An Archdemon’s Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride Enjoyed this overall. One of several new shows that exceeded my initial expectations. It got a bit stale about midway through with just the two main characters, but additions in the second part helped flesh it out. One of a few shows I really hope to see more of. It felt like it was just getting started by the end. 4/5

A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics This one was fun. Reminds me a lot of Hinamatsuri (although clearly different and not quite as good.) 4/5

As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I’ll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World Yet another show that exceeded expectations. The basic premise seems kind of lame, in that the protagonist doesn’t really do anything directly, and looks/acts/is a child for duration of the season… But somehow it works. The cast is fun and have good character dynamics, the meta story seems meaningful and there is slow but real progress, and a few episodes were quite meaningful. 4/5

The Banished Former Hero Lives as He Pleases I completely forgot this one existed until making this list. Dropped it early. Seemed ok at first but didn’t really do anything to keep my interest. 2/5

Chillin’ in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers Eh. I want to like this one but the characters and humor didn’t land for me. 3/5

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Hashira Training Arc I’ve enjoyed the story and the world and of course Ufotable elevates the whole thing. Not a major mover of the plot or meaningful fights, but I assume that is coming soon enough… 4/5

I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince So I Can Take My Time Perfecting My Magical Ability Dropped after the first episode and I regret going that far. Something about the weird sexualization combined with the rest of the show was just intolerably creepy to me. 1/5

KonoSuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World! 3 To be honest I feel like both main arcs went just a little too long, but KonoSuba is always fun. 4/5

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation Season 2 Part 2 The show is well done, the story is complex and rich. Some episodes and plot lines are best in season, but I can never shake the feeling that it will suddenly veer off into gross and or controversial territory. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to give it 5/5. so 4/5.

Mysterious Disappearances Probably my second favorite new show of the season. The fan service bits can be a bit much at times, but that sort of thing does tend to go well with horror… The short story arcs, meta plot, characters, way new characters become relevant later, etc. all worked for me. 4/5

The New Gate I like the characters more than level 2 cheat and there seems to be more happening. But so far no real meta plot and no real reason to keep watching other than inertia. 3/5

Re:Monster Some bits early on were concerning… but overall I’ve enjoyed how different it is from other shows. The monster angle, consistent (and quick) pacing, seeing all the evolutions, base buildup, etc. Not a sophisticated show, but unique enough. 3/5

Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf I never did see the original, but I knew this one was very hyped up, and I see it. The characters have awesome chemistry. The world and stories are great as is the production value. It is just so oppressively melancholy, especially the last two story lines. 4/5

Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included This one was fun. Similar to a lot of other shows, but the humor did land for me. 4/5

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 3 Sigh, I was very much looking forward to this only for half the season to be a table read of PowerPoint slides half of which were quickly dealt with once the show actually started going. Sort of feels like they either planned a two disc Blu-ray set where no one watches the first disc or were desperate to save money. The last episode was similar in content, but so, so much better. Instead of the cast literally sitting at a table barely moving, we had smaller meetings with the characters actually moving and reacting to each other. 3/5

Train to the End of the World Wow, just wow. The characters, production, pacing, plots, metastory, theme music… everything was exceptional. The show became absolutely insane at times and yet still made sense in a bizarre way and never really lost itself. Easily my favorite of the season and possibly the year. 5/5

Tsukimichi -Moonlit Fantasy- Season 2 Sigh x2, Season one was a great surprise when it aired and I really enjoyed rewatching it earlier this year. The first part of this cour wasn’t too bad either, but something went wrong with the second part this season. The story pacing turned to trash, and what in theory should have been climactic moments for the whole school/teacher arc fell flat in part because the main cast spent entire episodes standing around looking bored while the world was on fire. 3/5

Unnamed Memory This show really felt like it should have been good. The setting, mood, and initial impression of the characters was all fine, but no as it progressed, the way they acted was just maddening. I dropped it early, checked comments off and on and from what I read it never got better. 2/5

Vampire Dormitory A trainwreck, in the sense that I can tell the show is not good, but something about it keeps drawing my attention anyway. 2/5

Spice and Wolf is a masterpiece. Excellent adaptation of the LNs. Incredible VA work on both the Japanese and English versions. Excellent writing, and some of the scene direction during the last few episodes was stunning. Really hope this hangs around to adapt the entire story.

