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So, we’re just starting in on some new series, while still dragging out some others. Overall, the previous three months were quiet, with no new big surprises for us, watching-wise. That said, while this is technically in descending order of recommendation, everything here is very good, and gets a recommendation from me.

Vinland Saga — We’re still in the second half of the first series, though we’re pretty far in, and the plot is simultaneously unexpected, and inherently logical. Really well written, and well done, with a host of interesting characters. The history is also very good… other than those massive swords.

One Piece — Notably, the new live action series. The anime is waaaay too padded for me to suffer through. This is the best anime adaptation I know of, and while I have some production quibbles, much of the casting is perfect, and the writing is very good and well paced.

Made in Abyss: Dawn of the Deep Soul — The body horror, the body horror…. Woo, this one got pretty gruesome in a few places. But, we’ve finally seen the interstitial movie, which is good and is worth watching. I’m still not sure why they did it as a movie though. At any rate, Made in Abyss still gets a high recommendation, and we’ll be picking up with the second series soon.

To Your Eternity — We’ve gotten a fair way though this now, though there’s plenty to go. It’s being very good, though there are bits that I think could be handled better. At any rate, I don’t think I’ve seen any mention of this one, and it is deserving of a wider audience.

NieR Automata Ver 1.1a — We finished this up shortly after the season began, but then that’s when they finally finished. I’m also very happy to hear there will be a second season, because they did a surprisingly good job with this one. That said, it’s hard to guess where it’s going to go from here….

Ooku — Okay, this was an elaborate production. Alternate history, where a plague wipes out most of the male population of Japan, and then keeps the numbers low after that. It studies the changes in cultural dynamics, and is largely court politics based. As such, it is basically straight samurai drama, just largely gender flipped. The only real problem is this didn’t need to be animated (though the sets might have gotten expensive).

Path to the Peak — A four-episode Pokemon series dealing with the card game. So, real world, more-or-less. Not entirely my thing, but well done, and again, away from the main series, Pokemon keeps getting some really well-produced shorts and series. And I really appreciate that they did call out the CCG here, since all the tropes and such in other productions are definitely based on the video games, so it is overdue.

Jobless Reincarnation — I’m thinking I forgot to mention this one for the previous season it had. At any rate, we’ve moved on to a school arc, and some of the overarching plot seems to be left behind for a more “personal” problem. I can’t say I care too much for how some of the motivation for this was handled, but the writing was good, and it really is feeding into sorting out Rudeus’ personal life, and we do get a new aspect of the overarching plot come in from an unexpected direction.

Eden’s Zero — More turn your brain off fun from the creator of Fairy Tail. The main arc this time did get interesting with time-travel shenanigans, which did a good job with wrapping everything up, and opening up some questions that might actually get answered soonish (at least the minor questions).

Demon Slayers — I think we’re caught up now; we just watched the the Swordsmith Village arc. Again well done; I do wish some of the fighting was a bit less drawn out. That said, there was a lot of variety in what was going on in the action parts, and the overall plot got some important progress, though I’m worried it’ll take forever to play out.

Land of the Lustrous — Finished up the second half of this with the guys. It ended a bit more abruptly than I remembered, and I really hope we’ll get more someday soon. It’s being seen as ‘if Roger Zelazny wrote an anime’. I don’t think this is what such a series would look like, but it’s impossible not to think of his Lord of Light with the series, which is what causes the comparisons.

Smudge and I just finished up a couple series, right as the new set is starting for a change! The new season’s looking promising, and the old one wasn’t bad either.

Yamato 2202 — We’re currently about two episodes from the end, and everything has ramped up to appropriately space opera high stakes. I’d say overall the first series is better, but this still an excellent production and a must-see.

Trigun Stampede — Excellent remakes strike again! All four of us are watching this and are very impressed. We started watching it a bit late, so we’re still somewhat early in. The main thing is the real story and the conflict with Knives gets started immediately. The background and characters are much better set, and it’d be interesting to really know just when all of this emerged in the original manga, because the guess is that the main parts only emerged as the original series was in production.

My Hero Academia — Okay, at long last, we’ve had the big turning point of the series. BBEG is loose! There was a big season-long battle! (More like three of them.) And, basically, everyone fought to a draw. We’re still in the aftermath, and presumably the story will be diverting to a slightly different trajectory now that Deku has a clear antithesis villain, and the thrust of the story will need to start centering on how to defeat him instead of Deku’s first steps towards being a superhero.

