Anime Review: Brynhildr in the Darkness

I'm not quite sure what made me dislike watching this series; maybe it's the irregular pacing, which involves action heavy scenes and time-stopping conversations in-between.  Or perhaps it's the amount of fan service they put in, and then having the plot being rushed to make up for the time spent in hot springs or in the beach.  It's just like setting an appointment with someone and finding them arriving either too early, too late but never on time -- the series is just too... jarring for me, pacing-wise.

This might be a minor quibble, if the positives outweighed the negatives.  Unfortunately, it's the other way around -- the pacing, the plot-holes, the characters being too 2D.  Or perhaps given the number of excellent anime out there (which I'm watching alongside this series: the To-Aru series or the Chunibyo series, to name a few) makes Brynhildr in the Darkness feels something short of acceptable.

Well, to tell you a bit about the series: it's basically a harem anime, where the harem members are super-powered witches created for the usual power-hungry reasons by a bunch of literally faceless men.  The powers are your typical fare, consisting of destruction to time manipulation and the like.  I found these powers and their limitations to be interesting enough, and the how's and the why's are also the main reason why I slogged through 13 episodes worth of mediocrity.

The characters are typical harem fare as well, and while they're nicely designed and animated, I found the sheer amount of fan service to be distracting (not in a good way).  The back-story is meh and the lead character is your typical overly sensitive busy-body that would pass as the 'ideal' for these kinds of setups (either that or the nice but perverted lead).

At best, I'd call this series average.  But unless you have absolutely nothing else to watch: skip it and go for a series that's more worth your time.

Verdict: 2/5 Don't go for it unless you've no other choices, and there are a lot of good choices out there.

TL;DR:
+ Interesting Premise
+ Nice looking art.  I do like Miss Neko and her moles
+ I love the both OP's.  I did not skip them (which I normally do) for most of the 13 episodes
- Poor pacing
- Predictable story
- Too much service
+/- Bad enough we see too much service, we get steam and flashes of light to boot
- Characters are meh

Details:
Genre: Harem, Sci-Fi
Episodes: 13
Aired: April to June, 2014