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This was a really good season for anime. I watched 7 new series, and liked them all. As usual, this is technically in order of preference, but the top four all tangled in a roughly co-equal ball.:

My Hero Academia — It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since the first series came out. I wasn’t too happy with the very beginning of the first series, and a giant tournament didn’t seem that appealing this time. But it actually worked out well, showcasing some real character development, and laying the groundwork for the next round of storylines.

Akashic Records of Bastard Magical Instructor — You know, if the girl’s school uniforms weren’t woven of fanservice, this might have been my favorite series of the season. That’s really the only thing holding this down. The characters all have troubles, but they round out the characters instead of being excuses for overblown emo-drama, and the writing is really smart. If you missed this (and especially if you missed this because it looked like fanservice all the way down), check this one out.

The Eccentric Family 2 — I was a bit worried that this would suffer from sequelitis as a new story after the first series, but it turned out to be very strong. While it does introduce new characters at the beginning, threads from the first story continue here, and I’d recommend watching the first series before picking this up.

WorldEnd — I’m not even going to bother with the full overblown subtitle (yeah, the one that takes up an entire screen). Bring kleenex. Another really well-done world that’s looking at a slow-grind apocalypse, focused on a love story (admittedly, while we see a decent number of those in anime, there’s only been one other I’ve been aware of recently).

Alice & Zoroku — I somewhat randomly spotted this this and said ‘let’s try it!’. I… should do that more often, it turned out to be very good. The ending wasn’t really final, but it’s quite satisfactory, and anything more would probably be an anticlimax.

Natsume’s Book of Friends 6 — I was a lot happier with the latest season of Nastume than the previous one, as it spent a lot more time on character development. Not a lot happened in the various continuing threads, but those never proceed very fast, and they were present this time.

Granblue Fantasy — At almost any other time, this would have been a pretty strong series, but this season was so good it’s the bottom of the pack. Another videogame adaptation, its weakened a bit by a rapidly growing cast, and an over reliance on a few tropes (go to place, have trouble, defeat boss monster), but the art is good, and it doesn’t feel like it’s taking itself too seriously like Zestiria did. I have a feeling we won’t see any more of this, but I’d like to be proven wrong.

I also watched a few things from the previous season or two:

Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju — One of the nice things about anime is the occasional series that exists to show off a love for a particular subject, in this case rakugo, a traditional type of comedy native to Japan. The full series covers a period from the early ’30s to ~2016, focused on the impact of a couple of performers, and is an excellent trip.

ACCA-13: Territory Inspection Department — Supposedly this was a seinen series, but by look and feel it is oh so shojo. In either case, it’s very smartly done and stylish throughout and a great political drama (not quite in thriller territory).

The Saga of Tanya the Evil — So… ‘god’ decides to shock a bastard out of a heartless, materialist, viewpoint by getting him reborn in an alternate timeline that’s going through something of a mix of WWI and WWII in the ’20s. Smudge wasn’t sure I’d like this with good reason, as I generally don’t go for anti-hero stories, but this was very well done. Tanya is horrible, and what she’s fighting against isn’t any better. Even with ‘divine’ intervention, I’m not buying a lot of the technology seen in the later parts of the series, as its springing up with no antecedents or problems, and that really drags down the later parts for me, but ignoring that part, this was a really strong story.

Voltron: Legendary Defender — Finally caught to the second season of this. It continues to be very good, and got a lot more climatic than I was willing to give it credit for going in. Now I’m anxiously awaiting season three. I have to wonder what this series’ version of Prince Lotor will be like….

Akiba’s Trip — Um, yeah. If you’ve heard anything about the pervy/parody game, this is about what it says on the tin. But, it’s really an Excel Saga-style parody series, tackling a different fan subject each episode. The quality of the humor went slowly downhill over the series, but at least the overall story stayed to help make up for it. Someone was really getting something off his chest for episode 2. If you’ve looked at this and thought ‘could be good, could be awful’, its on the ‘good’ side.