Best of the season, for me:

• Delicious in Dungeon - No argument, what a great show!

• Fable, The - Great characters! Low lifes, crime, it’s a funny take on a yakuza noir.

• Laid-Back Camp Season 3 - Too comfy to not eagerly anticipate every week.

• Tonari no Yokai-san - Damned onion cutting every other episode.

• Viral Hit - Really well written plot with relatable characters. The drama of “How’s Hobin going to get out of this?” in each story arc was well done.

• Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku? - Snappy dialogue, and a very creative world

• WIND BREAKER - This season’s best fight show. The parody concept might be wearing a bit thin, but we’ll see…

Finished, or will probably finish because they’re okay or just okay:

• DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION - Okay so far, it’s a bit boring, but the girls are well written.

• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Hashira Training Arc - It’s been a bit boring this season

• Girls Band Cry - The best animated CG characters I’ve ever seen, they have such personality. The music is a letdown though.

• GO! GO! Loser Ranger! - I thought this should be better, but it’s missing something…

• Gods’ Games We Play - When they’re not playing games, it just drags, and the characters all have the flavor of cardboard

• Kaiju No.8 - Great fight direction, okay writing

• Re:Monster - Progress? It’s about all this show has to offer. The writers have an Anos Voldigoad problem in that Gobrou is basically invincible.

• Salad Bowl of Eccentrics, A - Tackling modern social topics was a great idea, but they seem to have run out of steam.

• Sound! Euphonium 3 - Some beautiful animation, but I find the writing a bit pretentious.

Watched a couple of episodes, stopped watching, and feel guilty about it…

• Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night - Why am I watching Girls Band Cry instead of this? I hear the music’s better over here.

• Spice and Wolf: MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF - I don’t get it. Too many other shows that are more interesting.

• T・P Bon - I love time travel, but since this started in the middle of the season, my viewing time was cluttered already.

• Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio, The - This actually looks like a good character study, but there’s so much more going on this season…

Watched a couple of episodes, but lost interest:

• As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I ll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World

• Astro Note - Great art, but too slow developing the plot.

• BARTENDER Glass of God - All the alcoholic drink talk bored me.

• Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again - That one joke got old.

• HIGHSPEED Étoile - I love auto racing, but this had awful writing and CG character animation.

• NEW GATE, THE - Started strong as an alt universe SAO, but ran out of ideas

• Oblivion Battery - It’s quite popular in Japan, but I didn’t get the sense of humor

• Rinkai! - It’s actually watchable, but a little too typical sports show…

• That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 3

• Tonbo! - Magical golf girl was supposed to generate a sense of wonder, but I just lost interest

• Misfit of Demon King Academy II (Cour 2), The - Same old invincible Anos Voldigoad. I actually kept watching a couple of episodes after stopping posting on the threads, but same old same old.

Watched one episode, insta-dropped it:

• Blue Archive The Animation

• Date A Live V

• Mahjong Soul KAN!!

• Mission: Yozakura Family

• Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included

Should have watched, but didn’t, because ??? and feeling a little guilty about it…

• Chibi Godzilla Raids Again Season 2

• KONOSUBA -God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World! 3

• My Hero Academia Season 7

• TSUKIMICHI -Moonlit Fantasy- Season 2

Didn’t start, no interest:

Didn’t have much time to watch this season but watched a couple of things:

• delicious in dungeon - I really enjoyed some darker themes with sparkle of great food.
• Train to the End of the World - Every episode felt like High Speed Derailment but somehow it kept it’s course. Snappy dialogue with wacky world building. I am awaiting the finale.

Jellyfish and DeDeDeDe are going into backlog pile. Maybe someday I will catch up to them.

Delicious in Dungeon is the clear winner.

Dedede is good so far.

