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Well, I got at least somewhat caught up on the watch schedule this season. So this post is just a little late, with a couple of episodes to go to finish things off.

Keep Your Hands off of Eizoken — Smudge and I saw the first episode of this a while back and immediately put it on hold to see it with the guys. And yes, everyone here is really enjoying it. Its well done, beautifully produced, and really well written. This series shows off as much love for the process of creating anime as the characters have in every scene. I didn’t really believe AJ when he called this the best series of the year early on in it… but yeah. It’s just that good.

Deca Dence — I would never have pegged this as the best series of the season. Definitely watch the first two episodes, as the second one starts pulling back the curtain. Nicely, ‘pulling back the curtain’ is not the point of the plot; that’s pretty much done after another three episodes or so, letting the series as a whole be fairly plot-driven. We’ve been seeing this with the guys, and its been great all around.

Ascendance of a Bookworm — Smudge and I got a late start on this, so we’re still about midway through the new season of it. I think it has slipped a bit with the expanding scope of Mine’s life defocusing the plot a bit. It is still good though, and I’ve been picking up enjoyment again as it goes.

Re:Zero — I’m always a bit surprised when something comes back after a gap of a few years. Again, took me a little to get back into it, not helped by the tradition of multiple gruesome deaths of the main character. But, it’s getting really interesting, and the rabbit hole is going fairly deep. Wondering how this will turn out.

Sword Art Online — And that’s finally over. The entire Alicization storyline is good… but it stretched out too long with too many “and now one more secondary plot” elements. The good news is that it does come to a good conclusion after all that, but it also implies a sequel that will probably be about as big. I’m willing to wait a while before we see that.

Appare Ranman — Okay, based off of seeing the middle of the first episode, this isn’t what I was expecting. And, what it is… is an anime version of Wacky Races, only so much better. We’ve been watching this with the guys, and I would normally think Dave wouldn’t go for it, but he’s been enjoying it. It goes over the top with a bunch of the side characters, but the primary and secondary characters are all a lot better grounded, which I think helps hold it together.

Flip Flappers — Unfortunately, this got lost in the shuffle, and there was a large gap between watching most of the series and the last couple episodes. It’s… a strange series, and the number of major puzzle pieces they finally drop on you at the very end doesn’t help. I have a general idea of what happened, but at this point I’d have to watch it again to pull out details. That said, its well-produced, and quite interesting.

Black Clover — Currently (I’m a couple seasons behind still), this is doing a bunch of shorter stories with the main part of the second big arc in the background… and the series is hanging on by virtue of its secondary characters. Both Smudge and I would like to see more Mereoleona.