And between other things, I’ve gotten around to re-watching Mushishi and Girls und Panzer; I consider both of them in the top five of the last several years (or longer), and I really need to see them more often, I’d certainly forgotten too much of Mushishi.

And finally, some more Pokemon:

Sun and Moon — This has finally started updating on the Pokemon Channel, so I’ve only seen a few episodes. But, the new style has been good, and the larger constant cast will give it a nice dynamic if they start leveraging it more. (I really liked the middle part of X and Y where all the secondary characters were there most of the time.)

Master Quest — After a long delay getting the set from Amazon, we’re about a third of the way through the last section of second generation. It’s the usual mix, with some really clunky episodes, but we still giggle over “Pudgy Pidgey Island”.

The year and the latest season of anime are coming to a close together. I haven’t been watching so much new stuff, though the sheer number of episodes is still high.

Sound! Euphonium — Smudge had been wanting to show this to me for some time, and then, just as we got through watching it, we discovered a second season was starting up; so our timing was excellent! It’s a very nice slice-of-life story revolving around a high school music club competing in the national contests, with drama and a dash of shojo-ai. Despite that, there’s no fanservice or other pandering, and it’s my favorite series of the season.

Haikyu — We were surprised to see this one turn up again. The entire season was spent on just five matches against one team in the tournament… and it still worked. The tension and pacing is nicely tuned, and there’s a surprising amount of character development going on. Still recommended, despite the fact that it should be ‘tournament hell’.

Natsume’s Book of Friends — This is always a good series, and this season didn’t disappoint. However, it was a bit more slice-of-life centric than usual, so I keep feeling like nothing really happened.

Izetta: The Last Witch — It’s an interesting premise, with a world that isn’t quite Earth (all the names are shifted around a bit) having a war much like WWII (including most of the equipment). Into this is stuck a small Alpine country (it’s about a quarter the size of Switzerland and just to the east of it) and magic. I would recommend it, as it was well done… but for the fact that almost every episode has entirely unneeded fanservice, and it really bogs the series down.

And then Pokemon. Lots of Pokemon:

Indigo League (aka ‘original’) — Thanks to the scattered availability of episodes, I’ve only seen up through about episode 60. I think I’m less annoyed by the characters than Smudge is. I think the biggest shame is that the calm head of the group—Brock—has become defined by what started as a one-off gag of being distracted by a pretty girl. Ash has a serious case of ‘impetuous hero’ syndrome, but at least he starts growing out of it.

Pokemon XY (and XYZ) — I just recently caught up where this is in American broadcast, which is months behind Japan (I’m so used to the simulcast services…). It’s a big jump up from the original stuff, and largely very good. Ash is at his best as a character here, and the supporting cast is very strong. My main problems come from pacing: too often an immediate goal would be set (fight at the next gym!), and then would get deferred for several episodes for other adventures, making me feel like the main plot was stalling.

And we’ve watched several of the movies:

Mewtwo Strikes Back (The First Movie): I’m iffy on this and several of the other movies. In this case, it kind of feels like an extended episode other than the ‘forget-me’ at the end which meant that it didn’t have to impact the series itself.

The Power of One (Pokemon 2000): Yes, Ash really is The Chosen One. And let’s face it: this is a world of sparks and kami. The action and plot actually gelled a lot better for me in this one. Lawrence III worked a lot better as a villain than Mewtwo did for me, and you really get to rooting for the heroes. However, the Required Movie Allowance of legendary Pokemon bugged me by not really showing as much intelligence as most of the normal ones.

Spell of the Unown (Pokemon 3) I think this is the best of the early movies, and really weaves together a more cohesive plot. Also, its the first one where the fate of the world isn’t really at stake, which is something that gets pulled out too often in the games, anime, and movies. Also, I really liked the opening credits, which do a good job of introducing Pokemon, Poke-fighting, and showing off some character, all in pantomime.

