Anime

Since I'm not watching anything this season and instead browsing through the past:

First up last week was Ore wo Suki nano wa Omae dake ka yo (2019), which was... not good. At all. It was sort of promising at first - the initial setup was intriguing if a bit derivative - but it fell flat almost immediately and never recovered. The biggest problem - I don't know if it traces back to the LN or was just part of the adaptation - is that the writer(s) appear to have understood the idea that it's good to have characters who grow and change, but didn't get the bit about the changes having context and following a recognizable progression. So what we get are characters who are seemingly arbitrarily assigned traits, then at some later point, they're essentially arbitrarily assigned different traits.

Next was Nisemonogatari (2012), which was... kind of dull really. It's all the same gimmicks as Bakemonogatari, but at this point, they're wearing a bit thin for me. And try as I might, I just detest Senjougahara.

Then came a surprising gem - season 2 of KonoSuba (2017). I liked season 1 well enough, but it just didn't quite come together entirely for me. And season 2 didn't look promising, since the first thing I noticed was that it has just about the worst art I've ever seen. It looks like it was done cheap and fast by amateurs. But then I discovered (the surprising bit) that pretty much every other aspect of the season was stellar - great stories, great characterization (most notably, they took the edge off of Kazuma's assholery - in the first season there were too many times when it was unwarranted and too extreme, but in the second season, it was better timed and proportioned), and more genuine laugh out loud moments. And both the opening and closing themes are terrific.

And finally, after bouncing off of a few things, I ended up rewatching Akudama Drive (2020). The first time through I was initially intrigued but not particularly impressed, then slowly came to enjoy it more and more and was very impressed by the end. I wanted to see if it held up to a rewatch though, since I wasn't sure if it was genuinely that good or if I was just swayed by the contrast between my initial reaction and expectations and what it turned out to be. And I'd say it really is genuinely that good. It's not flawless by any means - it has some plot holes and some notably forced bits, but all in all, it just really is very good. And Swindler - the main character - is plain awesome.