Kaina of the Great Snow Sea — Polygon Pictures does all computer-animated series, and has gotten good at the style. This happens to be a good planetary romance story (a little more modern in values—the princess is a co-equal star), and gets a little predictable if you know what the general story beats that genre has. But it’s well done, and I hope we get another season.

Knights of Sidonia — And just finished watching the second season of Polygon Pictures’ first production. I saw a couple pieces of it when Smudge watched it when it came out, and I’m happy to finally see it. The beginning of season two had a bit of a tonal shift, but the plot worked out well. There is a movie as well, which we will need to see.

The Fire Hunter — A very interesting world and some good writing. The animation, not so much. The production house seems well aware of this, and does some interesting stylistic choices try and make up for it. But, it still needs a better budget. However, I do recommend it, and don’t let the animation quality put you off.

NieR Automata Ver 1.1a — Smudge and I started watching this, Baron came to say good night as he went to bed and then sat down to watch the second episode. So, this is now part of what we watch with the guys. It’s… about as unusual as the game in storytelling. There’s some odd choices, but the series works well. I’m a little concerned about how much sense it’d make without Smudge offering commentary (she’s played the game), but I’m certainly enjoying it.

Komi Can’t Communicate — It is a testament to the quality of what we’ve been watching lately that this is nearly the last thing on a list ordered by quality. Komi is still being very good and very funny, but everything above this is still better.

Kingdom —Still going through this very long anime. We’ve just finished with the siege of Sai, which was generally well done, but it still suffers from being a shonen fastball.

Well, it’s been three months, and a new season of anime is about to start. There’s been more distractions and problems here than normal, so it has been more like only two months of watching.

Yamato 2202 — Now that the entire series is out, we’ve circled around to start over from the beginning to get the entire story fresh. We’re still in the part we’d seen before the long delays between episodes stopped us, but as ever is being excellent.

Ascendance of a Bookworm — We’re now into the second season of rewatching with the guys, and maybe midway through that. Everyone is definitely enjoying it, especially with the head priest’s growing exasperation of Myne’s nearly instinctual rocking of the boat with ideas that seem to come from… nowhere.

Lower Decks — I picked up the blue-ray of second season a bit after it came out, and we’re all of four episodes into it. So far, they’ve been solid episodes; the arc getting Boimler back to the Cerritos is an odd thing to juggle, and tended to occasionally disrupt episodes, but overall was well handled.

Komi Can’t Communicate — We’ve only seen the first few episodes (suggested by Baron). It’s been very good; one of those well-written anime that has a point far beyond its story. It got accidentally dropped thanks to our break in viewing, but we’ll certainly come back to watch the rest.

Devil is a Part Timer — We were all very happy to see another season of this finally come out. We’ve shifted gears on the plot, so I assume we’re about half way through and entering the second novel adaptation of the season. It has been continuing to be very funny and hitting a lot of the right notes with all of us.

Jobless Reincarnation — Okay, this has been far better than I thought it possible to be. Smudge and I are well into… third? season now. The main painful point is just how much of a pervert the main character can be, but much of the time there is way too much adventure and other things going on for that to impinge to hard. Better yet, there’s a lot of well-done characters, and Mr Pervert is truly growing as a character.

Orbital Children — Finished this off shortly after the last post. It got a lot more head-trippy at the end than I would have expected, though plot-structure-wise it carried out all its promises. Not excellent, but well worth a watch, especially if you need more SF.

A Lull by the Sea — So, we’re in the second half, which has a five-year transition break in the plot. Of course some of the characters have been in hibernation for this period, so…. It was a bit jarring to find out that this is supposed to be happening in modern-day Japan, instead of a place that just happens to look a bit like it and also has people who live underwater. The second half is really showing that this is developed from a visual novel; I’m a bit happier with the first half in retrospect for not making it so obvious.

Utawarerumono: The Mask of Truth — Smudge and I just recently picked up the latest series after the last one was a bit of a letdown at the conclusion. Again, it’s been long enough for us to have to spend some effort remembering who everyone is, but it is continuing along the route of well done-politics and strategy.

Kingdom — My comments last time are still true. A series that doesn’t even begin to live up to its own strengths. A lot of it is being aimed very squarely at a male junior high audience, and the lowest common denominator version at that.