I’m still thinking about last season though with jjk and Frieren.

Some really great new shows this season. Delicious in Dungeon, Kaijuu NO.8, Jellyfin Can’t Swim At Night. Really enjoyed those.

Konosuba season 3 went so quickly, it is still as funny as previous seasons. Slime had a lot of table meetings but I enjoyed those too.

I haven’t seen original Spice and Wolf and I watch this season new series. It is good but I paused at episode 4 and I will continue later.

Girls Band Cry experience got ruined by MT sub. Waiting for good subs for this.

Started off feeling really strong, but found myself dropping a lot of stuff. On the fence about Dedede Demons since it feels like it could be interesting or just boring bait. This season of Yuru Camp /_\ has been good. Not as strong as S1 but much more fun than S2. 7th Prince toes a line but has been fun. Jellyfish Can’t Swim is really good though maybe one or two clunky episodes. Re:Monster started off interesting but by episode 2 or 3 it was clearly an edgy self insert desire fest built on rape and ‘hur hur me MC’, so… fuck that show.

I’ve watched maybe 60 to 70% of what has aired this season and it’s been an okay season anime. Some surprises and returns to excellence (Sound! being back was nice). But also a lot of unmemorable shows that hovered around a 5 or 6.

Konosuba kept me happy

Went through the list of shows I watched and wrote down a couple thoughts:

• Tsukimichi - The second cour running during this season has been pretty good. There were some slow moments during a tournament arc, but the final couple episodes have been an excellent payoff.
• Konosuba - Another season that has come and gone way too quickly. Let’s hope it isn’t 5+ years before we get more.
• Delicious in Dungeon - The second cour of this show transitioned super well into darker themes while still retaining the goofy cooking humor. Looking forward to another season to wrap up the story.
• Bartender - This was enjoyable even if it was kind of boring sometimes. Not sure if I would check out a season 2 if it were to happen (no idea if the source material is there). If you are into cocktails, then this show has all the cocktail history and trivia you could want.
• Appraisal Isekai - The story between Ars and his father was really well done and Mirelle is overflowing with best girl energy. However, having read the manga, I don’t think I would continue this into a season 2 as the story more or less peaks with the father’s storyline imo.
• 7th Prince - Surprise of the season for me. I had read a good portion of the manga for this, so I already knew about the sussy shota stuff. However, the adaptation for this anime was excellent. The manga has a pretty unique art style (especially later in the series) and the anime was able to adapt it very well. For a newer studio, they really blew away my expectations for this show. Glad there will be a season 2.
• Level 2 Cheat - Another pleasant surprise this season. The manga was good, but I didn’t have high expectations for the anime. However, the real star of this adaptation was the voice cast. They really brought this show to life. Hoping that this one can continue, but I am not holding my breath.
• Spice and Wolf - This one is continuing for another cour. I never watched the first show, and this one has been a bit underwhelming so far. I understand that stories can be slow and take their time to build up, but I just haven’t really connected with this one much yet.
• Loser Ranger - I ended up dropping this about halfway through the season because I ran out of time. I was enjoying it though, so I will probably try to quickly catch up in the inter-season reprieve.

Based on what I have seen elsewhere, there are a couple shows that I think might be worth checking out sometime in the future when I get a chance. In no particular order:

• Tonari no Youkai-san
• Jellyfish
• Shuumatsu Train
• Wind Breaker

Good enough for me.

Only completed Konosuba and Dungeon Meshi for now.

Too busy to watch many shows anyway.

• Can we get more EDs like Go Go Loser Ranger?
• 7th Prince was top tier trash. Glad it was renewed.
• Oh how the mighty have fallen. Mushoku and Slime both had six episodes straight of talking at tables.
• Wind Breakers was dang good.
• Demon Slayer , you were late to the party, but you brought chips and drinks.
• Kumiko, you were really late to the party, but you and your Euphonium have the best high school drama out there.

Good season. Winter was better, but there was still good eatin’

For your convenience , all the shows are listed by alphabetic order inside this spoiler.