I have to agree with Relentlessflame. I also think that the first episode is too slow for some people (eventhough i liked it), especially for the people who haven't played the original game. After checking it on my psp (mutsu no hana), the part where sakuno (which acted like a prologue for the game because it had credits in it) was lost was roughly 7-8 minutes long without skipping the text and dialogue, that's just as long as in the anime. Maybe the anime creators intentionally wanted to make the first episode slow, to make the declaration of Airi not agreeing with the merger of the 2 schools as the climax.
But with this kind of pacing, i think they will be skipping alot on either the story or focus on the rest characters besides the main heroine. Which is very likely Airi or maybe Sakuno. But I could be wrong, seeing how the anime version of Akeneiro ended
The character designs are obviously worse than the original (Izumi Tsubasu draws wonderfully
) , but i was relieved that the animation turned out to be better than the first few images that i have seen from magazines and the official anime website.
But there were some inconsistencies with the length of the characters.
About the music, well i really love the opening song and the ending song is alright. But what bothered me was that the BGM's weren't that memorable for me unlike the soundtrack from the game.
But i think i am probably nitpicking too much, because i really liked the game.
Overall i think the first episode was ok, but it could have been better.