Story/Direction/Storytelling: 9/10 (Warning: spoilers throughout)
The story of Allison & Lillia has elements from a quality war/mystery novel (not Tom Clancy level), combined with elements from popular childrens' books of romance.
If you have a taste for quality war/mystery novels, then this will be a pleasantly surprising watch as anime stories tend to lack the depth of realism. Such novels require a bit of understanding to be enjoyed - background knowledge of how the world is and the frame of mind people have when they gain the resolve to do what they do. The more aware you are of how the world works, of war, of deception, of criminal minds, of peacekeeping organizations, the more you can relate to this and enjoy it. If not, you can probably enjoy the adventure, comedy, and romance portion of the story to a limited degree.
The world in which the story of Allison & Lillia takes place is alive. People are still tense due to the war - some still at the stage of mourning, some at regret, some denial, some angered, some empathetic, etc. Until the fragile peace from the cease-fire gets replaced by true peace, people can never truly become happy. Once there's true peace, cities appear to be lively again and brighter and people gain many freedoms - the world literally changes. Thus, the settings are unique and change frequently at a very fast pace. Even the seasons change and weather changes according to the location.
The story is split in two main arcs, one following Allison and the other following her daughter, Lillia, when she becomes about the same age as when Allison started her adventure.
Allison's arc starts on the cease-fire portion of the war, with some back story explaining her current situation as the result of the last great battle involving the last memory of her father. There may be true peace as a result of her daring adventure, but some who lived for nothing but war have nothing to do and some have not given up their fight due to greed for power/money. Also there are some political decisions to be made about the new direction of the individual countries which decide their future. Her journey witnesses suspenseful events involving both of these and ultimately ends when she finds romance and settles for her own future.
Lillia's arc takes place in a world which has been peaceful ever since she was born and she was raised mostly by her mother alone, traveling often due to her mother's occupation. She believes her father died in a train accident before she was born, but that is to protect her in case her father's identity as a government intelligence agent (spy) becomes known to a criminal mastermind, so she (and Allison) doesn't become a victim due to his dangerous occupation. Her father still comes to see her and Allison, but under an alias to maintain and cover his identity. Despite the designs to protect her, the innocent, overly trusting, and honest Lillia plays basically as a damsel in distress in the many stories that come, which involve more of what Allison saw after the war: war mongers, terrorists, politicians who disturb the peace, villains plotting for selfish reasons, and various others who bear grudges from the past. Due to Allison's prior involvement and relations, Lillia gets brought into dangerous situations that have followed. Coincidentally, her childhood friend comes to the rescue, whose identity as a Prince is known only to a very few people, not including Lillia. Her Prince is not the courting type, but the adventurous type. A type that she admires because of his ability to overcome obstacles. He does not think so highly of himself, but to save his childhood friend he is put through tests which he finds rather difficult since has no special attribute over any other normal person, except maybe determination and luck.
Much detail went into the making of these stories. They avoid almost all the typical anime cliches, such as having a hero come in and defeat the villains with his uncanny ability. Though, there was one time I thought that they added a shower scene for fan service, but they fooled me. They make good use of the time of day for setting the mood. Very fast paced story telling and very good story telling methods without need of narration give the viewer a general idea of situations to make it easy to follow. Good direction overall, which is surprisingly unlike much of the other Japanese story telling. It is extremely well told on top of that where the viewer isn't left with numerous plot holes and can be told the ending of the story and not feel like the show lost it's value, since the telling of the story is the interesting part. It stays relatively faithful to realism. It's not perfect, but has high quality elements that make it seem better than a large majority of other anime.
Animation/Visuals: 8/10
Allison & Lillia has great colors, smooth animation, varied and unique detailed settings, natural movements, good use of varied seemingly accurate stances/poses/posture, good use of CG which doesn't stick out like a sore thumb, and good lighting effects which aren't overpowering.
Things interesting to note are intricate textures on rooms and backdrops. Settings are well furnished and filled with ornaments and doesn't feel huge and empty. Also, there are background settings that scroll, which aren't very repetitive (don't see the same thing for more than 10 seconds), cinematic cameras techniques/angles (it often moves, revealing extra details in the scene), gestures/poses/posture that actually show femininity, and beautiful CG trains. When Allison or Lillia comically scold someone, animation gets a tiny bit jerky (cartoon style), but still seems natural (like when Allison turns and crosses her arms in one swift motion). Wind and wind resistance from moving quickly affect the character's hair and clothing, and even at times, comically, their facial flesh.
Quality is fairly consistent throughout, unlike some series which make their first two episodes extravagant and the rest lacking or the others that make their early episodes appear simplistic, only to wow you near the end and leave you with a good impression.
