limited budget and it really makes every bit of it count with unique artstyle - it's incredibly well stylized and the animation quality downgrades at more mondane scenes and puts all the extra efford and budget into some of the chase/fight scenes, which look incredible at times. Our heroes aren't quite your typical heroes and seem really unlikeable but when you pass more time with them you really grow to love them, not because of character depth but beacuse of how cool they are plain and simple. This show is something that only comes out once or twice a decade. It achieves in 13 episodes what most longer-running shows can't do in hundreds. Simply put, there are very few times I've been invested and interested in a fantasy world setting more than in this one. It doesn't take itself seriously almost at all, but just enough for you to get attached to it, but not so much that it becomes your typical anime hero's jurney story. The story line alternated between episodic with few things slowly connecting together as a loose overall plot and there is definitely some feel of progression, which I think is the absolute perfect combination. Even in the most random, disconnected from reality and traditional continuity episodes, due to the coins the sisters collect after slaying ghosts slowly adding up to the total needed to get back to Heaven, the story progress can be felt at least on a subtle level. I really, really like the setting in Daten city - a city stuck between Heaven and Earth, where the angels that have been consumed by two of the seven deadly sins must defeat ghosts and demons coming from the underworld and save the citizens to prove their worth and go back to their home in Paradise.
Each episode does something really unique, often changing artstyles and even genres to fit a certain mood or give you the desired experience. Don't underestimate the plot of this anime just because it's overall pretty nonsensical at first glance - everything actually makes sense, and characters that seem only as filler and support charaters like Brief and Garterbelt become extremely important further on in the story in ways that will surprize you.
There is a certain cliffhanger that devestated me when I watched this anime for the first time 4 years ago. I won't spoil what happens at the end but it's both in a sense one of the best and the worst endings I have ever seen in a piece of media - best because it makes me desire to see the next installment more that any other ending has - worst because the installment never came to be. Gainax have become infamous for their inconclusive ending but this may be the worst offender of it. I know that the studio is broke at the moment since most of the staff have moved on to Trigger, another fantastic anime studio, and I know it's been 10 years but this NEEDS to come back at some point in the future. I will wait as long as I have to but it needs to happen eventually. The ending theme is quite somber and contrasting with the rest of the show and watching it after you've finished the show it's quite depressing.
The show is absolutely amazing and strangely perfect for something that went out of its way to be stupid on purpose. While I love it to bits, to say that it's not for everyone is a gigantic understatement, which makes the fact that this show's average rating is not all that impressive actually make sense. Give this a try if you are not someone easily offended and if you turn out to be the very specific type of person that will enjoy this show to the fullest, like myself, this may be one of the best pieces of animation you will ever see. If not, it will most likely still be a lot of mindless fun either way. Oh and I would suggest the dub, while for most anime I prefer subs and the original voice acting is top-notch, the dub is on a whole another level and possibly my favourite dub of forain media in history.
This is an absolute 10/10 for me. The story, characters, soundtrack and setting are just far too perfect for it to be anything less than a ten. Thank you Gainax, please make season 2 or continue the story with an official manga continuation!
