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Summer season is drawing to a close. Most shows have either wrapped up last week or are wrapping up this week. So, let’s talk about it! Did anything surprise you? disappoint you? exceed your expectations? Of course, more general topics are still welcome just like any week.

As always, remember to be mindful of spoilers. If you want to know more about how to handle spoilers in this community, check the guide here (also linked in the sidebar).

  • @[email protected]English
    4•1 day ago

    The ones that were better than I expected:

    • QA in Another World: I love the fact that they lean into this being a game (as opposed to a gamelike isekai), and that the characters exploit that fact. Other iterations of the “trapped in a game” trope in anime haven’t done that. (Shangri-La Frontier does, but the stakes are a lot lower there.)
    • No Longer Allowed in Another World: Just a nice change from stereotypical isekais and stereotypical isekai heroes.
    • Atri: I had really low expectations of this one going in, but it turned out . . . okay. Not brilliant, but okay.
    • Slime: The last cours was sufficiently bad that this one was an improvement, even if it’s certainly not the best in the series.

    The ones that were worse than I expected:

    • Dahliya: It’s just . . . where’s the conflict? What little does show up gets resolved within an episode or two. There’s pretty much nothing to drive the story here.
    • Tasuuketsu: Started off very strong, but the rest of the season didn’t live up to the first episode. Then again, I don’t know what could have. Not awful, but merely okay.
    • Bye Bye, Earth: Interesting world, but they did a horrible job of showing it to us. A lot of things needed a couple of sentences of explanation that they just didn’t get, and the little labels that kept popping up were worse than useless.

    Best of the season: NieR Automata (although I had sufficiently high expectations of it going in that it didn’t exceed them).

    Hardest to watch: Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction. I think I’m seven episodes behind right now, and having a hard time mustering the desire to continue on. Anything that has bigotry as a major theme is a difficult watch for me right now, given what’s been unfolding in the real world lately.

    Most incomprehensible art direction choice: Delico’s Nursery. The backgrounds look like tracings of photographs, or maybe carefully coloured-in photocopies of photographs, and the effect in combination with the characters is just . . . strange. Maybe it’s a carryover from the manga, which I’ve never read?

    Best dragon award: I Parry Everything, but mostly by default, because I don’t remember any other dragons of significance (even bad CGI ones, which would be ineligible).