Celebi: Voice of the Forest (Pokemon 4Ever): It kind of tries to be a Miyazaki movie, complete with flying scene. However, the contemplative moments actually are in service to the plot. Another recurring problem of the movies is on display here: a deus ex machina ending. Apparently, this is one of the lower-rated Pokemon movies, though I liked at least as much as any of the other movies.

Kyurem vs. the Sword of Justice: Okay, so Kyurem gets voiced by Vic Mignogna (Eric Elric), and… has a very similar personality. This caused all sorts of positive associations, and frankly, the movie is fairly good in its own right.

Genesect and the Legend Awakened: Another fairly solid plot concept, and a bit lacking in execution. Bringing back Mewtwo was an interesting choice, and it really does work with the plot.

Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction: This one was a lot of fun, and is one of my favorites, possibly just because the cast of characters was a lot of fun (notably including Diancie and her harried advisor).

I try to mention what I’ve been watching after every Japanese quarter-year season of anime. However, events in March conspired to interrupt easy anime watching, and I missed half of the Winter 2016 season and all of the Spring 2016 season. Smudge has been diving in again recently, and now I’ve finally caught up on anime watching for the last half-year.

Erased — This instantly became the hit of the Winter season for me. Satoru Fujinuma occasionally involuntarily goes back in time a minute or so to ‘fix’ something that just went wrong, and then ends up going back eighteen years to his own childhood. Kind of a mix between Quantum Leap and Detective Conan, it didn’t quite go where I was expecting (I was expecting a back-and-forth pattern to emerge). The ending was weakened a lot by being fairly sudden, with no real foreshadowing of who the villain was. Which is a shame because it was excellent in every other way, and I do still recommend it.

Konosuba — This is also from the Winter 2016 season, but Smudge only discovered it a couple weeks back. Our Hero is an otaku who dies and is given a chance to be reborn into a different world with his memories intact, and a single item of power. He chooses to take the goddess giving him the offer, and he finds himself in a RPG-like fantasy realm (with quests and everything). There’s a lot of fanservice in this one, but it seems that this is supposed to be part of the series’ parody of fantasy RPGs. Like a harem anime, he gets three attractive girls around him… and they’re all nearly useless. It sounds like we’ll get another season in a bit, which is good, as the plot is still just getting going, but the humor has been good.

The Heroic Tale of Arslan — I’ve finally just caught up to the previous seasons of of this. A new season’s just started, but since I’ve been watching it dubbed, I may wait for that to come out. At any rate, it continues to be a very strong fantasy story with a lot of historical flavor.

Haikyu — This was actually the first thing I ended up getting caught up on. It continues to do well with not bogging down into single games not stretching across more than a couple episodes, and the continued evolution of the team and primary characters. Now that the initial stuff is over, it’s not quite as fun, but I continue to enjoy it.

Utawarerumono: The False Faces — This… could have been a great series. A lot of the elements that made the original work are here. But it needed a smaller cast harem, more time on the political side… and a different ending.

Well, we’re done with another quarter-year season of anime. Only one series continued from last time, and I think one is continuing this time of the four I watched regularly. In rough order of quality:

Classroom Crisis — I missed this for a couple weeks, before Smudge realized this wasn’t going to be a high school harem anime. Instead, this is the star of the season. A very solid SF story involving the ultimate of Advanced Placement classes, corporate politics, and a feud stretching back nearly a century. It concluded very well with episode 13.

GATE — This was the obvious one to watch this season. A gate from a fantasy world appears in downtown Tokyo. After the invading fantasy army is defeated by modern weaponry, the SDF goes through, and gets involved on the other side. It gets into some standard tropes (“Think there’ll be catgirls on the other side?”), and is heading a little more harem than I’d like, but the military is being nicely competent for a change. We’re beginning a new story arc, so I assume there’s another season coming.

Food Wars — Looks like this one is coming to an end, at least for now. It’s been another good season. I’m surprised this continues to work, and it does go way over top with the reactions and exposition, but continues to be well written. Hopefully, this is just a pause, and it’ll be back.