The only fault, that I noticed, to Allison & Lillia's animation are it's plane scenes which are a bit unrealistic to the point of almost being cartoony at times, like when Allison crashed into power lines, while serious and well done most other times. The case is probably because they had creative freedom (fun) making these certain scenes and turned out a bit inconsistent.
Sound: 6.5/10
Allison & Lillia has a timeless and soothing soundtrack which has an effect that calms me at the start, then brings a smile to my face during the show, and leaves me happy after it ends.
The background music does an extremely good job at setting a mood, but it's not very diverse and is a bit repetitive at times. One example is when the "danger" music is cued and you recognize the music from a prior episode, you can predict that a similar situation to the last is about to happen, which is not necessarily a bad thing - it just could've done it better with something unique. Sound effects can be convincingly accurate. The OP/ED tracks may not be to some people's tastes, but as the show goes on, it grows on you and you will appreciate the mood it sets. Also, they reused Allison's childhood voice for Lillia's which is rather cheap.
Character/Design: 8/10
Allison & Lillia has an extremely charming cast of characters.
They did an extremely good job on the main characters, especially Allison. Their personalities really bring life to the show. The supporting characters and villains have characteristics fitting of their roles. Overall designs are efficiently effective, there's not much detail on the faces, but it works better for scenes in which the camera is zoomed far away and there isn't significant detail loss. The character design and the story pacing seemed to be designed around each other to allow for an efficient pace. In each arc, time is reserved to expand on a certain character's back story, such as Allison's father, the orphan child, Axe, Nicht's daughter, etc.
It's also interesting to note how well the cycle of puberty is depicted. Females go through their cycle much sooner than males and complete in a shorter amount of time. This is contrasted with Wil and Allison's behavior. Wil's voice and lack of sexual feelings for the opposite sex and Allison's emotional drive clearly demonstrate this. Wil later turned out to be fully matured with a deep voice and manly appearance while Allison similarly matured. Lillia and Treize are not so contrasted. Lillia is relatively late with her puberty cycle while Treize's is relatively early. The romance part of the story is heavily based on this.
The only fault that I noticed in the show is that there's simply not enough "extras" around. At times, it seems the world is fairly deserted despite the number of buildings and if it was intended, I can't come up with a logical reason as to why.
Value: 9/10
I would describe this basically as a quality war/mystery novel, adapted into a screenplay, and visualized with Disney movie quality animation and direction.
This anime has earned a place as one of my favorite animes. I believe it was lovingly crafted and has enough detail and polish to be considered, in my eyes, close to having classic/masterpiece quality as it gets for an anime series.
Just like how other people may see Haruhi as being a masterpiece due to their expertise in that certain area and noticing the fine elements of it, my expertise comes from being enlisted active duty with the USAF for 6 years and having a keen interest in all things dealing with conflict.
I also want to note that I relied on fabsub groups to release this and since AniYoshi stalled for over a month, I went through a bout of withdrawal from not getting to watch the last 1/3 of Allison & Lillia. I discovered how deep my love for the show was because of this.
If someone saved an image of any part of Allison & Lillia and I saw it, it would bring a smile to my face since I will remember the good memories of the show. I would probably also spend at least a minute looking at it, soaking in the details.
Enjoyment: 10/10
I totally enjoyed Allison & Lillia. It was funny, adventurous, beautiful/charming, suspenseful, and mood lifting.
I was able to pick up on many details and re-watched some parts to try to reason why something is as it is and filled in many parts myself. To someone who reads mysteries and can analyze all the little clues, draw every possible conclusion from multiple perspectives and critically analyze their own logic again to try and fault it... and watch a character in the anime itself that does this (Wil), I find this anime relates to my interests very much. I feel it was designed just for someone like me.
I've been wholeheartedly recommending it to anyone looking for a new anime series to watch and they have not been disappointed, until at least the end of Allison's arc. They all seem to want to know why someone would not want to stay by someone as awesome as Allison for the rest of their lives. I simply answer them, because it wouldn't be interesting for us to watch later on if everything was fabricated like a dream - life is complicated like that. I actually have a much more in depth answer to that, but I'd hate to have to explain it all to them as they may not accept the same perspective I take on it.
After reading and hearing others' opinions about the series, I suppose that I'm one of the rare viewers that caught on well to the story due to my military awareness... I wouldn't question things why someone goes into psychological shock when faced with the decision of shooting and killing someone or the frame of mind of people who can do such a thing without the shock and ask if that's realistic or not. I prefer this type of realism over dreamy living happily ever after stories.
