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Yeah, I know we’re practically halfway through the Winter 2019 season by now, but I have a two week viewing gap in November, and I’ve been trying to catch up on some things ever since, and I’m not convinced that I’ve gotten through everything from the previous season, though I know I’m also well into the current season on a few things.

Sword Art Online: Alicization — This has been one of the stronger stories, and is now the longest, with it going straight into the second season with no signs of stopping. A few troubling problems from before have been addressed, notably Kirito and Azuna have flat out stated they’re a couple, which starts cutting the knot of all the harem-stuff that was wanting to build up. On the other hand, there’s still not a lot of Azuna here, as Kirito is effectively in a coma having an adventure in a VR world, while she takes action on the outside with a time differential that means Kirito is doing lots more. That said, the actual plot has been good, the action has been good, and we’ll see where we end up.

Golden Kamuy — Continuing to be a very good, if (more than) occasionally gorey. I think there’s one sane person in the cast.

Pokemon Sun & Moon Ultra Adventures —This is one that I keep trailing slightly behind on. Still very good and fun. At this point, it’s mostly more of the same, with some very good episodes.

Fairy Tail — I have no idea how caught up I am to this one. It’s been good to see the series back, and I think the writing has improved. The gear-up for the final story line seems to have added some much needed focus, and it’s not feeling padded.

A Certain Magical Index III — … sigh … The ideas in these series have been good all along, but usually let down by various annoying problems. Here, they’ve gone beyond annoying. The villains talk way too much, and me and Smudge have the distinct feeling that they’re rushing through all the plot lines. My guess is that they’re trying to get through everything that’s been written since the last series aired.

And a couple older things I watched last year (and into this one):

Children of the Whale — I think this came out early in the year; anyway Smudge introduced me to it around November. Generally good, it spent all its points on the world building, though the plot certainly works too. To my surprise, it’s not really complete, and kind of ends just as a second plotline is picking up. I do hope we see a second season.

Kerub’s Bazaar — We finally finished off watching this and it was fun all the way through. Most episodes being stories Kerub is telling Joris allow for them to do lots of different types of episodes, and (usually) tie it together with the framing. I hope we get another series (or at least Dofus Book II) soon.

Konosuba — Been re-watching this with Baron, and got through the first season. It really is a fun series. The first episode has the usual, ‘we need to get this going’ problem. But it really is hilarious once it does start going.