Demian writes that "the “love stories” it [ef] contained were trite, superficial, and above all boring", but it displayed "lush visuals" and is a "beautiful, almost sublime show."

Really makes me wish the show had a Makoto Shinkai movie level budget to work with, cause we all love floating clouds in front of a sunset.

The thing is, Makoto Shinkai is not known for using big budgets. Do we know how much the first season of ef took to produce?