This scene was awesome.

Autumn 2012 so far: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (1-4) > Smile Precure! (34-36) > Sword Art Online (15-17) > GIRLS und PANZER (1-3) > Medaka Box Abnormal (1-3) > Busou Shinki (1-4) > Aikatsu! (1-3) > Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! (1-4) > Little Busters! (1-4).

Just so you know, the three-piece staff is the best weapon ever.

Now that we're about a third of the way through the current anime season, I have some general impressions of the shows I'm following thus far.

Dio is a dick.

A little unexpectedly for me, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is at the top of my list. I say unexpectedly because I am wholly ignorant of the source material aside from some vague understanding that it is a frequently referenced classic of the burly-men-punching-things-during-absurd-fights vein. Sure enough, the four episodes I've seen have been quite absurd and they have featured a lot of punching and numerous burly men. Nevertheless, it is quite entertaining and fans of the manga seem to agree it is a worthy adaptation. It also invokes the AYAKO DOCTRINE, so there is that if you're on the fence about giving it a try.

Yellow fever.

Smile Precure! is higher in these rankings than it has been the rest of the year simply because the three episodes under consideration (34-36) have been unusually good. I don't expect it to remain as entertaining, since it will surely succumb to its otaku-friendly, girls-being-cute-and-weak ways, but these last three episodes at least have been well done. I'm also glad to see the return of heterosexual love interests as a Precure subplot. Heartcatch Precure!, Suite Precure♪, and all the previous episodes of Smile Precure! have been raked bow to stern by broadsides from the HMS Yuri despite the fact there are no canonical lesbians in the entire Pretty Cure franchise. (Saki and Mai sure do hold hands an awful lot, though.)

She'll also spend a lot of time standing next to the chair.

I'm ranking the early episodes of the Alfheim Online arc of Sword Art Online third, although I expect the show to slip in the rankings at least as fast as Smile Precure! will probably fall. I read the corresponding volumes of the light novels before I even began watching Sword Art Online, so I can already foresee the gnashing of teeth these upcoming episodes will generate. [Spoilers: There will be a lot of scenes of Asuna sitting in a chair.] Still, I'm amused mini-Yui gained a head flower for no reason, effectively making her a little AI Saten. It's funny if you like seiyuu jokes.

Erwin, that hat's wearing you. I would also like to add,
YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD, I READ YOUR BOOK!

As Smile Precure! and Sword Art Online fall, they will probably be passed by GIRLS und PANZER and Medaka Box Abnormal. I'm not entirely sure GIRLS und PANZER is catering to military otaku necessarily, but having at least a mild interest in tanks and mechanized infantry seems to assist in the enjoyment of the show overall. Making panzer fahren a girls' school sport is an unusual premise, but an entertaining one thus far. My only complaint is that the characters are a little indistinct in these early episodes. Erwin is the Best Girl, but I'm only saying that because of the way she's dressed. If I am to enjoy GIRLS und PANZER as a sports anime, I'll need to care a bit more about who wins or loses. I also wish the audio track made more of an effort to kick out a low-frequency thump for viewers with subwoofers. The sounds of the guns are not as impressive as they could be, so while the characters mention the awe they feel when they shoot for the first time, the audience doesn't quite get to share in the experience.

I don't actually know where Medaka was keeping that fan.

I wasn't expecting to enjoy Medaka Box Abnormal this much. Probably the worst-kept secret of Medaka Box is that it changes from school hijinks to high-tension shounen fighting rather abruptly. The first season of the anime included the start of this transformation, and the second season, Medaka Box Abnormal, continues with the "Flask Plan" arc. I've read through as much of the manga as this second anime season is likely to cover, and I can't claim to have enjoyed much of it. I have a low threshold of tolerance for shounen jive in general. If the anime will spend most of its time vacillating between stills of bombastic schoolchildren giving lectures about the importance of people's feelings and banal fights, I'm not going to last long as a viewer. However, Medaka Box does have the advantage of humiliating people with Fruits Basket faces regularly, so I guess it'll all depend on how Gainax executes what's left. No pressure, y'all.

Busou Shinki also has a Horie Yui + Tamura Yukari duo.

I wanted to like Busou Shinki after I learned what it was about and discovered its enormous cast of popular voice actresses. However, so far it's been playing out as an inferior Hand Maid May or Angelic Layer. The doll joints are also kinda off-putting.

Aikatsu! also has a Mamiko mom, but it's no Tari Tari.

I don't remember why I'm watching Aikatsu!, but I think I was tricked. This is not a very good show, and the 3D CGI dance performances are vastly inferior to the Pretty Cure EDs I associate with the genre. I think I'll give it one more episode to do something interesting, because there's been nothing offered so far that wouldn't be better served by queuing up iM@S videos on Nicovideo.

Shinka wishes she were dead. Yuuta does nothing to help.

I'm probably the only person who ranks Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! this low, but there's basically nothing about it that I enjoy. It is well done and impeccably animated, but it strikes me too much as a Kyoto Animation showcase. This detracts from my potential enjoyment of the show just as SHAFT showcases reduce my appreciation of SHAFT's shows. Is it a valid complaint to find Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! too chuunibyou? Obviously its chuuni elements are deliberate and intended to show how delusional and immature its adherents are, and how mortified its reformed practitioners feel after "outgrowing" their chuunibyou stage, but I just don't get any enjoyment watching Rikka prance around in her own little world. Why couldn't this show have been about a Napping and Sometimes Badminton Club instead? Likewise, every line Dekomori utters strikes me as foolish and irrelevant. It particularly bothers me that both Rikka and Sanae are in full-on chuuni mode at all times. Since they never, ever act like normal human beings, they're basically as broken as Chii or any of those other "adorably autistic" moé blobs. What makes them any better than the anteater girl from Little Busters!?

