Personally, I love the show. It's the standard nutso comedy from Gainax, but it plays a lot lighter on the insider jokes. It plays a few off a couple or so of anime genres, but it doesn't require specific knowledge like, say, FLCL. It seems pretty pointless in the beginning, but trust me, it eventually evens out and actually displays a bit of plot, even getting serious at the end. Then you've got everyone (main characters at least) speaking kansai-ben, which just makes it even funnier to me.
I love this show....