There seems to be a clear love/dislike split with the show.
I'm clearly in the dislike camp. OK, I did watch it and what I saw was thought provoking and fairly interesting to see, but ultimately a good number of things just ruined it for me. No, not the gore, the gore was fine, but the nudity. Why? I love to see a good pair of breasts as much as the next guy but this was just... ugh. Far too much of it at fairly inappropriate times, and I think I died a little when Nana's clothes got ripped off by what's-'er-face toward the end, for no apparent reason. It went beyond "fanservice" and into "turn-off" category often. Though, I have to admit, the first ten minutes were perhaps the best handled of any part of the show. It painted Lucy as both evil and powerful in a very primal way, and the nudity and her covered face only added to the monstrosity that she was.
Which leads to my second real argument. I could never quite figure out what this tale wanted to be. Obviously it was trying to be serious and dark, but at times it seemed like it was trying to be silly. For instance, I can handly Lucy losing all of here memories when shot in the head, and it's easy to swallow a personality change, but Nyu is annoying. It would have been far more interesting to see Lucy emerge from the water with no malicious intent, but still with a voice and words to speak. It would have been interesting to see her memories slowly come back, but the care and decency she would have seen from Kohta had caused her to second guess her actions. What would she do? Go back to her old ways? Feel remorse? Would she kill Kohta and company in a cold-blooded manner, then everyone else? Or would her remorse get the best of her and the pain of living with all that death cause her to commit suicide? I just think there's an incredibly intriguing character arc buried there that only rears its head every now and then. I believe there are some other characters that could have had interesting arcs as well.
Another mark against it is that it often tries too hard to be dark. It has little depth, but unlike some stuff that tries to be too dark, the depth could obviously be there but it just isn't. It takes on far too much and never gets down to solving it all, and it comes across as bad by the time Kohta is forgiving Lucy for popping his father's head off years ago. Actually, it came across as harmful to the show when it reveals that Mayu's father was a pedophile. That entire character was nearly unnecessary.
A final complaint, and this one was given on both sides so don't pull the "shoulda watched subbed" shit on me. The dub is not good at all. I liked Lucy's voice, it was pretty interesting. It was definitely female, but it was also deep and strong and introverted, just like her character should be. Kohta sounded like a dumbass, which he was so I guess that fit too. Everyone else sucked, especially Mayu and Nana. What's worse, I didn't hate their characters, just their voices. They were so fake and annoying and high-pitched that it got on my last nerves.
I do have other complaints about the show, but there are my main ones. The idea had the potential to be an amazing anime, one to prove that anime could really be a form of art instead of just a stupid cartoon. It could have stood up there with Cowboy Bebop and Neon Genesis Evangelion, but ultimately it sits on a pile of decidedly average stuff with too much hype.