I'd fight her.

I'm hoping Nibutani brings a more interesting dynamic to the show, but it will be an uphill battle if I have to resist the urge to slap her irregular hairclip to the ground every time she's on screen. Apparently her hairclip is much more sensible in the original light novel illustrations, so I can only assume it's Kyoto Animation being stylishly Kyoto Animation-ish.

I can't tell if Rin is the worst pitcher or the best one.

I'm still watching Little Busters! because it's technically a baseball anime. I'm pleased the new buxom character is not a nice person and that she's obviously better than everyone else around her. It's refreshing given that the anteater-panties girl and her retard moé qualities brought the show to a new low in episode two. I still believe it was a mistake to cast Horie Yui as the male lead, and I can't see myself watching this show much longer unless J.C. Staff actually convinces me to care about what happens to these characters—a dubious prospect considering I already know what does happen to these characters since I looked up most of the spoilers.

It turns out you can bully a girl into seizing the reins of destiny.

I knew that GIRLS und PANZER was going to be good, but I certainly wasn't expecting it to be so popular. As others have pointed out, GIRLS und PANZER sets the new standard for anime catering to military otaku. This is largely due to its extensive attention to detail, but it also doesn't forget to remain accessible to general audiences. You don't need to catch a Sergeant Oddball reference to appreciate Yukari infiltrating the Not American school in a Sunkus uniform. Sadly, GIRLS und PANZER may have been a bit ambitious in its planning and production. The show's finest moment is unavailable to Western audiences (officially, anyway) due to copyright and licensing issues. Its final two episodes have also been pushed until spring 2013. Personally, I'm glad studio Actas decided to work to standard and not to time, so I'm all right with the delay.

Akari here is my go-to meteorologist. True story.

I may have made a terrible mistake dropping Aikatsu! back in 2012. Its start didn't impress me very much, but I've seen some pretty radical screenshots over the past three years and now I'm 150 episodes behind.

Idol activities are no joke.

Following up on this entry, I've started watching Aikatsu! again, starting over from the initial 2012 episodes but also jumping ahead to the current new season. Aikatsu! is a children's show about girls at some sort of magic middle school for idols. One significant characteristic of Aikatsu! that distinguishes it from, say, THE iDOLM@STER, Love Live! School Idol Project, AKB0048, or Wake Up, Girls! is that the show is nearly always incredibly upbeat and everyone seems to have a fantastic time doing idol activities. I can easily imagine 6-year-old girls watching these episodes every week and thinking, "Aww, I wish I were an idol." Hell, I can easily imagine 36-year-old salarymen watching these episodes every week and thinking, "Fuuuck, I wish I were an idol."

Who's ready for more BBK/BRNK faces?

There are a surprising number of shows I'm interested in scheduled for autumn 2016. Most of these are sequels of some sort, but there are a few new properties that have caught my eye. Notably, I've yet to do any concerted investigating into the upcoming season, so the following only include titles that I noticed at some point and deemed worthy of preemptively annotating in my anime spreadsheet.

Go on, Shizuka, curse the bitch out.

I started watching Idol Jihen (Idol Incidents) because Ueda Reina is in it. Unfortunately, she's not in it much, although the OP suggests there will be more to her character later. The show itself is all right, but just barely. It frankly plays out like a rejected Aikatsu! arc, which is fine for a few episodes, but maybe not enough for a whole season. I was also expecting the entire Diet to consist of idols, but instead the idol parliamentarians are just various members of fractured idol-based opposition parties trying to challenge The Establishment comprised of old, unpleasant, corrupt politicians and uncaring corporate assholes.

Rocket Nerd promotes her vision to her hallucination.

Idol Jihen has its moments, but through seven episodes there's only been one episode I fully liked (the one with the gosurori ghostbuster), but that was mostly due to execution. I am a bit tired of the constant struggles against Old People. The show falls flat when it tries to present these battles in a semi-serious fashion involving such weapons as Children's Feelings. The show is much better off when Old People instead get swayed by idols doing idol things and everyone realizes how much better off the world can be after their idol epiphanies. Well, at least the OP and ED are catchy.

Idol activities are no joke.

One of my pet peeves is people who insist on watching sequels without catching up on previous seasons first, just so they can feel like they're part of a current wave of hype. I'm expecting to see examples of this in January when the second season of that Quintuplets show starts (5-Toubun no Hanayome 2). Likewise, Magia Record: Mahou Shoujo Madoka☆Magica Gaiden may generate enough attention that newer fans who haven't seen the original anime (from nine years ago already!) and/or its movies might want to jump straight in without catching up first. Naturally, I'll discourage that practice. However, at the same time, I'm enjoying Aikatsu! On Parade even though there are literally hundreds of older Aikatsu! episodes that I haven't seen, to include the entirety of Aikatsu! Stars and Aikatsu! Friends.

As nightmares go, this don't seem so bad.

However, I am a sucker for crossovers, so the prospect of seeing Ichigo, Aoi, Ran, Akari, et al. return is a gimmick I can't ignore. Unfortunately, it does mean that the Aikatsu! On Parade episodes that feature idols from Stars or Friends go underappreciated, since I'm entirely unfamiliar with their characters. I do find this validates my stance against skipping ahead to watch sequels without being caught up, despite the hypocrisy of disregarding the principle when it suits me. And I guess to be fair, I absolutely do not expect anyone interested in watching Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T next season to watch all the Index and Accelerator seasons first too. Additionally, I also don't know if the upcoming Madoka anime even shares continuity with the original. Being caught up is potentially not really necessary there either. Just don't try and tell yourself it's okay to watch Heya Camp△ without watching Yuru Camp△ first, fuckers.