First off to give you some vague idea.
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The basic premise as from ANN
The story of a young woman fighting for her survival in a real "urban jungle." Only 18 years old, Kuniko Hojo finds herself at the heart of the battle for humanity's future when she discovers that the government which rules Atlas intends to continue marginalising the less-privileged masses outside the tower—by force, if necessary.
Further on that, my summary.
The world is set in 'the future' it's a world where carbon emissions are regulated extremely harshly. Like to the point there are police on active patrol watching for people burning too much. If people do stuff like that, they get hit with heavy fines and penalties, even jail time. All this is to control the country's "carbon level" which Japan in this world is a supplier of "carbon credits" and sells them as their main export to industrial nations like the USA and whatnot.
A division exists between the outliers, people who live in the dense jungle. And Atlas, a society that lives in one giant super-building set to be Japan's next big paradise for everyone. Everywhere else is covered in jungle, particularly the ruins of old Tokyo which is now covered in insanely dense jungle. Jungle so dense it threatens life.
My own review on this sparing what spoilers I can.
Once in a great while you do find a show, not just an anime that is just really satisfying to have seen.
And I say that as a general sense. You will find a movie, tv show, moments that genuinely strike you in some way and gives you some emotional attachment to it. And at the end of the entire series you're more than simply entertained briefly and rather than having simply passed time or had some laughs, you actually feel better about having seen it than missed it or had it never happened.
For me this is one of those few shows where I not only enjoyed the show itself. But it actually had enough substance to it, I actually felt better about having seen it. And for me that's really saying something. I don't exactly go raving about every single show I've seen and honestly, quite few really make me want to look back on them saying "That was truly great" The last that I had seen before this that had the same chime to it was Last Exile, of course. I'm not saying both should be everyone's favorite and some people just can't connect to them, understandable. But, I do think both for me had something to them to where I actually gave a damn about the characters and weren't completely cookie-cutter predictable like you run into very often.
Now also, Last Exile I can admit starts quite slowly. It also makes some mistakes early on that lose people fast. I still believe it's one of the best anime ever... however....
I also believe that Shangri-La is a whole lot wider reaching. Or rather I think more people on RV particularly would be open to watching Shangri-La than necessarily Last Exile. It tends to have more action segments without being as much dry military commentary as Last Exile has.. which I know bored some people.
By contrast, Shangri-La is a bit more intense. The fight sequences are a bit more interesting. Without spoiling much the show isn't 100% realistic. Some magic/spiritual stuff comes into play time to time, and being the future, some cyber-punk type stuff comes along now and then as well. Parts of the show range from dead serious to the strangely hillarious as well as the some creepy weird. Overall, good show. I finished it front to back and glad I did.
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TLDR section
Shangri La is a great anime
I'm just going to say overall rating
10 out of 10
music, character design, mechanics, overall plot.
I'd strongly recommend it to anyone.
It's only 24 episodes long, so it's not a major commitment and it wraps the whole show up neatly in just that much time.
Those eyes...
