Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete

This feels like a show with a bit of an identity crisis. When you start watching the first episode, you settle into what it seems like this is going to be. A high school club show, with a solid enough set up; the Astronomy Club is actually a really fun group, with a strong dynamic, distinct characters, and a good pre-existing rapport; their position in the school is great fun, with the idea of them being known for getting into trouble, and the Student Council even relying on them as informal problem-solvers, being really cool. The first episode pitches this as something along the lines of Hyouka or Kokoro Connect (admittedly with much poorer visuals), a fun high-school mystery series, perhaps with a bit more of a supernatural, or at least faux-supernatural, side to it. Then, as a twist at the end of episode 1, we realise that there's a lot more going on; a horrible accident, a time-loop, a mysterious girl. Think a high-school, lower-effort version of that middle section of Steins;Gate. Again, I don't think this is a bad idea. We get bits of explanation trickled through, so by the time we officially learn everything, it feels like the show has given us enough of that information to get most of the way there without feeling like it's been overly predictable. There's a decent enough sense of urgency about it, each loop feels like enough changes that it never feels repetitive, and it also doesn't force itself to show us more loops than necessary, so from that point of view it never falls into that trap so many time-loop stories stumble into. Either one of these shows could have worked well. The problem is that they tend to get in the way of each other. Because it has to keep focused on the time-loop story, which is clearly intended as the main plot, the Astronomy Club hijinks tend to fall by the wayside, with those mystery aspects that drew me into the first episode so much never really getting a chance to happen. We see the club getting ready for the school festival, and one specific incident we see a few variations of, but not much else. Given the club felt so unique at the start, and the dynamic between the characters felt so fun, it's a shame that it falls so much by the wayside. But, conversely, because it still has those characteristics of a club show, the time-loop plot also feels a little underbaked. While the sense of urgency is still there, there actually isn't that much that happens. There's not a whole lot of proactive character decisions made, just a lot of knee-jerk reactions to specific situations; it's a very reactive story. This also adds a secondary issue, being that, because the time-loop story feels so underwhelming, it makes the feeling that the show has wasted the Astronomy Club dynamic even stronger; I really feel like this would have been better cutting the time-loop entirely, and just having it be that high school mystery show the first episode hinted at. It comes together to make a show that doesn't quite know what it wants to be. This isn't the only aspect that feels like this, either. There's a bit of an odd romance dynamic; the obvious pairing the show is clearly hinting at for most of the time never comes into fruition, and where the protagonist's eye ends up shifting to is weird at first, and, once you learn the bigger picture of the story, a little bit creepy. The show's a visual novel adaptation, so that definitely explains this a lot; there's obviously different paths the player can take the romance. Still, it's another way that the show ends up feeling like it doesn't quite know what it wants to do, and in this case it makes that shift in the romance feel a little out of nowhere. Ultimately, this is just a bit unremarkable. The animation follows suit, not awful but fairly stilted and uninteresting (the OP included, although I actually found the ED quite charming), the sound design is fine, nothing awful but nothing to comment on. Overall, it feels like an adaptation of a half-successful visual novel that made enough money to be financially viable, but didn't inspire any real creativity or passion in the people making it, leading to an anime that just feels sort of there. There's definitely something better in here, a more refined version of this story that balanced its two identities well and created something with some real weight to it. It's a good premise, just with lacklustre execution. And sometimes, even though I did mostly enjoy this, that feels even worse than outright disliking something.