Well...the quick and dirty impression of the TV series is middle of the road. The show isn't bad and I was entertain from the beginning to end.....if you pass through the 1st half of the show. Unfortunately, they isn't much positive to say about the show as it feel like a typical generic anime show you might see before which is sad as based on what I heard and read, the games that this name come from is very popular in Japan and oversea (if you understand Japanese or play the fan translation). They're few reason from this.
One of the issue is the character development (or the lack of it). With the length of 25 episodes, you expect to have some degree of development with all the characters in the show but you're wrong in a way. Almost all the character in the show have the typical stereotypes character attribute which didn't really expand much. You see them either by flash back, incident with the character, or talking discussion. This doesn't help when nothing much happening during the beginning of the show and when the characters start to develop, we're almost around the half way point, basically waste quite a bit of time when it should be use to help develop the characters which is very important if you want to have some emotional with them (or else why would support them).
Kinda the same issue with the story side. You follow the Flower Division Assault Force which is a team of female pilots who protect the capital city from supernatural monster. By day, those female pilots became actress for theater production at the Imperial Grand Theater where average people go and watch them act. Not really a bad story to start and because this is a steam punk mix into 1920s Tokyo, it have potential. Unfortunately, the same issue with nothing really happen in the beginning of the show and the the amount of time to try to explain what is going on kinda hurt it. It get better around the 2nd half when the story start to process and you start to found out what happen, who is the bad guy, what is the connection with them and the Flower Division Assault Force, and many more.
Even with this fault, I kinda enjoy the show a bit more than I expect. The animation do look fine for a 2000 show. The story pick up in the later half which get more entertaining as you're watching. Music is actually not too bad when it's been use (even though most isn't something you listen to but help develop the mood). Also, the fight scene with the mech look interesting in an odd way for me.
Now, would I recommend it? It depend if you're a fan of the game or not. If you're fan, I would just go look into the OVA as that basically the same idea of the TV series but shorter (you can say the TV series is a retelling the same story). If you never play the game before, I still a bit iffy if I would recommend a watch as the show kinda have the feel of generic a bit. I would say it's worth a watch if you want a run of the mill anime but that is entertain to watch with a simple good vs evil story line to follow.
