Episode 2:
It's interesting, how sometimes change of the media exposes flaws of the original material. It was true for me with Tokyo Ghoul: RE (or root or whatever), which showed perfectly clear how badly rushed the story was in the sequel. He it works in similar manner.
Firstly, once again ecchi portions where they are not needed at all, especially, since this is not an ecchi anime. Secondly: badly written characters. Or rather their backgrounds, that would make them more believable.
2nd episode has a very good example: the fighting scene. The fight itself is very well done, it has necessary "weight", feel of the risks for both parties, even though, at some point it does become more one-sided, but it is explainable and understandable. But, that scene is also meant to explain characters' motivations and it fails at that.
I do not mean, that they do not say anything, that should explain their actions, no. There are words in there, but they are there for the sake of being there. They are like cliches put into the plot, so that little kids would get some high-level idea of what's what (even though show is not for kids, I presume).
Portion after the fight gave me an idea what the problem is, though: they do not focus on characters. The only thing going on for them, really, is "we know nothing, John Snow". And that is it. There are some glimpses of the past, that try to flesh out the characters, but they are miniscule, as if added as an after-thought.
Awesome example: the runner. You introduce a character, an important one, because it's actually her, that pushes MCs relationship further, bringing them to some kind of understanding and agreement. This is a temporary character, yes, but since she is important also as a device to "expand" the world (unlike a thug killing Uncle Ben, who is too minor), should we not have some understanding of why she is doing what she is doing? She wanted to be faster? Ok... Why was she getting slower? Why was she so obsessed with it?
But this is true for MCs as well. Writer simply does not go into the past as much as required to develop the characters and make them believable at first. Having read manga way past episode 2 of the anime, I have some inclination, but for someone else, that would be lost. They would probably drop the story altogether.
What's more curious is... Judging by manga, I think writer realized the same thing himself and there was a set of chapters were focused only on the past, although there was still a whole mess with the flow of the story in general. This could have and should have been amended in the anime. But it was not.
I liked the fight, so I guess I'll give the show a chance for 1 more episode, but knowing that there won't be that much fighting going further... Most likely I will drop it afterwards, unless there will be some improvement over the manga.
As for manga itself... There are a few newer chapters, that I have not checked yet, so I will read them and then decide. But now seeing these flaws, most likely will drop it, too.