Rokka — The concept is an interesting one. The world feel is more Aztec/Mesoamerican, though only loosely so. Somewhat standard fantasy setup: evil force bursts forth every so often to destroy the world, and a set of six heroes emerge to defeat it. However, all of this is sidetracked into a mystery when seven heroes show up.

And then the older things I caught up on, or didn’t watch.

God Eater — This one is pretty. Someone spent a lot of money making this have a style that looks more like it was painted. The writing however, wasn’t there, and I didn’t bother with more than about two episodes.

Ushio and Tora — Our group is fans of the original OAV series from ages ago, so this was on the ‘highly anticipated’ list. However, I kind of let it slip, and much of the beginning was too familiar from the earlier series. So, I’m way behind, though I recently saw the latest episode, and it was looking good, so I need to catch up on this.

Amagi Brilliant Park — After a delay, finally got to see the rest of this the other night. A really fun series that needs more attention. I would have handled the denouement differently, but that’s me.

Heroic Tale of Arslan — Smudge introduced me to this in the ‘when we’ve seen everything else’ slot, so I’m only a few episodes in (and am watching the dubbed version), but I’m very happy with it.

So the latest season of Anime has just wrapped up. I’ve been doing a fair amount of watching over the last three months, but most of it wasn’t new.

When Supernatural Battles Become Commonplace — I hadn’t quite seen the end of this last time. It stayed on target through the end: a fairly light humor series, even if you see parts of something bigger with secondary characters. It’s not a great series overall, but it kept making me laugh, and it had one of the best cases of rules-lawyering to a solution ever near the end.

Yowapeda —Finally, it’s over! It started out as a good cross between geekery and sports, and then slid into stupid shonen tricks, with some episodes just being worthless. It’s pretty obvious that when the series did well, it got more episodes, and just didn’t have any story to put in them. This really needed to be a season or two shorter. That said, the last episode was great, and the perfect note to go out on.

Log Horizon II — And sadly, it looks like we’ve hit the end of this one too. (Hopefully, there’ll be a third season down the road. Or a second season of Maoyu… I know, not darn likely, but I can dream.) Things continue to get more complex… and some of the politics is leaving me behind. Still, it’s a great world, and some interesting ideas (such as the gold farmer bot that is now an adventurer in this world…).

Yona of the Dawn — (Or: Yona: The Girl Standing in the Blush of Dawn) This one started last season, but Smudge didn’t introduce me to it until after this season started, making it the only new thing I watched this time. And now it’s over too. It’s a good fantasy series with a Korean feel (at least in all the names), that starts with the assassination of a good king… who may not have been what the country needed. After two seasons, we’ve had a couple major plotlines, and finally gathered the main cast (that was a Quest). It’s been good, but the overall story is just getting started, and we’re at the end.

Railgun/Index — With the dearth of everything else, I finally got to see the second half of both these series (and the movie). They’re good, but I like the plotlines in A Certain Magical Index better, and the secondary cast in A Certain Scientific Railgun better. Also: both (and especially Railgun) really need a lot less sexual harassment masquerading as humor.

Fairy Tail — And, still watching this. I’ve seen, oh probably another six seasons (going by the quarter-year seasons, where the opening and ending credits change) worth of Fairy Tail now; two major plotlines (Oración Seis and most of Edolas) worth. The first one dragged out a bit, I think it needed to be at least two episodes shorter to tighten up the pacing. There were several one-shot episodes in between the two major arcs that did a lot to restore my faith in the series after that. Edolas has suffered some from Screaming Villain Syndrome, but has otherwise been good throughout.

Mushishi — And the group of us finally got to watching the bulk of the second series of this for Sunday Night Anime. It lived up to the first series quite well. Nice, quiet, stories of the intersection of humans and the otherworldly.

Natsume’s Book of Friends — And now we’re going through this on Sundays. We’ve only really just begun the series. I saw a little of it when it was first on, and wanted to see more, so I’m very happy to get to see the rest.

And right now, I don’t know of anything new I’m going to be watching next season.